Newsletter Archives

• How to dig into Excel files using the Office XML file format

  Posted on May 27, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.22 • 2024-05-27

  OFFICE

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  The tools built into Excel assume colleagues might make honest mistakes. If you suspect something more nefarious, look in the XML of the file for clues.

  Last time, I looked at what’s inside an Office document. In essence, it is a package of different files that contain both the content and the formatting of your document, kept together in what is effectively a ZIP file.

  For Excel, this file collection also includes a lot of information about how a spreadsheet was put together.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.22.0, 2024-05-27).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Office Excel, File Formats, Newsletters, Office, Office Open XML, XML

• Understanding Office document formats

  Posted on April 29, 2024 at 02:44 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  OFFICE

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  Inside every Office file is a hierarchy of formats and XML markup.

  If you understand these structures, you can use that knowledge to extract information directly from most Office app files.

  When Word, Excel, and PowerPoint first came out, they stored documents in proprietary binary file formats, with text, styles, page layout, and multimedia all encoded in the same file. That was fairly efficient: the binary file is compact, and there’s only one file to copy per document when you want to move it around or share it with someone.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.18.0, 2024-04-29).

  Office Excel, File Formats, Newsletters, Office, Office Open XML, Open XML SDK, PowerPoint, Word, XML

• Create awesome forms and quizzes with Microsoft Forms

  Posted on April 15, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Microsoft Forms is a good way for anyone to gather info for polls and surveys, or test with an online quiz. If only the links to Excel were more elegant and straightforward.

  Forms is available to anyone with a free Microsoft account, and that’s what I’ll use in this article. There are additional options for business users, and Copilot AI is being rolled out to businesses (and hopefully consumers) with a paid Copilot plan.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.16.0, 2024-04-15).

  Microsoft 365 Forms, MS Forms, Newsletters, Office

• Save time with AutoCorrect!

  Posted on March 4, 2024 at 02:43 CST by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  OFFICE

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  You can make AutoCorrect more useful by adding your own corrections and copying those to wherever you need them.

  Whenever you mistype one of several dozen commonly misspelled words while using Word and other Office apps (and even the Office Web apps), Office automatically corrects your spelling.

  Fortunately, AutoCorrect is a lot less aggressive than in the early days of Word, when a major investment bank famously found itself referred to in correspondence as “Goddamn Sachs.” And unlike smartphones, where you must rely upon spotting and then reversing embarrassing automatic text corrections before you send the message, Office gives you complete control over what gets corrected.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.10.0, 2024-03-04).

  Office AutoCorrect, MS Office AutoCorrect, Newsletters, Office, OneNote, Proofing, Spellcheck, Word

• Why not to use Outlook (new)

  Posted on October 30, 2023 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  OFFICE

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Underdeveloped and overhyped, a truly new Outlook is coming. But it’s not yet a proper replacement for either the Windows or Mac version of Outlook.

  As usual, Microsoft is hyping a product that’s still a work in progress. I’ll explain the dirty little secrets behind Outlook (new) — that’s one of its names — and why serious Outlook users should not touch it yet.

  Outlook (new) is now replacing Windows Mail and Calendar apps in new Windows 11 installations. Existing Mail/Calendar app setups will continue to work.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.44.0, 2023-10-30).

  Office Licensing, Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Office, Outlook, Outlook (new), Outlook Mobile

• Essential Office — Fewer bells, fewer whistles

  Posted on September 11, 2023 at 02:43 CDT by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  My husband bought me a smart watch a few years ago. I use it the same way I used my old Timex — to tell me the time.

  I work with a lot of customers who purchase expensive office suites, such as Microsoft Office, only to be overwhelmed by the features. I have just as many customers whom I have steered toward free office suites such as LibreOffice. But even these can be daunting if you just want to write a Christmas letter, keep track of your members’ lodge dues, or make a chart of duties for volunteers at a town festival.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.37.0, 2023-09-11).

  Freeware Spotlight Newsletters, Office, Productivity

• Getting everything you care about into OneNote

  Posted on December 12, 2022 at 02:44 CST by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  ONENOTE

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  OneNote becomes increasingly useful as you put more and more of your information into it, and there are many other ways to do that besides typing or using copy and paste.

  Last time, I looked at why you might want to pull different kinds of information into OneNote. There are lots of tools in OneNote itself for doing that, as well as browser extensions and third-party services that can help.

  You can also do many of these things in the Windows 10 OneNote app, but because that won’t be getting new features, I will discuss only how to do them in the desktop OneNote app.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.50.0, 2022-12-12).

  OneNote Newsletters, Notes, Office, OneNote, Screen capture

• Tame your tech: Office

  Posted on December 12, 2022 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  OFFICE

  

  By Susan Bradley

  We all have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Office.

  Chances are, Word is not the first word processing program you started with. It’s the one that took over and became the de facto standard, dominating the market. (If you work in an attorney’s office, it’s possible you’re still using WordPerfect, because the company did excellent marketing to that segment.)

  My first — and, quite frankly, still the easiest — word-processing program was pfs:Write. Back when Lotus 1-2-3 was our go-to spreadsheet, pfs:Write was our go-to word-processing program. But, alas, today’s article won’t wax poetic about an old piece of software. Instead, we’ll once again try to tame technology that wants to do things its way, not your way.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.50.0, 2022-12-12).

  Office Newsletters, Office, Outlook, Patch Lady Posts

• Tracking the larger Microsoft ecosystem

  Posted on October 31, 2022 at 02:42 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  

  By Susan Bradley

  With Microsoft 365 making inroads onto platforms other than Windows, it’s increasingly important to track versioning and patches elsewhere.

  For example, it’s not enough to talk about Microsoft 365 as if it existed only on Windows PCs. We know our readers have more than one device, including phones and tablets. So while my focus with Patch Watch will continue to center on Windows, you’ll hear more from me about the broader Microsoft universe.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.44.0, 2022-10-31).

  Patch Watch macOS, Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Office, Patch Lady Posts, Patch Watch

• Click-to-run dribbles out changes

  Posted on December 13, 2021 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Office patches are handled differently than Windows patches, and they can be very disruptive as a result.

  Microsoft always releases security patches for Windows on the second Tuesday of the month, no matter what the actual date. It’s the reason that this month’s updates haven’t yet arrived — today is December 13, and Patch Tuesday is December 14. We won’t receive security patches until tomorrow!

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.48.0 (2021-12-13).

  On Security Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Office, Patch Lady Posts, Security

• OneDrive app support ending on older Windows

  Posted on December 6, 2021 at 02:45 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.47 • 2021-12-06

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Microsoft dropped a minor bombshell with the announcement that the OneDrive app would stop working for some Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users beginning in March 2022.

  The changes have some unusual elements, such as a split between personal and work use. Microsoft has (deliberately?) added confusion with poor and incomplete communication.

  Office 365 users are affected by these changes, yet Microsoft hasn’t said a word about that.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.47.0 (2021-12-06).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.47.F (2021-12-06).

  Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Office, Office 365, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business

• Understanding Office 2021 and Office LTSC

  Posted on November 22, 2021 at 02:42 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  What are Office 2021 and Office LTSC, and should you care?

  Office 2021 and Office LTSC are the latest nonsubscription versions of Microsoft Office. Microsoft calls each a “perpetual license,” but historically we might have called them the “boxed” editions of Office. These two Office versions are very similar and deliberately limited in new features, licensing, and even support.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.45.0 (2021-11-22).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Office, Office 2021, Office LTSC
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