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Microsoft outage now 'resolved' — latest updates as 365, Outlook and Teams return

scott.younker@futurenet.com (Scott Younker) — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 19:59:04 +0000

Microsoft experienced one of its largest outages to date, affecting services including Outlook, Teams, 365 and more. Now, it appears the impact has been "resolved."

Multiple Microsoft services suddenly went down on January 22, which left multiple users without access to emails, apps and even Microsoft Defender. Over the course of around nine hours, Microsoft tried to fix the issue, resulting in a mixed bag of services returning and being out again.

Before that, on January 21, Microsoft 365 and Teams also suffered a brief outage that left users unable to log in or access various Office apps. However, that outage was resolved fairly quickly. This time, it left users without access for hours longer.

As of now, with Downdetector showing a huge drop in reports and Microsoft confirming the "impact has been resolved" on X, it appears services are now back to normal.

Here's a brief recap of events and how the outage happened.

Microsoft services saw a massive spike in outage reports at around 11.40 a.m. PST / 2.40 p.m. EST / 7.40 p.m. GMT on January 22.
Multiple services across Microsoft were impacted, with users unable to access Microsoft 365, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Store, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Defender.
The outage appeared to be caused by a service load elevation during maintenance of a North America server: "we’ve identified elevated service load combined with temporary capacity constraints during maintenance resulted in impact," Microsoft states.
Microsoft also indicated that a possible third-party networking issue may be affecting access to Microsoft 365 services.
As of around 1.30 a.m. EST / 6.30 a.m. GMT / 10.30 p.m. PST (Jan 21.), Microsoft confirms that the impact has now been resolved.

Microsoft's outage follows many other multi-hour impacts over the past few months, including Verizon going down earlier this month, and the AWS outage that effectively broke the internet in October 2025.

Follow Tom's Guide for the latest updates on the major Microsoft outage and everything as it happened below.

Microsoft was down again: here's what happened

Sudden spike

(Image credit: Down Detector)

The new outage kicked off around noon Pacific with Outlook hitting just over 6,750 reports on Down Detector.

Microsoft 365, the office apps suite, is less but still sitting closer to 4,000 reports.

Other services affected

(Image credit: Down Detector)

While they haven't received the same number of reports we are seeing other Microsoft services interrupted as well.

These include Azure, Defender, and Teams.

Microsoft acknowledges outage

We're investigating a potential issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. Further information can be found in the admin center under MO1221364.January 22, 2026

The official Microsoft status page hasn't been updated yet, but the official Microsoft 365 X account posted that the company is investigating.

"We're investigating a potential issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. Further information can be found in the admin center under MO1221364."

Similar to previous outage?

During the outage on Jan 21, Microsoft blamed the interruption on an issue related to a third-party. It's believed that an unnamed ISP caused connections between Microsoft's services and the apps.

This led to user unable to login to 365 or Teams or in some cases even open the app.

Mixed bag for Microsoft apps

Over on Down Detector, Outlook, 365, Teams and Microsoft Store are seeing a growing number of reports.

On the other hand, Azure and Defender XDR spiked but have quickly started to decline. It's possible these services aren't as affected compared to the big apps like 365.

Status page update

(Image credit: microsoft)

The official Microsoft status page has finally updated. It specifically notes service degradation for Microsoft 365 (Business or Enterprise).

Surprisingly, the page reads, "Users may be seeing degraded service functionality across multiple Microsoft 365 services."

That message would normally appear in the admin center, but apparently the outage may affect some people's ability to even access the admin center.

The message says people may have issues with sending and receiving emails.

Cause identified

We've identified a portion of service infrastructure in North America that is not processing traffic as expected. We're working to restore the infrastructure to a healthy state to achieve recovery. More information can be found at https://t.co/uSHwRmXFJZ or under MO1221364 if…January 22, 2026

Microsoft says it has identified a cause for the outage.

"We've identified a portion of service infrastructure in North America that is not processing traffic as expected. We're working to restore the infrastructure to a healthy state to achieve recovery," the company posted in a tweet.

On the status page, it provided a little more a details saying that the infrastructure is impacting load balancing and service availability.

Status page crashes!

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Either because of the infrastructure issues or due to a fix Microsoft is attempting to implement, the Status page is also now down.

When I try to access it I keep getting the above error message.

An HTTP 429 Error refers to a site receiving too many requests. I'm sure it's not just me trying to access the page.

Intermittent interruption

I was able to load the status page again, but it won't stay up. Refreshing causes the 429 error to hit.

There is some new information, including this message:

"Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook."

The update does say that users may experience intermittent impact.

365 seems to work but not Outlook

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

I'm seeing comments on Down Detector and social media that some people are able to login to the admin center for Microsoft 365.

Outlook appears to be having more problems with claims of emails not sending or receiving. I've seen some comments from users who can send emails but aren't receiving any new ones.

Where we stand after just over an hour

(Image credit: Down Detector)

This outage kicked off around 11 a.m. Pacific but didn't really hit until closer to 11:40 am.

Right now, reports on Down Detector have started to dip a little across every Microsoft service. However, we are still seeing a high numbers including over 12,000 reports for Outlook, close 16,000 reports for 365, and 2,700 reports for Store.

The status page hasn't changed, and Microsoft hasn't tweeted in about 35 minutes.

However, the company says it is continuing to review the incident to determine what actions it needs to restore service.

Microsoft update

We're continuing to review what actions are required to restore the affected infrastructure to a heathy state and rebalance the service traffic to achieve recovery. More information can be found at https://t.co/uFnnN6T3jN or under MO1221364 if accessible.January 22, 2026

Another tweet from Microsoft just went up. Unfortunately, there isn't anything new here.

"We're continuing to review what actions are required to restore the affected infrastructure to a heathy state and rebalance the service traffic to achieve recovery."

It's similar to the message we've seen on the status page. However, access to the status page is intermittent due to the 429 errors, so sharing this message in multiple places is getting people some information.

Up and down reports

Reports for Outlook have plateaued but other services are a mixed bag. Some services like Azure went down but are spiking again.

365 is dipping a bit and Store is going up. Teams meanwhile is going down.

Infrastructure restored says Microsoft

While we've restored the affected infrastructure to a heathy state, further load balancing is required to mitigate impact. We're directing traffic to alternate infrastructure to achieve recovery. More information can be found at https://t.co/uFnnN6T3jN or under MO1221364 if…January 22, 2026

Microsoft says it has restored the infrastructure to a "healthy state" with a caveat.

The company says it still needs "further load balancing" to mitigate the impact from the outage. Traffic is being redirected while the fix goes into effect.

Near immediate drop in reports

(Image credit: Down Detector)

Since Microsoft announced that it was redirecting traffic and implemented a repair reports have quickly dropped on Down Detector.

That doesn't mean the outage is over since thousands of reports are still coming in, they've just lessened.

Outlook, the most affected service, is still above 10,000 reports though it is in decline.

Status page still crashing

Microsoft is telling people to go to its status page for updates but it continues to be affected by the 429 error, which means too many are trying to access the page.

Several Tom's Guide readers have commented that they can't access the status page.

I've been able to access it through brute force persistent refreshing.

Slow recovery

As mentioned previously, reports have been in decline but it's slow, suggesting that recovery is happening but not everyone has been able to access their Outlook emails or 365 services.

Consumer products should be working

(Image credit: Microsoft)

According to Microsoft's Service Health Status page, its consumer-focused products are now operational, which lines up with the dip in outage reports we're currently seeing on Downdetector. The same can't be said for Microsoft 365 though, which is still experiencing issues.

The storm before the storm

(Image credit: Ookla)

Microsoft 365 going down on a Thursday afternoon means that tomorrow is going to be a rough day at work. Hopefully the service is fully restored by then, which it should be, but either way, you're looking at an inbox full of replies and missed emails to go through. Then there's a historic winter storm set to bring snow and ice across the U.S. all weekend. Your time might be better spent preparing for the storm instead of waiting for Microsoft to fully resolve this outage.

'Proceeding as quickly as possible'

We're rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure to ensure the environment enters into a balanced state. We’re proceeding as quickly as possible and this approach will help us identify any additional actions needed for recovery. More info can be found at…January 22, 2026

Here's the latest statement from the Microsoft 365 account.

"We're rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure to ensure the environment enters into a balanced state. We’re proceeding as quickly as possible and this approach will help us identify any additional actions needed for recovery."

Microsoft hasn't provided an ETA for service return anywhere, and I'm not sure the company has an idea of when the apps will be fully functional again.

Despite drop in reports services may still be down

Across Down Detector reports have dropped significantly in the last 45 minutes and Microsoft appears to be on the road to recovery.

However, tweets and comments from Tom's Guide readers reveal that the recovery isn't hitting everyone.

"We are still 100% down," one reader said.

To be fair, it's about 6 pm on the East Coast, so perhaps people have given up on the day and moved on with their lives. So, people actively reporting may have been reduced.

But! we're still partying on the West Coast and in the Midwest, except Indiana, which I assume is still shut down after the CFB National Championship win.

New update from Microsoft

(Image credit: Microsoft)

For the most part Microsoft has been updating its 365 X account with similar information that you can find on the Status page. Largely because the official status page has been intermittenly inaccessible.

However, a new note just went up on the status page.

"During our ongoing efforts to rebalance traffic across the region, we introduced a targeted load balancing configuration change intended to expedite the recovery process, which incidentally introduced additional traffic imbalances associated with persistent impact for a portion of the affected infrastructure. We're remedying our load balancing configurations while, in parallel, reviewing the viability of expediting our ongoing incremental rebalancing and recovery efforts."

So, it looks like Microsoft's attempts to fix the original problem worsened things in other areas. A problem with software recovery sometimes, one bug breaks another.

Where we stand after more than 4 hours

(Image credit: dennizn/Shutterstock)

Sadly, the outage is ongoing, and I can't tell when it will end.

As mentioned in the last post, Microsoft indicated that an intended fix to mitigate the "load balancing" issue caused other problems. So it is now trying to fix that and continue the recovery of the system.

The official status page was down for a while with 429 errors, but I've been able to access it continually for the last hour.

Over on Down Detector, reports have declined to just under 5,000 reports for Outlook and 3,200 reports for 365. I am seeing comments from users that they still can't access their email or aren't seeing emails come through.

An update from Microsoft

We're continuing to refine our load balancing configurations to address residual imbalances across the environment. More info can be found at https://t.co/Htn4qQDPCR or under MO1221364 if accessible.January 23, 2026

Microsoft has provided another update. Simply, they continue.

"We're continuing to refine our load balancing configurations to address residual imbalances across the environment."

No sign of stopping anytime soon

This outage does not appear to be stopping anytime soon. So enjoy this from reader 'Losing All Hope':

"Is now the appropriate time to send thoughts and prayers to Outlook, or we're not quite there yet?"

Another joke for you

One of those days I'm glad I'm on Google Workspace :-) pic.twitter.com/SSZUi6PjdXJanuary 22, 2026

It is now 5 pm Pacific, meaning it's clocking off time for most of the continental United States. I expect, as people leave work, if they haven't already, we'll see reports take another nose-dive.

With that in mind, have a drink on us and enjoy a little joke from Tom's Guide global editor Mark Spoonauer. Got a laugh from me, and now I plan on watching 'Airplane!' tonight.

I will be keeping an eye on things to see if we all have to come back to work tomorrow, despite the snowstorm and/or Outlook outage.

So, keep us in your tabs for any updates as they happen.

As expected, reports drop

(Image credit: New York Times)

Despite no updates from Microsoft and an apparent continued interruption of service, reports on Down Detector are dropping.

Outlook and 365 are hovering around 1,000 reports after sitting closer to 3,500 before 5 pm Pacific. At their peak, the two services hit a high of closer to 15,000 reports. That was hours ago, around 12:30 pm Pacific.

This isn't surprising since, as we said in our previous post, people on the West Coast are starting to clock off.

Update may slow down now, but I will be keeping an eye on things in case it changes.

The latest Microsoft update

We’re refining our load balancing efforts to optimize performance and reduce potential impact. In parallel, we’re assessing alternative solutions to reinforce recovery and enhance long term stability. More info can be found at https://t.co/Htn4qQDPCR or under MO1221364 if…January 23, 2026

"We’re refining our load balancing efforts to optimize performance and reduce potential impact. In parallel, we’re assessing alternative solutions to reinforce recovery and enhance long term stability."

Maybe things are getting better but we're not out of the woods yet.

Status page hasn't crashed in hours though, so that's good. And it reads:

Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

Microsoft claims it's seeing improvements

We’re seeing continued improvements in service availability and functionality as a result of our load-balancing efforts. We’re actively monitoring performance and making targeted adjustments to further improve stability and availability, while continuing recovery actions to…January 23, 2026

Latest update:

'We’re seeing continued improvements in service availability and functionality as a result of our load-balancing efforts. We’re actively monitoring performance and making targeted adjustments to further improve stability and availability, while continuing recovery actions to ensure a reliable service experience.'

Of course, the immediate tweets underneath are people calling this lies and saying that Outlook is still down.

Steady decline

(Image credit: Down Detector)

I honestly can't tell if the outage is petering out or not. Microsoft did say that its team is seeing improvement on their end.

However, we've reached a point where most Americans are home, off work and not actively checking emails or trying to access 365 services.

On Down Detector, 365 reports are still hovering around 750. Outlook is finally under 500 reports and the other impacted services have basically 0.

Still, that does mean reports are still steadily rolling in, just not at the rate or amount that spiked earlier in the day when the country was actually online.

I won't call it just yet, but I will save any updates for anything more significant or if Microsoft says that its systems have fully recovered.

You're email might work now?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

On the official status page, Microsoft updated with a current status that now reads:

" We’ve identified elevated service load combined with temporary capacity constraints during maintenance resulted in impact. We’re seeing positive signs of recovery in mail delivery, and mitigation actions are in place to better manage service load. While some connectivity impact remains between Microsoft Defender for Office, Microsoft Purview, and Exchange Online, and DNS lookup failures, engineers are actively working to restore full functionality."

I don't believe Outlook is fully back on line based on this information but if you're still trying to send emails, you might be able to get a few through the queue now.

What happened?

We've confirmed that impact has been resolved. Full details can be found under MO1221364 within your Microsoft 365 admin center.January 23, 2026

After hours of users not being able to access services, Microsoft has now confirmed the issue has been resolved. But what was the issue that kicked it all off?

Well, according to Microsoft, it was due to a service load issue during maintenance. Here's what the company has to say:

"We’ve identified elevated service load combined with temporary capacity constraints during maintenance resulted in impact. We’re seeing positive signs of recovery in mail delivery, and mitigation actions are in place to better manage service load. While some connectivity impact remains between Microsoft Defender for Office, Microsoft Purview, and Exchange Online, and DNS lookup failures, engineers are actively working to restore full functionality."

Essentially, this means that too many servers hosted in North America were shut down during maintenance. This caused too much load, and all services were impacted across the globe as a result. It isn't too dissimilar from the AWS outage that happened in October 2025, which saw several services go dark for hours.

Last year saw many internet outages due to major cloud computing platforms seeing issues, making it into our biggest tech fails of 2025. Here's hoping Microsoft's outage isn't the start of another year of problems.

Do companies need better backup plans?

(Image credit: Future)

Along with the AWS outage last year, it's becoming clear that companies like Microsoft and Amazon need more of a plan in place when these outages happen, as Managing Editor of Computing Jason England has recently explained.

While the Microsoft outage was caused by a failure in North American service infrastructure that stopped processing traffic correctly, the problems go further. With the "brains" all in one place (multiple servers in one region), rather than building in external redundancies (separate brains across multiple regions), it becomes harder to fix these issues.

For more, you can find out why yesterday’s outage proves these companies don’t yet have a backup plan for the internet.

Back to normal?

(Image credit: Downdetector)

Over on Downdetector, Microsoft services including 365 and the Microsoft Store have now seen a huge dip in outage reports. So, as the company has stated, the issue does seem to be resolved. However, there are still over 300 reports, so there may still be a few tweaks to iron out for a few.

Considering it reached a high of 15,889 reports during the outage, this is a hugely more welcome sight.

Affected by the Microsoft outage? Let us know!

With how long the Microsoft outage lasted (essentially half a day), there's bound to be many users who were unable to carry on with their usual workload, considering it took out services including Teams, Outlook, 365 and more.

So, over to you. Let us know if your usual day has been disrupted by Microsoft being down!

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

I was trying to buy tickets for snow tubing yesterday and needed to create an account, which required email verification with a code. Apparently, they used Microsoft for the service that emailed said code, and I couldn't register. I had to call the ski mountain to get a ticket, like it was 1999.

As I pulled into the parking lot, my phone started blowing up with around 20 emails from all my attempts when things came back online. Thankfully, I managed to get in through the phone before tickets sold out (there were 12 left when I spoke to the mountain), but I could have ended up with a very disappointed 9-year-old.

"Outages are expected conditions"

(Image credit: Who is Danny / Shutterstock)

When these major events pop up PR tend to reach out with quotes that often aren't relevant or are promoting their business in the wake of an outage.

However, one rep sent us an argument from Cockroach Labs CEO Spencer Kimball who argues that companies like Microsoft, AWS and Verizon are not prepared for the current always-on internet that we live in.

"When a widely used service like Microsoft 365 experiences a cascade of failures across Outlook, Teams, and other apps, it highlights a core truth: most cloud systems are still designed around steady‑state assumptions. In today’s always‑on world, outages aren’t rare edge cases — they’re expected conditions. Resilience must be intentionally engineered, because single‑region dependencies, tightly coupled services, and monoculture infrastructure are exactly what turn localized problems into mass disruptions."

We will need to do more research but this may be true and something that leads to more structural outages.

One last communique from Microsoft

As mentioned in the closure communication of MO1221364, if users are experiencing any residual issues, clearing local DNS caches or temporarily lowering DNS TTL values may help ensure a quicker remediation.January 23, 2026

I missed this one earlier, but Microsoft says if you're still experiencing any "residual issues" try clearing your local caches or "temporarily lowering DNS TTL values."

Often when it comes to resetting your system beyond a restart, a cache clear is always a good idea.

Poll results: Outage hit hard

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Earlier today, we ran a poll asking Tom's Guide readers if the Microsoft outage affected their days.

I can tell you that about 500 readers responded and 96% of you said that the outage affected them.

It means most of you were unable to carry on with your usual workload especially when it came to emails. We received plenty of comments about Outlook being unavailable.

Thank you for responding!

That's all for today folks

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

I have no new information to share with you regarding the outage.

But, it is supposed to get cold and snowy this weekend across a large swath of the United States. So stay safe, stay warm and take care of your neighbors Be good people!

Think you're a spreadsheet wizard? You ain't seen nothing 'til you've watched the Excel World Championships — here's how

alex.wawro@futurenet.com (Alex Wawro) — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 20:42:51 +0000

There are many ways to measure your mastery of Microsoft Excel: the admiration of your peers, the efficiency of your formulae, the beauty of your tables and graphs. But for the true spreadsheet wizards there's only one distinction that matters, and it's a massive championship wrestling belt.

I'm talking of course about the Microsoft Excel World Championship belt, which was just awarded this week to newly-minted MEWC 2025 champion Diarmuid Early after three days of Excel competition live in Las Vegas.

Competitors from around the world gathered there this week to try and solve Excel challenges as fast as possible. This year the top spot went to Early who (according to PCGamer) beat out 23 other competitors on the final day of competition to win the $5,000 cash prize and accompanying ridiculously oversized championship belt, which looks like a prop straight out of a wrestling match.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Early beat out previous three-time champ Andrew Ngai, who took second place in this year's competition and gave a nice speech passing the belt to Early during yesterday's (December 3) award ceremony.

You can watch the ceremony yourself at the end of the MEWC 2025 Finals livestream, which is now viewable on demand over on Microsoft's Excel eSports YouTube channel. And while you may not have the stamina to watch all four hours of the 2025 Excel finals, I definitely recommend skipping around and watching bits like the amazing wrestler-style intros (featuring competitors charging into the arena while an announcer screams their name) or the final minute of competition, when Ngai tries and fails to reclaim the top spot.

To get to the finals you have to go through a series of competitions throughout the year, and if you make it you end up in an Excel-off in which everyone receives the same "case" of challenges to complete in 30 minutes. Each case contains seven levels of questions with increasing difficulty as well as bonus questions, and competitors receive points for solving each question correctly.

Whoever gets the most points at the end of the round wins, with ties decided by who got there first. But what I found extra exciting about watching the MEWC 2025 finals is that every five minutes the player with the lowest score is eliminated, until only six players remain. At that point they're all in it to win it and battle it out to see who scores highest, but up until then the countdown to elimination adds a delightful frisson to the otherwise spreadsheet-heavy stream.

And if you (like me) don't know a thing about using Excel well, don't worry — the announcers who are commenting live over the finals and hyping the crowd up do a good job providing explanations and commentary that helps liven up the competition.

Microsoft chief Satya Nadella even had a video of himself taking part (for funsies) posted on his X account, but with a twist. Nadella used Excel's new Agent Mode, which was announced last month and taps into Microsoft's 365 Copilot AI services to let you request Excel complete tasks using natural language.

With the Excel World Championship underway, I decided to take the M365 Copilot digital challenge. I’m no World Champ… but thanks to Agent Mode, I held my own! pic.twitter.com/xoNBGxQtCADecember 4, 2025

It's a blatant bit of promotion for Microsoft's AI services, which have become a core focus of the company's marketing and development efforts.

Of course, as someone who reviews Windows and Copilot+ PCs for a living here at Tom's Guide I can tell you that (at least in my experience) the reality often fails to live up to the hype. And while I haven't had a chance to test out Excel's new Agent Mode yet, I can't help but wonder how all these spreadsheet mavens who spend so much time and effort competing to be the best feel about Microsoft promoting AI alongside them.

Will AI one day make these sorts of competitions feel quaint, or will it be like the Deep Blue vs. Kasparov chess matches of the '90s and motivate a whole new generation to try and outperform the AI? We'll just have to wait and see!

Microsoft Teams will start snitching to your boss when you’re not in the office — and this update is coming in December

Jason England — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:38:25 +0000

Microsoft Teams is about to deal a heavy blow to those who like to work from home for peace and quiet. In a new feature update rolling out December 2025, the platform will track a worker’s location using the office Wi-Fi, to see whether you’re actually there or not.

From a boss’ perspective, this would eliminate any of that confusion as to where your team actually is. But for those people who have found their own sanctuary of peaceful productivity by working from home, consider this a warning that Teams is about to tattle on you.

How does it tattle?

(Image credit: Microsoft)

As per the Microsoft 365 roadmap: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in." And the location of that worker will apparently update automatically upon connecting.

Not much more detail is given, but I can try to fill in some gaps here.

There’s already an option in Teams to set your work location, which is (for now) being used to help identify where you are in, say, a large office or a campus. It’s my suspicion that this could be automated based on Wi-Fi details like IP address, to change based on what your system is connected to.

Looking back at the roadmap, this is set to launch both on Windows and macOS, and the rollout starts at the end of this year. “This feature will be off by default,” reads the announcement — good news for those who have non-techie bosses. But “tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in.” Ouch.

What can we learn from the history of skipping the office?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

5 tips to be more productive in Google Keep

alex.wawro@futurenet.com (Alex Wawro) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 09:30:00 +0000

Google Keep is a surprisingly useful app anyone can use to be more productive on the web, and since it has free Android and iOS apps I've found it super-useful for staying on top of everything on the go.

I've been using Google Keep casually for years, but after I recently switched from an iPhone to an Android device, I've started to become something of a Keep power user.

After all, as useful as the Google Keep web interface has been, now that I can easily access Keep from the external screen of my new Motorola Razr (2025) I'm unlocking new levels of productivity — and finally appreciating why Keep is one of the best note-taking apps around.

To show you what I mean, I thought I'd share the most useful Google Keep tips and tricks I've discovered over the last month of making it a core part of my daily workflow. Let's dive in!

Supercharge your reminders

(Image credit: Future)

Like many note-taking apps, Google Keep lets you set reminders for individual notes.

Unlike much of the competition, Keep doesn't stop at time and date. Not only can you remind yourself about a specific note at a later time, you can remind yourself about a note about a specific place.

This is obviously most useful if you use the Keep app through Android or iOS, but it also works with your browser, so you can use it on your laptop to remind yourself about specific things when you get to certain places.

For example, you might use it to remind yourself to ship a specific product or check in about a specific receipt when you get to the office. Or you can remind yourself about a grocery list when you get to the supermarket.

To access these features, just click or tap on the little Reminder icon (it's shaped like a bell) on an individual note and select "Pick place" or "Pick date & time" to get started. To check what reminders you've already set, click the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the Keep app and select "Reminders" to get a rundown.

Photograph stuff you want to remember and OCR it later

You can use the "Grab image text" feature to quickly photograph and save/reference things like invites, menus, flyers and business cards. (Image credit: Future)

One of my favorite ways to use Google Keep is as a sort of backup memory, a place where I can stash things I know I need to remember and then look them up later and categorize them when I have time.

Easily my favorite way to do this is to simply photograph anything I want to remember, stash it in Google Keep and catalog it later. And with Keep's OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tech you can generally count on it to parse text in images pretty effectively.

So I end up using Keep all the time to do things like photograph invitations, flyers and business cards, then use the "Get image text" function in the web version of Keep — just click the three-dot icon and select "Get image text" — to parse the text and store it for later.

Use backgrounds to better categorize your notes

(Image credit: Future)

Plenty of reminder apps let you color-code your notes, but so far Keep is the only one I've tried that lets you assign custom backgrounds.

I like to use these backgrounds to categorize my Keep files so I can quickly find things like shopping lists and recipes at a glance. They're a little difficult to see on images in Keep so I prefer to use single colors to categorize those, but for text? Custom backgrounds are a great way to stay organized.

To access them, simply click on the little paint palette icon in the lower-left corner of any file in Google Keep. From there you'll get a drop-down menu of 12 colors and 10 patterned backgrounds to choose from, with themes ranging from music to recipes to travel.

Embed Google Docs for longer writing projects

(Image credit: Future)

I'm a little embarrassed it took me a while to realize this, but you can embed Google Keep notes directly into your Google Docs and vice versa.

I've found this incredibly useful for working as a journalist, because I often start stories from notes I take in Google Keep but I hate writing more than a few sentences in the Keep app.

I used to start new stories from scratch in Google Docs, but now I know you can just click the three-dot icon in the lower-right corner of any Google Keep note and select "Copy to Google Docs" to import it directly into a new Google Doc.

Likewise, you can quickly access your Google Keep notes within Google Docs by clicking the yellow Google Keep icon on the righthand side.

Master keyboard shortcuts

(Image credit: Future)

The No. 1 thing that's helped me get more done in less time with Google Keep is to learn the keyboard shortcuts for some of my most commonly-executed tasks.

I chiefly use them when working with the web version of Keep, where I have my keyboard close to hand. While there are also shortcuts you can use on the iOS and Android versions of Keep, I find I rarely need them when using my smartphone.

But when I'm on my PC, being able to rapidly jump between notes or format a to-do list quickly makes all the difference in my day-to-day productivity. To show you what I mean, I've compiled my most-used keyboard shortcuts in the tablet below.

Keyboard shortcut	Command
Create new note	C
Create new list	L
Search notes	/
Archive note	E
Trash note	D
Jump to next/previous note	J/K
Jump to next/previous list item	Shift + J/K
Toggle between list and grid view	Ctrl + G
Reference keyboard shortcuts	Shift + /

Try them for yourself in the web version of Google Keep and see if you don't feel faster and more productive in minutes!

Hate subscriptions? Microsoft Office 2024 is out now for a one-time fee

dave.leclair@futurenet.com (Dave LeClair) — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 20:06:46 +0000

Microsoft wants you to sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription to experience its suite of office and productivity tools. However, the company knows that not everyone wants to take an ongoing expense for their word processing . Some people want to pay once and get on with their life. As such, Microsoft is offering Office 2024 at a one-time cost of $149.

While not necessarily cheap, you get locked-in-time versions of all the major Microsoft software: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook are all part of your purchase. Locked-in-time means you won't get all the new features that come with Microsoft 365, but if you're OK with how Office functions now — and it's definitely in a good place right now — this is a viable option.

Microsoft Office Home 2024: $149 @ Microsoft
If you don't like paying for Microsoft's beloved software suite every month, you can finally get a new version of Microsoft Office for a one-time fee. You get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for Windows 11, Windows 10, or macOS. You won't get all the new features that come down the road, but you'll get a well-rounded set of software for a decent price.View Deal

This is Microsoft's first Office release since 2021 that isn't part of Microsoft 365. If you were worried that a new version wouldn't come, you can finally relax and grab the latest version. Since 2021, Microsoft has added many new features to subscribers, many of which are part of Office 2024.

There are tons of accessibility and UI changes found in Office 2024, so if you're more familiar with the 2021 version, it might feel a little weird at first. That said, the Fluent Design principles match the visuals in Windows 11 much better than previous versions, so it looks right at home.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Here are some of the improvements coming to Office 2024:

Excel: Use text and arrays in worksheets
Excel: a new IMAGE function pulls pictures from the web
Excel: can now reference Dynamic Arrays in charts
PowerPoint: new cameo feature lets you insert a live camera feed into slides
PowerPoint: new recording studio with features for narration, animations, transitions, and inking
PowerPoint: you can add closed captions or subtitles to videos and audio files in slides
Outlook: improvements to search
Word: recover a session if your PC crashes
Word, Excel and PowerPoint: insert a picture easily from an Android mobile device

The $149 version of Office 2024 is for home users only. If you plan to use it for commercial purposes, the Home & Business version costs $249.

UPDF exclusive deal means you can edit PDFs for less

Sponsored — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 15:43:07 +0000

UPDF is an easy to use Adobe Acrobat alternative that lets you edit PDF files quickly and easily, across a range of devices - and thanks to a special deal, it’s now 54% off with free gift giveaway, making it even better value.

No only are you saving a hefty chunk of change on a fantastic tool for editing and creating PDF files, but you also get a lifetime licence of aJoysoft PDF Password Remover and 10GB of UPDF Cloud storage as well, thrown in for free! This limited-time deal costs just $45.99 - down from $99.

UPDF: Key features explained

PDFs are hugely versatile files, and that’s why they are so popular on the internet. Being able to edit, add images and annotate PDF documents is incredibly important, whether you’re working with PDFs for work, studying or just day-to-day life.

Editing and creating PDFs has never been easier, thanks to UPDF. As a cross-platform app, you can easily open up and read PDFs on a range of devices, such as Windows laptops and PCs, Macs and MacBooks, iPhones and iPads and Android smartphones and tablets.

(Image credit: UPDF)

This powerful PDF editor allows you to edit pretty much every part of a PDF, including text, images, links, watermarks and headers and footers. Also, you can organize PDF pages flexibly by reordering, removing, inserting, extracting or rotating them easily.

It’s also incredibly easy to use, letting you edit PDFs, and drag and drop rich text, as if you were creating a document in a Word processor. You can effortlessly annotate PDFs by adding notes, text comments, stamps, stickers, shapes, as well as highlight and underline text as you read, making UPDF an essential tool for students and professionals. You can also draw on PDFs to note down or highlight parts of the document.

You can also convert PDFs to popular files including Images, Text, HTML, XML and more, and you can turn them into documents that can be opened and edited in popular office apps such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. UPDF boasts 100% format and layout integrity, which means no matter what file format you convert to or from, the look and layout of the document will be kept intact.

If your document is image-based or scanned, you can also convert PDFs into editable text documents using the powerful OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature.

(Image credit: UPDF)

Creating professional PDFs for work? You can create a PDF from a blank page or from images. You can also combine bulk PDFs or images into one PDF and protect them with a password to avoid unauthorised access.

No matter what device you use UPDF on, reading any PDF you open is a joy. PDFs can be easily and comfortably navigated using the user interface, making it feel like you’re reading a digital magazine, rather than scrolling through a dry PDF.

UPDF: our favorite highlights

UPDF is a cross-platform PDF app, and that means you can work on your PDFs across a range of devices with one license- and each version of UPDF has been carefully crafted to make the most out of the platform its own.

Want a quick, easy and intuitive way to read and edit PDFs on your mobile device? Then the UPDF app for iOS and Android is for you.

However, if you want access to all the powerful tools for in-depth PDF editing, then the desktop app gives you everything you need. You can download a free trial before you decide to buy.

UPDF also has plans for both individuals and businesses, and no matter what type of subscription you go for, you can get an exclusive 54% off and free gifts, which includes a lifetime licence for a PDF password management tool and 10GB of UPDF Cloud for free.

For individual users, UPDF allows one user to access UPDF on 4 devices including 2 desktops and 2 mobiles. For business users, UPDF provides effective deployment and centralized license management. It makes the admin easily manage volume license with a click.

If you’re buying in bulk, you can get exclusive discounts by mentioning Tom’s Guide in the inquiry email.

How to do a hanging indent in Google Docs

andrew.sandom@futurenet.com (Andy Sansom) — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Knowing how to do a hanging indent in Google Docs is important in an academic or professional environment, especially when there are formatting standards to meet. Knowing how to do a hanging indent in Google Docs won’t write your thesis paper for you, but it will make it look better. Besides, after going to all that effort to write your paper, you want to show it off properly.

Hanging indents are requirements for both the American Psychological Association (APA) and Harvard referencing styles, among others, so it's important to learn how to apply them.

Without further ado, here's how to do a hanging indent in Google Docs.

How to do a hanging indent in Google Docs

1. In your Google Doc, highlight text you wish to apply indents to and select Format.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Click Align & indent and then select Indentation options.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Select Hanging from the drop-down Special indent drop down menu.

(Image credit: Future)

4. Enter a value into the box on the right to set how large you wish the indent to be in centimeters.

(Image credit: Future)

5. Click Apply.

(Image credit: Future)

Your text should now be indented correctly.

(Image credit: Future)

Easy peasy. If this is for an academic piece, remember that most universities and educational establishments have slight differences in the formatting they require, so check what they expect before submitting — and remember to proofread your work!

If you’re looking to make sure you get everything into your essay why not learn how to view word count in Google Docs, how to do a strikethrough in Google Docs, or how to change margins in Google Docs. After all, that hard work you could try something fun and learn how to cast Harry Potter spells with Siri on iPhone.

All your office apps are in one spot with Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans

Sponsored — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 17:15:12 +0000

There’s only so much time in the day, and we all have a lot to get done. Having the right software on your devices can help you snag back some of that time, as it streamlines, simplifies, and accelerates running the household, doing homework, engaging with family and friends via teams and so much more. Microsoft 365 provides a suite of applications you can use for loads of common computing tasks, and it can cover not just you but your whole family too, letting the whole house benefit from its creation, collaboration, and security features.

The old Microsoft Office suite you may be familiar with has evolved into Microsoft 365. A subscription provides access to all the applications you’ve gotten used to and delivers extra capabilities and features, like cloud storage and security tools for the whole family. You also don’t have to worry about ending up with an outdated application, as the subscription provides access to the latest software version so you’re never out-of-date.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The kids can work on their essays and presentations for school with Microsoft Word and Powerpoint. You can track expenses and finances with Microsoft Excel. Taking and syncing notes across multiple devices is as simple as can be with OneNote. And you can put together videos of family memories or let the aspiring director in your house learn the tricks of the trade with Clipchamp.

Microsoft 365 also includes the Outlook email client. With tight integration between Microsoft’s applications, sharing all the content you’ve created in its other office applications is a snap through Outlook.

With Microsoft OneDrive, you can make sure you’ve got safe cloud backups of your important files. With a Microsoft 365 Personal subscription, you’ll get 1TB of cloud storage. That’s enough to back up a whole lot more than just documents, letting you opt to save photos and videos or large project files. A Microsoft 365 Family subscription increases that cloud storage to 6TB, providing 1TB of storage per person on the account. OneDrive offers a Personal Vault to secure files behind identity verification, and it can help you get files restored after ransomware attacks. It can also let you share files with expiring links to give limited-time access. Meanwhile, Microsoft Defender works to protect your computers, phones, tablets, and all of their files on-device.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Especially for the Family subscription, Microsoft includes Family Safety. Your family can keep track of one another’s whereabouts with GPS locations. You’ll know when your kids are at school or have made it back home. Content filters will let you block or allow certain apps on Windows and Xbox platforms. You can also monitor time spent on various apps and screen time to help manage healthy device usage habits.

For all of these services, your Microsoft 365 subscription also gets you convenient tech support by chat or phone.

If you’re ready to give yourself a productivity and security upgrade, you can get Microsoft 365 Personal here. If you want service for the whole home, you can get Microsoft 365 Family here.

Want to potentially save some money on your Microsoft 365 subscription? Our Microsoft coupon codes page provides you with all the latest ways to save.

How to Insert text box in Google Docs

andrew.sandom@futurenet.com (Andy Sansom) — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 05:30:00 +0000

Knowing how to insert text box in Google Docs is handy when writing a large amount of text. It can be hard to make key information stand out in wordy documents but a text box can fix this. Text boxes are also much easier to move around the page and can have their own individual formatting to really pop.

Because of these factors, text boxes are much more memorable and can be a great tool when studying or cramming for a presentation. Unlike Microsoft Word, there is no direct link to insert a text box in Google Docs on the toolbar, but once you know how, it’s pretty simple. It’s time to think inside the box.

How to insert text box in Google Docs

1. In your Google Document click Insert.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Select Drawing and then click New.

(Image credit: Future)

3. This should open the Google Drawing tool. Select the text box icon on the toolbar.

(Image credit: Future)

4. On the empty canvas draw your text box.

(Image credit: Future)

5. Type or paste your text into the text box, otherwise it will be near invisible and tricky to find.

(Image credit: Future)

6. Select Save and Close.

(Image credit: Future)

7. The text box should now be in your Google Document. Type in it or adjust the size and positioning as you see fit.

(Image credit: Future)

That’s all done. Remember you can still adjust the size of the text box by dragging from a corner like a regular image or change the position of it by clicking and dragging. You can also re-write the contents by simply selecting the box and clicking edit.

If you use Google applications regularly, check out 11 Google Drive tips to save you time. If you mainly deal with Google Docs why not learn how to change margins in Google Docs, how to do a strikethrough in Google Docs or h ow to view word count in Google Docs.

How to change margins in Google Docs

andrew.sandom@futurenet.com (Andy Sansom) — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 10:27:26 +0000

There are all sorts of reasons to know how to change margins in Google Docs but it’s not immediately clear how to do it. Once you know how to change margins in Google Docs, however, you can cram information into fewer pages or space it out and make it look more professional, particularly useful for work and school.

Whether you’ve got a strict page limit, want all your notes on one page, or just need a bit of blank space on the screen to break things up we’ve got you covered both vertically and horizontally. And remember, if you prefer how things looked before, Ctrl+Z (or Cmd Z on Mac) is your friend — just undo your changes. Here’s how to change the margins in Google Docs.

How to change margins in Google Docs

Click View in the top toolbar
Click Show ruler
Drag the gray areas of the upper ruler (horiztonal margin)
Drag the gray areas of the left side ruler (vertical margins)

Read on to see detailed instructions for each step.

1. Click View and then click Show ruler (ensure it has a tick mark by it).

(Image credit: Future)

2. Locate the gray area of the upper ruler. Click and drag the gray area left or right to change the horiztonal margin. There are gray areas on each side of the ruler.

Note: The blue arrow and blue rectangle on the top margin change the paragraph indent and first line indent respectively. These do not alter margins, but instead only change where text begins. Ignore these when changing page margins.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Locate the gray area on the left side ruler. Click and drag the gray area left or right to change the vertical margin. There are gray areas at the top and bottom of the ruler.

(Image credit: Future)

4. To make precise adjustments, select File.

(Image credit: Future)

5. Select Page setup.

(Image credit: Future)

6. This will open up the Page setup menu. Here you can orient the page and change the margins. Type in the values of the margins you wish to set.

(Image credit: Future)

7. Select OK.

(Image credit: Future)

Back on your document, the margins should now be adjusted.

(Image credit: Future)

There you go, all done. From the Page Setup menu, you can also change the page from portrait to landscape.

If you’d like to become a Google Drive expert (including Google Docs) why not check out 11 Google Drive tips to save you time, alternatively learn how to view word count in Google Docs or how to do a strikethrough in Google Docs.

How to do a strikethrough in Google Docs

peter.wolinski@futurenet.com (Peter Wolinski) — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 08:30:10 +0000

Want to know how to do a strikethrough in Google Docs? Of course you do. The humble strikethrough is something that is regularly needed, but often difficult to find. Don't fear, though. It's easy to do a strikethrough in Google Docs, and we're here to show you how.

Why might you want to do a strikethrough? Well, strikethroughs are useful if you want to show how something has changed, like conveying a price difference. For example, a discounted item that costs ~~$100~~ $50.

Strikethroughs can also be useful for comic effect. For instance, when talking about the best tech publication in the world, which everyone knows is ~~TechRadar~~ Tom's Guide!

Whatever you want to use a strikethrough for, applying one in Google Docs is easy, whether you're working on the desktop application or on the mobile app while using one of the best phones. Here's how to do a strikethrough in Google Docs.

How to do a strikethrough in Google Docs: Windows & Mac

1. Highlight text that you want to strikethrough.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Press Shift + Alt + 5 (Windows) or Shift + Cmd + X (Mac).

Google Docs strikethrough shortcut: Windows (Image credit: Future)

Google Docs strikethrough shortcut: Mac (Image credit: Future)

How to do a strikethrough in Google Docs: iOS & Android

1. Highlight text that you want to strikethrough.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Tap the A symbol, top right.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Tap the strikethrough symbol (the S with a strikethrough) on the formatting menu.

(Image credit: Future)

And there you have it. You now know how to perform a strikethrough on ~~Word~~ Google Docs. May all your strikes be true. If you'd like more tips on using Google Drive, make sure you check out our guide on the 11 Google Drive tips to save you time. We can also help you learn how to view word count in Google Docs and how to change margins in Google Docs.

We also have plenty of other computing tutorials to help you get the most out of your tech. Mac a little sluggish? Give it a spring clean by reading our guide on how to clear the cache on Mac. Want to find out what that image is of? Check out how to do a reverse image search on Google.

How to view word count in Google Docs

peter.wolinski@futurenet.com (Peter Wolinski) — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Learning how to view word count in Google Docs is important if you often use Google's word processor to write. School or college essays often have strict word counts, as do journalistic articles or professional blog posts, and quite often you can neither be under nor over a set count. This means you regularly need to check your word count to ensure you're on track.

Similarly, if you need to hit a certain number of characters, perhaps for an online form, checking word count on Google Docs will show you.

With Google Docs becoming an ever-more-popular alternative to Microsoft Word — thanks in large part to its collaborative features and the fact that it's free — it pays to know your way around the software. So, here's how to check word count on Google Docs.

Note: whether you're working on the desktop application, or using the mobile app on one of the best phones, the process is simple (albeit different). We've covered it all here.

How to view word count in Google Docs: Windows & Mac

Highlight text you want to check [optional]
Press Shift+Ctrl+C (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+C (Mac)
View word count
Hit Enter to return to document

Read on to see detailed instructions for each step.

1. If you only want to check a certain chunk of text, click and drag to highlight the text to check. Otherwise skip to Step 2.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Press Shift + Ctrl + C (Windows) or Shift + Cmd + C (Mac).

3. View your word count in the pop up box. You can also see characters with and without spaces. If done, click OK or hit Enter to return to the document.

(Image credit: Future)

4. Alternatively, if you want to see the word count while typing, check the box next to Display word count while typing. If done, click OK or hit Enter to return to the document.

(Image credit: Future)

5. You can now view your word count while typing. Click on the word count box to see the other word count information.

(Image credit: Future)

6. Click Hide word count to remove the display while typing.

(Image credit: Future)

How to view word count in Google Docs: iOS & Android

Highlight text you want to check [optional]
Tap the three dots icon, top right
Tap Word count
View word count
Tap the back arrow to return to document

Read on to see detailed instructions for each step.

1. If you only want to check a certain chunk of text, double tap and drag to highlight the text to check. Otherwise skip to Step 2.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Tap the three dots icon, top right.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Select Word count.

(Image credit: Future)

4. View your word count and tap on the back arrow when done.

(Image credit: Future)

There you have it. Not so hard, right? Now you won't go over your word limits and will hopefully get top grades on all of your essays. If you enjoyed this tutorial, we have a range of other tutorials to help you with your computing. Want more Google Drive support? Read our 11 Google Drive tips to help you save time. We can also help you learn how to do a strikethrough in Google Docs and how to change margins in Google Docs.

Mac a little sluggish? Give it a spring clean by reading our guide on how to clear the cache on Mac. Want to find out what that image is of? Check out how to do a reverse image search on Google.

Google Docs just got a handy spell check boost — here’s how it works

malcolm.mcmillan@futurenet.com (Malcolm McMillan) — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 16:13:46 +0000

Google Docs is always updating its features, from reorganizing its layout to the ability to edit Microsoft Word documents offline. Now, the online word processor hopes this latest change will prevent you from unwittingly making a mistake.

As reported by TechRadar, the search giant recently announced in a blog post that it is bringing “enhanced spell check” to Google Docs. The most interesting part of enhanced spell check is that unknown words will no longer be ignored by Google Docs — even if there is no suggestion.

Previously, if Google could not identify an alternative solution for a word it would not necessarily identify it as needing attention. Now, it will underline the offending word and ask if you want to add it to your personal dictionary.

(Image credit: Google)

As someone who regularly uses Google Docs, I am very much looking forward to this update. Currently, I use Grammarly when writing because I find the built-in spell check in Google Docs to be less than effective, but I would love a more streamlined experience. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enable this feature while writing this piece but hopefully I will be able to soon.

One final note: if you write in other languages you will have to wait a bit longer for this feature update. Google says that enhanced spell check is only available in English for now. The company didn't lay out a timeline to bring the feature to other languages, though it would not be a surprise if it eventually expands the feature. Currently, Google Docs spell check is available in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian in addition to English.

How to use spell check in Google Docs

(Image credit: Google)

For those who didn’t know that Google Docs has a built-in spell checker, don’t worry. The feature is incredibly easy to use and will feel familiar to anyone who has used spell check in other word-processing applications like Microsoft Word.

To use spell check, just click the icon that looks like an “A” with a check mark. This instantly pulls up the spell checker and takes you through any necessary edits. You can also access this feature through the Tools menu under “Spelling and grammar.” Hopefully, this leaves your documents error free going forward.

Best PDF editors — both free and paid options

anthony.spadafora@futurenet.com (Anthony Spadafora) — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 16:45:12 +0000

The best PDF editors let you do even more with PDF files, from marking them up to making changes to the text and images they include.

Even though PDF files may appear to be finalized, they can be edited and changed in the same way you can alter a text document. You just need the right software to do so. The best PDF editors allow you to open almost any PDF file and from here, you can edit, alter, annotate, sign or convert it into other popular file formats like Microsoft Word’s Doc and Docx.

Whether you use PDF files for work, need to make edits while studying or just want a quick way to sign a file, we've found the right paid and free PDF editors to get the job done. After testing a dozen different platforms, we're here to help you find the best ones to alter text, change images, annotate PDF files and beyond.

Top picks

Best overall

Acrobat Pro DC

Since Adobe created PDFs, there's good reason it's the best way to convert documents and edit text and images. It doesn't come cheap, but Adobe Acrobat Pro DC offers all the PDF-editing tools you'll need

Read more below

Best free

PDF Candy

As an easy way to extract text or images from a PDF file, PDF Candy is the way to go. Not just because it's completely free, but also as it provides plenty of tools to create or convert PDF files. However, be aware that editing options are limited here.

Read more below

Best for annotation

PDFescape

No matter what browser you're using, you can rely on PDFescape to to edit and annotate PDF documents. Better yet, it can be used for free if you're working with smaller files, and its web-based annotation tools are easy to use.

Read more below

Before jumping into the PDF editors worth checking out, ask yourself if you need to take out your wallet for one.

Should I use a free PDF editor?

Picking the best free PDF editor is a lot like choosing a paid version of a document editor as you first need to identify exactly what you want to do with PDF files and go for the program that offers the features needed to accomplish your goals.

As this is free software, you should pay attention to any limitations that are imposed on the free tier. Are there restrictions on the size of the documents you can edit or are certain tools locked behind a paywall. If you need access to these tools, then it may be worth paying for those particular features.

If you’re doing your PDF editing on a computer, first check to see if you have built-in software that can handle the job. For instance, Mac users might not realize just how good Preview is at annotating documents and adding signatures to PDFs. You can save a lot of time searching for the best free PDF editor if you already have access to all of the features you need.

The best PDF editors you can use right now

The best PDF editor overall

(Image credit: Adobe)

1. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Best PDF editor for Windows

Cost: $240/year | Developer: Adobe | Compatibility: macOS, Windows | Category: PDF editor

Full-featured PDF editing and annotation tool

Excellent OCR

Cluttered UI

You'd expect Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to be great because it comes from Adobe, the birthplace of the portable document format. To some extent, this full-service PDF-editing application meets that expectation.

Acrobat Pro DC offers a complete set of PDF-editing tools, and it even lets you edit scanned documents. Acrobat DC's OCR engine can convert scanned documents to text, which you can then search through and change.

But Acrobat doesn't allow you to convert an entire document the moment you open it. Instead, the app waits for you to begin using the Pro DC's edit tools, recognizing and converting the pages as you select them for editing. Changing text in an OCR'd document was simple and the results look great.

It's also easy to edit images and text in documents you haven't scanned. I was able to make changes to everything with zero issues.

What I don't like about Acrobat Pro DC is the interface. It feels like a half-realized demo of what the app could be. Editing tools surround your document, and the UI feels disorganized, offering few options for customization.

Since it's designed to work on both Macs and PCs, Acrobat Pro DC looks like it belongs in neither environment. This doesn't make this program bad at what it's supposed to do; it just makes you feel like you're working outside your chosen OS.

The best free PDF editor

(Image credit: PDF Candy)

2. PDF Candy

Best free PDF editor

Cost: Free | Developer: Icecream Apps | Compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari | Category: OCR, PDF editing, file conversion

OCR capabilities

Extensive features for converting, creating files

Solid layout tools for PDFs

Limited text editing features

Our pick for the best free PDF editor is PDF Candy, because it offers something many free options do not — an OCR feature for scanning text. You can't edit OCR'd text in this web-based PDF editor, but you are able to upload PDF files and extract text and create a text document, RTF file, or Word document in both .doc and .docx formats.

You can choose from 44 tools to create or convert PDF files. It's also easy to rearrange pages within a document, add watermarks, protect PDF files with passcodes, edit metadata within a PDF file, split or add pages to documents, and extract images. Actual text editing is pretty limited, the trade-off you make to enjoy a fairly feature-rich free PDF editor.

Once you've made your edits in PDF Candy, you can download the edited document or upload a new document to work on. PDF Candy keeps all of your documents in a queue so you can download them all at once after you've finished making changes to them.

The best PDF editor for annotation

(Image credit: Avanquest)

3. PDFescape

Best PDF-annotation tool

Cost: Free; $36/year for premium account | Developer: Avanquest | Compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari | Category: PDF annotation

Free online PDF editing

No registration required

Web-based annotation tools are easy to understand and use

Extremely limited font options when you add text

Desktop version requires a subscription

PDFescape is a basic, web-based PDF-editing and -annotation program you can use for free to work on PDF documents that are smaller than either 10MB or 100 pages, whichever is greater. (PDFescape used to limit you to 50 pages, so the higher limit is a welcome change.) If you need to edit larger files, you can upgrade to a premium account for $36 a year. There's also an "ultimate" plan for $72 per year.

Accessible through any modern web browser, PDFescape offers no OCR capabilities like PDF Candy does. But PDFescape's annotation tools are easy to use. You'll find a pretty solid set of standard annotation tools that can easily add, highlight and strike through text; insert notes; and otherwise mark up the pages of your PDF file. Using the web app's insert tools, you can also add new images and text to a document, white-out text, and add web links and form fields.

PDFescape does have some major limitations in adding new text. Because there are no OCR capabilities, you can't make changes to existing text; you're limited to adding new text to an existing document. Additionally, the app has very limited font options, as it doesn't use any of your computer's fonts. So you're limited to Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, Verdana and a Signature font for signing documents.

The best PDF editor for Mac

(Image credit: Apple)

4. Apple Preview

Built-in PDF annotation for macOS

Cost: Free with macOS | Developer: Apple | Compatibility: macOS | Category: PDF annotation

Excellent annotation tools

Easy-to-use signature capture

Markup features are often available in other apps

Locating annotation tools not obvious

Mac only

Apple's Preview app is built-in to macOS and offers a minimalist but valuable set of tools for marking up any PDF file. You won't find full-on PDF editing here. But if you need a basic set of tools for highlighting or redacting text, making notes, or adding comments to a document, you won't likely need much more than what's already available on your Mac.

Preview's markup tools are hidden when you first open a PDF document. To see them, you'll have to look for the small pencil icon that appears near the Spotlight search bar at the top of your PDF document's toolbar. Clicking this reveals a small set of tools you can use to select text and add objects, text or notes to your document.

The app's standout feature is a signature tool you can use to store a signature you create using your trackpad or scan using your Mac's camera. You can then easily add that signature to a document by clicking Preview's Signature tool. Simple and easy to use once you set it up, Preview's signing feature will prove its usefulness every time a digital document requires your John Hancock.

You can access all of Preview's editing tools without opening Preview, as long as you're running macOS 10.14 Mojave or later. Just use QuickLook to view a PDF, then click on the Markup button in that mode.

The best PDF editor interface

(Image credit: Readdle)

5. PDF Expert

PDF editor with the cleanest interface

Cost: $80 one-time license purchase | Developer: Readdle | Compatibility: macOS | Category: PDF editor

Clean, easy-to-use interface

AI-powered Enhance feature

Editing tools appear when you need them and hide when you don't

Difficulties with larger files

Mac-only

Readdle's macOS-only PDF Expert is a popular PDF-editing tool that allows you to make changes to text in existing PDF documents by removing and replacing images, updating text, and adding text of your own. PDF Expert lacks OCR capabilities, so if you want to edit text in scanned documents, you'll need to look beyond this program.

Of all the apps I tested, PDF Expert has the cleanest interface and therefore was the most pleasant to use. Two tabs appear at the top of the screen: Annotate and Edit. Clicking one of them gives you an appropriate selection of tools to perform either annotation or editing tasks.

PDF Expert's editing tools are flawless. Click text in your PDF, and tools for editing text will slide out so you can make changes. Select an image, and tools for changing the image appear. You can move selected text anywhere on the page you want or remove it altogether.

PDF Expert struggles with large documents; otherwise, this would have been my top pick for Mac. However, every time I attempted to open my nearly 450-page test file, PDF Expert hung. Until this program behaves more dependably, look elsewhere if you tend to work with larger documents. There's also a Windows version in development and you can sign up to get notified when it's ready.

The best PDF editor for OCR

(Image credit: Wondershare)

6. PDFelement Pro

PDF editor with some quirks

Cost: $130/year | Developer: Wondershare | Compatibility: macOS, Windows, iOS, Android | Category: PDF editor

Opened and recognized text in every document

1 GB of cloud storage included

Lifetime license available

Bizarre text-editing behavior

Wondershare's PDFelement Pro is a full-featured PDF editor with an OCR engine for recognizing scanned text and a standard set of tools. With those, you can fill in forms, annotate documents, create and add signatures, and edit images within a document.

PDFelement had no problem opening anything I threw at it, including scanned documents, large files and image-heavy PDFs. Once documents are open, PDFelement Pro offers a fairly simple interface, with a set of tools on the left side of your document that are easy to figure out. Just select a tool, and you can go to work making changes to a file.

Editing images, adding signatures and using annotations in the application all worked as planned, but I did experience some odd behaviors when I was editing or adding text using PDFelement Pro. In particular, when I was editing existing text in a document, the application wanted to make the text bold and would not allow me to change the content back to regular text. Also, when I added new text boxes, my own text did not display normally; the program always added a space after I typed an apostrophe. And the program constantly played my Mac's system beep as I typed. That's both annoying and not optimal.

How we test PDF editors

We looked at both PDF editors and applications used for making annotations in PDFs. Every PDF editor can also annotate documents but dedicated PDF-annotation tools aren’t actually designed to make changes to any of the original content in a PDF document.

While testing each of these applications, we used a few different types of documents including large, text-heavy files, documents with a mix of formatted images and text and simple documents with text and images inserted into the document in a linear fashion. We tested features like text recognition (when supported) and we tried making changes to text, replacing and adding images and adding annotations.

When it comes to free PDF editors, we make note of the limitations that can come with free software. We also considered both general PDF editors as well as applications specifically designed for annotations. While free apps often don’t include features like text recognition, we did test this feature when it was available. We also tried making changes to text, replacing and adding images and adding notations to each product we tested.

How to choose the best PDF editor for you

The first question you should ask yourself when choosing a PDF editor is what you plan to do with it. If it’s just to mark up documents and add digital signatures, PDF annotation software will better suit your needs.

As there are many well-featured PDF annotation programs that are available for free, you can save yourself some money. For instance, as we mentioned, Mac users can save even more time since the Preview app that ships with Apple’s computers includes markup and signature tools.

It also doesn’t cost much, or even anything at all, to create a PDF. You can do so from a Word document or a web page, and also convert a PDF to a Word doc or a JPEG.

However, if you’re in the market for a full-fledged PDF editor that lets you manipulate text and create documents, consider what kinds of features you’ll need for PDF editing. Applications with good OCR capabilities will likely cost more but if you don’t need OCR, you may be able to make do with a free PDF editor.

While PDF editors are great for making changes or notes to documents, they’re not necessary if you simply want to view and read a PDF. For that, check out our list of the best PDF readers you can download.

Where to buy Microsoft Office — best deals in March 2023

louis.ramirez@futurenet.com (Louis Ramirez) — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 19:31:41 +0000

Where to buy Microsoft Office isn't as simple as it used to be. These days there are multiple ways to buy Microsoft Office 365. There are also various plans based on your needs. Microsoft has splintered its suite of services for home use, businesses, enterprise, and students.

As a reminder, Microsoft Office 365 includes Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher (PC only), and Access (PC only). Different plans might include additional services. For instance, the Microsoft Office 365 Business Standard plan includes SharePoint and Teams, whereas the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 only includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

To help you find the lowest price and best Microsoft Office deals — we're rounding up where to buy Microsoft Office online. While you could buy it directly from Microsoft, deal hunters know that retailers sometimes undercut manufacturer prices, which could wind up putting cash back in your wallet.

Where to buy Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription-based service. Personal plans go for $69.99/year when purchased from Microsoft. However, we've tracked deals that save money on your annual subscription. These Microsoft Office 365 deals are for personal (one person) plans and allow you to access Microsoft Office 365 from your computer, tablet, or mobile.

Where to buy Microsoft Office 2021

Although it's 2023, Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 remains the current, basic version of Microsoft Office. It's sold as a one-time purchase for $149.99 from Microsoft. However, various retailers offer Microsoft Office 2021 deals you can take advantage of. With students slowly heading back to school, Microsoft Office 2021 deals are in high demand. Currently, the best price comes courtesy of Amazon. Amazon has Microsoft Office 2021 on sale for $139.99. That's cheaper than Microsoft's direct price. Other deals are listed below.

Google Docs just got a big upgrade to help you ditch Office

tom.pritchard@futurenet.com (Tom Pritchard) — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 18:17:40 +0000

Update: Google Docs just got a handy spell check boost — here’s how it works.

Google Docs is getting the ability to edit Microsoft Office documents while offline, essentially paving the way for you to fully ditch any reliance on Microsoft's productivity software.

Google’s latest blog entry has confirmed Google Workspace, the suite that includes Google Docs, Drive, Sheets and more, now has the ability to edit Office files without being connected to the internet.

While Microsoft Office files have been compatible with Google Workspace without having to convert any filetypes, the option to work on your files offline is not to be sniffed at. That's because productivity shouldn't be reliant on an internet connection, regardless of what kind of file you’re actually using at the time.

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides will support offline work on Office files, and the whole process will work much the same as it does with Google filetypes. It only works with files that have been opened in Office editing mode, which essentially means you have opened them with a Google workspace app before.

You will also have to have enabled offline access, as you would with other files. This requires you to have the Google Docs Offline Chrome Extension installed in Chrome or Edge. To do that, go into the settings menu and hit the Gear icon in the top right, then select Settings and make sure Offline setting is switched on.

With that you should be able to access your files offline. Any changes you make to documents offline will sync with Google Drive when you reconnect to the internet.

Google Workspace’s ability to edit Office files offline began rolling out on June 27, with Google noting it could take up to 15 days to complete. So if you don’t have the option just yet, be patient and check back in a few days time. The feature will be available for personal Google accounts, as well as Workspace and Business customers.

Microsoft Office zero-day vulnerability can be used to attack your PC — what to do now

anthony.spadafora@futurenet.com (Anthony Spadafora) — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 23:48:45 +0000

A new zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Office that can be exploited by cybercriminals to distribute malware and other viruses on Windows PCs.

The bug was discovered by cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont and has since been given the name “Follina” It’s now being tracked as CVE-2022-30190 and Microsoft describes it as a Microsoft Windows Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) remote code execution vulnerability according to BleepingComputer.

Follina is particularly concerning, as this zero-day vulnerability affects all versions of Windows that are still receiving security updates. In a recent blog post, the Microsoft Security Response Center provided further details on the bug and how it can be used to attack systems running Windows 7 all the way up to Windows 11, saying:

“A remote code execution vulnerability exists when MSDT is called using the URL protocol from a calling application such as Word. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability can run arbitrary code with the privileges of the calling application. The attacker can then install programs, view, change, or delete data, or create new accounts in the context allowed by the user’s rights.”

Exploiting Follina using weaponized Word documents

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

As with any new zero-day, Follina is already being exploited in the wild and security researchers from Proofpoint have discovered that the Chinese state-sponsored threat actor TA413 has been using the vulnerability to target the international Tibetan community.

In a tweet, the company’s researchers explained that TA413 is using malicious URLs to deliver ZIP files that contain weaponized Word documents that exploit Follina. At the same time, MalwareHunterTeam also found Word files with Chinese filenames that are currently being used to install infostealers.

It’s worth noting that attacks exploiting Follina were spotted over a month ago when sextortion threats and invitations to do an interview with Sputnik radio were both used as lures according to BleepingComputer.

Microsoft has a workaround but there’s also an unofficial patch

As it stands now, Microsoft has not yet issued any security updates to address the Follina zero-day vulnerability. However, the software giant has come up with a workaround to help keep Windows PCs protected in the meantime.

The workaround involves disabling the MSDT URL protocol on Windows devices — you’ll first need to run Command Prompt as Administrator to start the process. From here, you need to use the command reg export HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ms-msdt ms-msdt.reg to back up your system’s registry key before executing the command reg delete HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ms-msdt /f.

If you do decide to go this route, you’ll need to undo the workaround by launching an elevated command prompt and executing the command reg import ms-msdt.reg once Microsoft releases an official patch.

Speaking of patches, opatch has also created free and unofficial micropatches for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. While we don’t recommend installing unofficial patches, those willing to take the risk will need to first register for an opatch account before installing the opatch agent. Once launched, the agent will automatically download and apply the patch on your Windows PC.

Now that cybercriminals and even state-sponsored hackers are actively exploiting Follina in their attacks, Microsoft will likely release an official patch soon. In the meantime though, the company’s workaround should be enough for most people to protect their PCs.

Google Docs is getting a big upgrade to save you time — here's how it works

tom.pritchard@futurenet.com (Tom Pritchard) — Thu, 26 May 2022 15:16:52 +0000

Update: Google Docs just got a handy spell check boost — here’s how it works.

If you’re a regular user of Google Docs, like me, then you’re going to be thrilled at the prospect of this latest upgrade. Google Docs is about to give you the ability to select multiple blocks of text at once. That has the potential to save you a lot of time during the editing process.

Imagine that you want to bold specific blocks of text, or need to copy blocks that are separated by something unnecessary. As it stands right now, Google Docs forces you to handle each batch of text separately. Or you can delete separate sections without having to hunt them down one at a time.

It’s not a huge time sink, but those extra fractions of seconds do add up if you’re working on a particularly large document. Google Docs’ new change means all you need to do is hold down the Control key, or Command ⌘ if you’re on a Mac, and select whatever text you like. So long as you keep that key held down, you can select whatever text you like and do as you please.

(Image credit: Google)

This isn’t the first productivity-inspired upgrade to Google Docs that’s been announced in recent months, either. Back in February, Google announced the upcoming launch of a “Smart Canvas” feature. Among the changes coming to Google Docs were pageless documents, which removed page breaks that would disrupt the flow of your work. It also prevented random blank spaces muddying up the aesthetic of your work.

Last month Google started reorganising Docs menus as well, with the goal of putting the tools you need in much easier-to-reach places. That particular update still appears to be in the process of rolling out, if my two Google accounts are anything to go by.

By comparison, the ability to select multiple blocks of text at once is pretty minor. But it’s the one thing I’ve always felt Google Docs lacked. Especially since it’s possible to use the Control/Command key to do similar things in various other bits of software.

It’s been a life-saver at organizing all the random stuff that winds up in my download folder, for instance. Without it I’d have to delete each dud file individually, rather than selecting them en masse and deleting them in one fell swoop.

According to Google this feature launched on May 25, and will have a gradual rollout that could take up to 15 days. So if you’re like me, and don’t have this multi-select feature just yet, have a little patience and keep your eyes open.

Google Docs is getting an upgrade to save you time

tom.pritchard@futurenet.com (Tom Pritchard) — Thu, 26 May 2022 15:15:30 +0000

Update: Google Docs just got a handy spell check boost — here’s how it works.

Google Docs is useful, but sifting through all those menus to find the setting or feature you want is a huge drag. Thankfully, Google has announced that it’s going to simplify the process. At least where hunting for the “most commonly used features” is concerned.

Among the changes Google plans to make are reorganizing menus for “more intuitive feature location," adding new icons to help you recognize key features more quickly and shortening the menus. All of these should combine to make the process of menu navigation much easier than it is right now.

The old Google Docs menus, which are set to be replaced (Image credit: Tom Pritchard/Tom's Guide)

According to Google this redesign “improves findability of key features, making it quicker and easier to use Docs.” Functionality isn’t actually changing, so you won’t experience any changes to how features work, nor will you have to learn any keyboard shortcuts.

One key example is the reorganization of the ‘File’ menu. The Share option has been moved further down the menu, meaning the very first thing you see is the option to open a new document.

The new Google Docs menu system (Image credit: Tom Pritchard/Tom's Guide)

The rollout of these changes has already started. The revamped menus are available on my personal Google account, but not my work account. However, a new feature called “Approvals” has appeared on my work account, but not my personal one. So this feature may well be independent of the ongoing Google Docs revamp.

The new Approvals setting (Image credit: Tom Pritchard/Tom's Guide)

Approvals appears to be a feature that emails access to a third party, with a due date and the option to let them edit the document in question. The approver can then make edits and leave comments. There’s also the option to approve or reject the document, with approval locking the document from further changes unless the owner deliberately unlocks it.

Another change implemented in Google Docs is that the “Add-ons” menu is now called “Extensions." It’s a very minor change, and won’t have any impact on your workflow, but it’s worth bearing in mind if you happen to rely on any extra tools when you’re working.

The change is coming to all Google users, including Google Workspace and personal Google accounts. Rollout has already started, and is expected to be complete by the end of May.

Also, Google Drive just got the copy and paste upgrade that will make your life easier.

How to change case in Google Docs

peter.wolinski@futurenet.com (Peter Wolinski) — Mon, 16 May 2022 07:10:44 +0000

Update: Google Docs is now letting you select separate blocks of text - here's what you need to know

As a writer, knowing how to change case in Google Docs is incredibly helpful. There are times when I want to quickly caps everything up to express something in a shouty manner. There are times when I want to change headlines into title case for emphasis and style. And there are also times, I admit, where I've typed out entire paragraphs while staring at my keyboard rather than my screen (yes — oblivious to the Caps Lock LED) and have subsequently needed to change almost everything back to lower case. Once upon a time, all of these situations required retyping everything out again. But no longer.

Google's work processor, Docs, is great at many things. It's great at being free, for one. It's great if you work collaboratively, for another. And it's also great at saving you time, as it's packed full of features and shortcuts to enable you to save precious seconds when furiously typing out that urgent document. The ability to change cases with just a few clicks is one of those shortcuts, and this guide is here to show you how to do it.

If you're looking for expert recommendations on productivity hardware and software, make sure you check out our guides to the best business laptops, best small business website builders and best business VPN services.

How to change case in Google Docs

Highlight the text you want to change case
Select Format from the top menu
Hover over the Text option until the Text menu appears
Hover over the Capitalization option until the Capitalization menu appears
Click lower case, UPPER CASE or Title Case as required

(Image credit: Future)

There you go — that's how you change cases quickly using Google Docs. Simple, but very effective.

If you're looking for more useful guides, you're in the right place: check out our tutorials on how to split your screen on Mac, how to mirror an iPhone's screen on PC, how to enable clipboard history on Windows 11 and how to record video calls on Zoom, Skype and Google Meet.

Google Docs just got emojis — here's how to use them

tony.polanco@futurenet.com (Tony Polanco) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 15:11:15 +0000

Emojis are coming to Google Docs, according to an announcement post Google published Tuesday (April 5). You can currently add emojis to the body of a Google Doc, but this feature will let you react to highlighted text with emojis using the Google sidebar. “The new emoji reactions feature provides a less formal alternative to comments to express your opinions about document content,” says Google.

Emojis will be enabled by default and can’t be disabled. You can access them in Google Docs by hovering over any message and clicking the “Add reaction” icon on the left-hand side of a document. Emoji preferences are shared with Google Chat and any preferences set in one app will be reflected in the other. You can use both apps to update emoji preferences via the picker. You can learn more about emoji reactions here.

You can react with emojis via the "Add Reaction" icon on the left-hand side of Google Docs. (Image credit: Google)

On Tuesday (April 5) Google began rolling out the update to folks who access Google Docs on a rapid release domain, an optional fast track that admins (including you, if you care to) can enable to get Google App updates earlier than normal. Emojis will then be launched gradually on scheduled release domains (the default Google Apps setting, which gives you at least 1 weeks' notice before new features drop) starting on April 20. The company notes that it may take 15 days for the feature to become visible for everyone, so don't fret if you don't see the new emoji right away. They will be available to all Google Workspace users, legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and folks with personal Google accounts.

Like many, I use Google Docs both for work and my personal life. It will be nice to simply drop an emoji to some comments rather than replying. Given the prevalence of emojis, I’m surprised it took this long for Google to incorporate them into Google Docs reactions. After all, it’s not just businesses that use Google Docs.

However, keep in mind that you won’t be able to turn off emoji reactions. This could obviously change in the future, but for now, you may have to deal with colleagues potentially abusing the feature. I apologize to my coworkers and friends in advance.

Google Docs is getting a serious upgrade to boost your productivity

tom.pritchard@futurenet.com (Tom Pritchard) — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 12:32:26 +0000

Update: Google Docs just got a handy spell check boost — here’s how it works.

Google’s online services are enjoying a bit of an upgrade spree at the moment. Gmail is getting a big redesign and Gdrive is getting a big search upgrade to save you time. And now Google Docs and Sheets are both going to see some major changes as well.

The upgrade is officially called “Smart canvas” and is designed to help boost your productivity. The new features here include the option to add a summary to your document, and offering other readers an overview of what’s involved.

(Image credit: Google)

New pageless documents

Also incoming are pageless documents, and an AI-powered system that lets you blend multiple tools together and promotes additional ways of remote collaboration. Considering how people are increasingly working from remote locations, these sorts of changes are going to be crucial if people are going to effectively work together virtually.

The great thing about pageless documents is that those meddlesome page breaks won’t end up disrupting the flow of your work. That makes it easier to include images, tables, and other non-text content that would otherwise cause an ugly split or excessive blank space.

(Image credit: Google)

However, you will be able to restore page breaks, should you ever need to print a document or convert it to a more page-centric format like PDF.

Google Docs is also going to let you select the text width of a document, with narrow, medium, and wide options to choose from. The pageless format will likewise be able to fit whatever sized screen you’re using.

These features are all rolling out now. A new easy-access email draft template, which lets you click a single button to export content into a Gmail draft, will be arriving “in the coming weeks."

Google Sheets upgrades

(Image credit: Google)

Meanwhile, Sheets is enhancing its AI-generated formula suggestions, with something Google says is more akin to autocorrect. But for math, instead of innocently trying to filter out your excessive cursing.

Officially “coming soon," this new feature promises to help users troubleshoot their formulas, and spot any pesky errors ahead of time.

Microsoft is blocking these macros in Office to boost your PC security

Paul Wagenseil — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 22:06:55 +0000

Microsoft is making a small change in the way that Office files downloaded from the internet are handled on PCs — but the change should lead to a huge improvement in computer security.

Specifically, Microsoft said in a blog post last week, it is making it harder to run macros, tiny but powerful scripts — really mini-programs — that can be embedded into Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint, Access and Visio files.

"We will continue to adjust our user experience for macros, as we've done here, to make it more difficult to trick users into running malicious code via social engineering while maintaining a path for legitimate macros to be enabled where appropriate via Trusted Publishers and/or Trusted Locations," said Microsoft manager Tristan Davis in the blog post.

The change will begin rolling out in April for users on the Office Preview version 2203. It will then spread to regular consumer and business users and older versions of Office, all the way back to Office 2013, over the next couple of years. Microsoft Office on Macs, Android or iOS devices or the web-based Office won't be affected.

"This is potentially a game changer for the cybersecurity industry and, more importantly, customers," tweeted Windows security expert Kevin Beaumont.

This is potentially a game changer for the cybersecurity industry and, more importantly, customers. The world has changed since VBA was around. It’s a big deal to fix this.It needs to be widely available within a year, and backported to supported non-O365 versions too.February 7, 2022

Let's say your company has a new name, and so you write a small script that at the click of a mouse changes all instances of "Acme Enterprises" in a Word doc to "Weyland-Yutani Corporation" — that's a macro.

Convenient, right? That's why Microsoft has let Office users write and use macros since the mid-1990s. But hackers quickly began to use macros to spray malware, steal passwords and create remote backdoors in computer systems.

Malicious macros inserted into innocent-looking Word and Excel files that can be emailed are downloaded are now responsible for a huge chunk of hacking attacks. Beaumont estimates that 25% of ransomware attacks begin with a macro.

Microsoft belatedly caught on to this abuse, so with Office 2007 it introduced what it called "Protected View" for files downloaded from websites or received as email attachments.

Among other things, Protected View disables macros until the user ( i.e., you) clicks a button labeled "Enable Content" in a yellow bar that says "Security Warning: Macros have been disabled" stretching across the top of the open document or spreadsheet. You've probably seen it.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Well, Protected View hasn't been enough. Many people view it as an inconvenience rather than a security feature and just click Enable Content anyway. Or hackers trick you into clicking it by instructing you to do so in order to see some amazing or important content. (Here's an example of malware that uses poisoned Office files to spread.)

So Microsoft is changing the color of that bar across the document from yellow to red, and changing its text to "SECURITY RISK: Microsoft has blocked macros from running because the source of this file is untrusted."

(Image credit: Microsoft)

It won't let you enable macros until you click a button labeled "Learn More" — no more Enable Content — and read a Microsoft web page that explains why doing so is a really bad idea.

If you insist on running the macros, the page shows you how, but it's a pain in the patootie. You have to save the file to disk, browse to it in Windows Explorer, right-click the file to view Properties and check "Unblock" in a security setting.

That's definitely going to annoy some Office users. Microsoft is hoping most of them won't bother to enable macros from now on. But it's going to be better overall for the safety and security of all Windows users.

How to use Microsoft Word for free

dale.fox@futurenet.com (Dale Fox) — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 12:54:52 +0000

Though Microsoft Office has for years been associated with either a one-off charge or subscription fee, it's possible to use Microsoft Word for free, as well as other Microsoft Office apps, such as PowerPoint and Excel.

Even if you pick up one of the best computers, Microsoft Office is rarely included as part of the deal. Not even the flagship Microsoft Surface Pro 8 or Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio come with Microsoft Office as standard.

However, there's a simple and easy way to use Microsoft Word for free, as detailed in our guide below, that's applicable to practically any device with a browser.

How to use Microsoft Word for free on your computer

Similar to Google Docs, Microsoft offers its own browser-based version of Word. As it works in an internet browser, you can use a Windows or MacOS computer to access it, or even a smartphone or tablet.

1. In your browser, head to the Microsoft Office homepage and sign in — you'll need to create a Microsoft account if you don't already have one. Once you're signed in, simply click the Microsoft Word logo on the left-hand side of the page, then click "New blank document" to get going.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

2. Once you've finished creating your Word document, click "File" in the top-left corner to see your sharing or saving options.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

3. To save the file, click "Save as." Then, to save it in the cloud to your Microsoft account, click "Save as," on the right. Or to download a copy to your device, click "Download a Copy."

(Image credit: Microsoft)

You can also use Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft Office apps in your browser. Just navigate back to the Microsoft Office homepage and click the icon for the app you want to use on the left-hand side.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

How to use Microsoft Word for free on an Android or iOS device

While Microsoft Office works just fine in a browser on a smartphone or tablet, iOS and Android have their own native apps that make the experience a lot more intuitive. To get the Microsoft Office app on your iPhone or iPad, you can download it from the App Store. To download it on your Android device, head to the Play Store.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Now you're all set to use Microsoft Word for free, take a look at how to save a Word document as a PDF, how to track changes in Word, how to sign a Word document and how to delete a page in Microsoft Word.

You might also find our guides to how to upgrade to Windows 11 from Windows 10 or how to enable God Mode in Windows 11 or 10 helpful. Or if you're running a Mac, check out how to use macOS — essential tips and tricks.

Google Calendar is down for some users — what you need to know

tom.pritchard@futurenet.com (Tom Pritchard) — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 10:01:19 +0000

Have you been having issues accessing Google Calendar on your desktop this morning? Well you’re not alone. Widespread issues are being reported from users trying to access the system through their desktop.

While the Google Calendar mobile app appears to be working just fine, the desktop site is throwing up an ‘Error 500’ error for many people. Which doesn’t tell us a great deal of information beyond the fact access to the service is completely borked.

Google’s own status page doesn’t reveal any additional information either, with green lights showing across the board. However all of us at Tom’s Guide are experiencing the problem first hand. Reports at Down Detector would also agree.

Google Calendar isn’t the only service seemingly affected, or at least not in the U.K., where there are reported issues with Google search and Gmail. Fortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case in the U.S., though this may just be because the east coast is still fast asleep.

A problem accessing Google Calendar isn’t the end of the world, especially since the mobile app may still be working for some people. But it might get in the way of whatever meetings you had planned this morning, in which case you should try to find alternate arrangements, such as sending access links out via a non-Gmail email client or Slack.

Hopefully the issue will be sorted out fairly soon, but we’ll update if any new information comes to light. In the meantime, hang tight and try not to be too excited about the prospect of missing all those video call meetings.

How to get dark mode in Google Docs

millie.daviswilliams@futurenet.com (Millie Davis-Williams) — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 07:00:01 +0000

If you don’t know how to get dark mode in Google Docs then you're missing out on a key viewing option.

That's because as everyone knows, dark mode is great. It's easier on the eyes, particularly at night, and also reduces power consumption, meaning you can work late into the night on Google Docs without your phone or laptop battery running out. Plus, dark mode can also reduce the amount of blue light your eyes take in, which is said to help improve sleep. Oh, and it also just looks cool.

Don't know what dark mode is? Where have you been living the past few years. But in case you missed it, dark mode basically just turns your screen from white to a darker colour, usually black or grey — and it’s a great feature to have, no matter what app you’re using it on.

You can easily turn on dark mode in many operating systems and apps — and our guides to how to turn on Chrome dark mode, how to use Facebook dark mode and how to turn on Google Maps dark mode are all good starting points.

The process for turning on Google Docs dark mode on iOS and Android is also pretty simple, but it's not entirely obvious how to do it on desktop. Fortunately, there is a workaround, and we'll show you what it is here. Read on to find out how to get dark mode in Google Docs, whatever device you're using.

How to get dark mode in Google Docs on Android or iOS

1. Open Google Docs.

2. Hit the hamburger menu icon in the top left corner.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Select “Settings” from the list.

(Image credit: Future)

4. Select “Choose Theme”.

(Image credit: Future)

5. Select “Dark” to turn on dark mode.

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6. You’ll now be able to view your documents in dark mode.

See, told you it was easy on mobile. Note also that Google gives you the option to use your system default, meaning that it'll just follow whatever approach you take for iOS or Android as a whole.

(Image credit: Future)

How to get dark mode in Google Docs on laptop or desktop

Although there’s no built-in way to get Google Docs in dark mode on a computer, there are a few workarounds. One of these involves using Chrome Flags, but we'd avoid this as there's a far simpler method involving a Chrome extension that does the job for you.

1. Head to the Chrome Store and download the Google Docs dark mode extension.

2. Open Google Docs, and hit the jigsaw icon next to the search bar on Google Chrome.

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3. Choose the Google Docs dark mode extension. You should now see the dark mode sliders — click them to turn dark mode on or off. You can do this individually for the background and the pages on the document, with the top slider controlling background and the bottom one the page itself.

(Image credit: Future)

More Google tips

Need more help using Google services? We have tutorials to help you.

Check out how to set a homepage on Chrome, and how to block a website in Chrome. We’ll also show you how to check Google storage usage and how to find coordinates on Google Maps. Plus, we have a guide to the best Google Chrome extensions that may come in handy.

Google Calendar will now tell you how much time meetings suck from your life

imad.khan@futurenet.com (Imad Khan) — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 06:30:27 +0000

Meetings have always been a dreaded part of work culture. And if your boss is like the one on The Office, meetings can also be a massive waste of time. Google Calendar is hoping to give users more data on how much time meetings take away from their lives.

Per a Google Workspace blog post, the company is unveiling Time Insights for Google Calendar. As the name suggests, the feature gives users a breakdown of exactly how much time they spend in meetings.

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Time Insights is not available to all users, however. At the moment, Time Insights will be available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Nonprofits customers. The feature will roll out gradually over the next 15 to 20 days.

Google credits the new feature to the change in work culture at the start of the pandemic early last year. This is supposedly an initiative by Google to allow workers to have more control over their work lives.

"Some people have more meetings and may feel less control over how their work time is spent. Time Insights can show you this data, and help you plan your time better," the Google blog post reads.

Time Insights will now give users a time breakdown based on working hours and the types of meetings had. Other data includes time spent in meetings, frequency of meetings and who people spend the most time meeting with.

(Image credit: Google)

Interestingly, this data can only be viewed by the employee and not managers or bosses. This is so employees "can assess how you’re spending your time against your own priorities." Although, employees can grant managers sharing access so that they too can view an individual's time insights.

It's also up to admins to enable Time Insights for employees. (There's no admin control for Business Standard domains).

Google is doing a gradual rollout of Time Insights. From August 30 and over the next 13 days, Admins will begin gaining access to the feature. Employee rollout will start on September 6 and take 15 days. But this is only for domains on the Rapid Release schedule. Everyone else should start seeing their rollout start on September 20, taking 15 days to reach all users.

Time insights is not available to those on Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, G Suite Basic and Business customers.

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How to change line spacing in Word

james.archer@futurenet.com (James Archer) — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 11:27:34 +0000

If you’ve used Office before, you may already know how to change line spacing in Word, at least on a very basic level: the “Styles” box on the Home tab can act as a very prominent switch between standard and zero spacing. But did you know you can also adjust the space between lines to a much finer degree?

In this guide, we’ll show you how to take full control of line spacing in Word, enabling you to make your documents more easily readable with extra space — or to fit more text on each page by closing the gaps.

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There are several reasons why you may want to increase the vertical spacing between lines, or alternatively, narrow or remove that space. Greater line spacing can make a document easier to read, so could be useful for writing scripts, while tighter spacing can save you printer paper by squeezing additional text onto each page.

Word’s default spacing is 1.08 lines, so the gap between each line is very slightly larger than single-spaced. In this guide we’ll show you how to quickly change line spacing throughout your document, as well as how to adjust spacing for specific paragraphs.

How to change line spacing in Word

1. In Word, open the “Design” tab and click “Paragraph Spacing.”

(Image credit: Future)

2. To quickly change the line spacing for the entire document, simply click one of the six “Built-In” spacing options.

From top to bottom, these range from zero spacing (“No Paragraph Space”) to double spacing (“Double”), with single spacing represented by the “Compact” option.

If there’s already text in the document, it will dynamically change as you hover your mouse over each option, so check which one you like best before clicking it.

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3. You can also tweak spacing for individual paragraphs or sections. To do this, highlight the section you want to edit, then open the “Home” tab. Then, in the “Paragraph” section, click the “Line and Paragraph Spacing” icon.

(Image credit: Future)

4. Click “Line Spacing Options.”

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5. Under “Spacing,” adjust the “Before” value to select the size of the spacing that will go immediately before your highlighted text, and adjust the “After” value to select the size of the spacing immediately after it.

You can also use the “Line spacing” drop-down menu to adjust general line spacing for the highlighted section. This will override the selection you made in step 2. Finally, click “OK.”

(Image credit: Future)

Stay tuned for more tips on using Microsoft Office software; you can also check out our guides on how to convert a PDF to Excel and how to use VLOOKUP in Excel.

More: How to delete a page in Microsoft Word

How to track changes in Word

james.archer@futurenet.com (James Archer) — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 10:39:39 +0000

Microsoft Word isn’t just for writing documents by yourself. If you know how to track changes in Word, it becomes ideal for collaborating on files with your colleagues, as any amendments will be highlighted and be much easier to spot.

This, in turn, provides a platform on which to review others’ changes, suggest edits of your own and even comment on specific passages. In this guide, we’ll show you how to all of these Track Changes features in Word.

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While you can use the Track Changes tool to leave notes for yourself, it’s mainly designed for collaborating on documents with multiple authors. You can either save a copy of a document with tracked changes included, which you can then email or otherwise share, or simply leave your changes in a cloud storage copy that all authors can access at once.

Either way, tracking your changes is usually better than simply making direct edits because it helps colleagues understand where and why you made an amendment. The comments feature also encourages collaboration as it lets you start a discussion on potential changes, and not just make unilateral edits.

How to track changes in Word: Turn Track Changes on and off

1. In Word, open the “Review” tab. Then, click “Track Changes,” then “Track Changes” in the drop-down menu that appears. Alternatively, just press Ctrl + Shift + E.

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2. The “Track Changes” button in the toolbar will be highlighted to show that tracked changes are active. To stop tracking changes, simply repeat step 1 and check that the button is no longer highlighted.

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How to track changes in Word: Show or hide tracked changes

1. By default, Word won’t show tracked changes in the text itself. Instead it will leave small markers within the margins, aligned to wherever in the text a change was made.

Click these markers to show the changes — text edits are marked with a small red line, and comments by a speech bubble. Clicking again will hide them.

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2. Alternatively, you can set tracked changes to always appear within the document; deleted text, for example, will be visible with strikethroughs.

To enable this feature, click the “Review” tab then, next to the “Track Changes” button, click “Show Markup.”

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3. Move your cursor over “Balloons,” then click “Show All Revisions Inline.” Note that even with this setting, you can still hide changes by clicking their corresponding marker in the left margin.

(Image credit: Future)

How to track changes in Word: Write, resolve and delete comments

1. To create a comment, highlight a section of text and click the “New Comment” button when it appears.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Write your comment and click off the comment box to save it.

(Image credit: Future)

3. To mark a comment as resolved, right-click the section of text that was highlighted for the comment and click “Resolve Comment.”

Alternatively, you can click “Delete Comment” from the same menu, to remove it entirely.

(Image credit: Future)

How to track changes in Word: Accept or reject changes

1. Right-click on any inserted or deleted text; it helps to have the “Show All Revisions Inline” setting selected for this.

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2. Click “Accept” or “Reject” for that specific insertion or deletion. Accepting a change will add the text to the document and cease tracking it, while rejecting a change will undo it.

Again, it will no longer be tracked unless someone else makes the same change.

(Image credit: Future)

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How to convert a PDF to Excel

james.archer@futurenet.com (James Archer) — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 12:08:52 +0000

PDFs are notoriously difficult to edit, so if you’re ever handed tables or lists in this format, it will be worth knowing how to convert a PDF to Excel. That’s exactly what this guide will show you how to do, and without the need to buy or install any additional software.

As with just about any file conversion process, the results won’t always perfectly replicate the formatting of the original document — but with a fully editable Excel file, it will be much easier to make any necessary amendments.

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As in our guide on how to convert a PDF to Word, we’ll turn to ILovePDF to handle conversion duties. This web-based tool is free to use and produces relatively good results.

Manually converting a PDF to Excel is necessary because you can’t simply force Windows to open PDFs to open in the Excel app. Well, you can, but the resulting spreadsheet will be unrecognizable from the original document, with random-looking code all over the place. At least forcibly opening a PDF with Word produces something that vaguely resembles the original.

How to convert a PDF to Excel

1. Navigate to ILovePDF in your browser and click the “PDF to Excel” section.

(Image credit: Future)

2. Click “Select PDF file” and select the PDF you want to convert, or drag and drop the file onto this page.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Leave the “No OCR” option selected (it should be by default) and click “Convert to Excel.”

(Image credit: Future)

4. After a few seconds, the conversion process should be complete. Click “Download Excel” to download your converted file.

(Image credit: Future)

Now that you have the converted Excel file, you can open it and start editing; you may need to click “Enable Editing” when prompted, but only the first time you open the file.

Be sure to check for any formatting irregularities, because while ILovePDF does a great job of converting text and data without mistakes, things like text wrapping and table borders might need to be tweaked to your liking.

For more easy help around using Microsoft Office software, you can read our guides on how to save a Word document as a PDF and how to sign a Word document.

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How to use VLOOKUP in Excel

james.archer@futurenet.com (James Archer) — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 11:48:34 +0000

Knowing how to use VLOOKUP in Excel can be extremely useful when you’re dealing with huge tables. It’s not just like using Ctrl+F to search for a specific word or number: VLOOKUP searches a specific, user-defined range, and returns data associated with the lookup term as opposed to the term itself.

Say you need to find the price for a certain item, or want to find out which colleague is working on a specific project. As long as it’s organized by row, like any self-respecting Excel table should be, VLOOKUP can find the data you need.

Using VLOOKUP does require punching in a formula, but doesn’t demand expert algebraic knowledge. To demonstrate how it works as simply as possible, we’ll walk you through an example where we use VLOOKUP to find out a person’s working hours; as you’ll see in the images, it’s only a small table, but this process works (and is intended) for much bigger tables and ranges.

There are also a couple of terms to get familiar with. “Lookup value” is, effectively, our search term: the word, phrase or data that we’ll have VLOOKUP search for. “Return value” is like a search result: it’s the data that VLOOKUP will fetch and present, having found it sorted with the lookup value by row. For VLOOKUP to work, the column containing the lookup value should be to the left of the column containing the return value, so shuffle around your table if they're not in the optimal order.

How to use VLOOKUP in Excel

1. Write the lookup value in one cell, then click on an empty cell adjacent to it.

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2. In the formula bar, type “=VLOOKUP(“ without spaces.

(Image credit: Future)

3. Click on the cell containing the lookup value you entered. Again, this should be to the left of the empty cell you originally clicked. Note how the cell number — in our example, A10 — now appears in the formula bar.

(Image credit: Future)

4. In the formula bar, type “,” then click and drag to select the cells you want to search through. This creates the “range” within which VLOOKUP will find the data you want: the return value.

(Image credit: Future)

5. This is where it gets a bit tricky, since the process involves breaking with how Excel normally identifies columns with letters rather than numbers. Here, you need to mentally assign numbers to each column you have highlighted in your range: in our example, we’ve highlighted the A and B columns, and will number then as 1 and 2 respectively. If, hypothetically, you were to highlight the C, D and E columns, you'd number them 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

With the range highlighted, continue typing in the formula bar. This time, enter “,” followed by the “number” of the column that’s likely to contain the return value. For our example, although we’re looking for a name that matches one in column A, what we’re really looking for is the data in column B, so we’re going to type “2” after the comma.

(Image credit: Future)

6. Type “,” immediately followed by “FALSE” to find an exact match within the range.

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7. Press the Enter key on your keyboard, and the return value data will appear in the cell you selected during step 1.

(Image credit: Future)

This covers how to use VLOOKUP on a basic level; just remember to keep your data organized so that the more easily memorable lookup value is to the left of the return value.

For more on getting the most out of Microsoft Office apps, check out our guides on how to how to sign a Word document, how to convert a PDF to Excel and how to save a Word document as a PDF.

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How to save a Word document as a PDF

james.archer@futurenet.com (James Archer) — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 10:42:06 +0000

It’s worth knowing how to save a Word document as a PDF, especially if you need to share your creations with contacts and colleagues. Unlike Word’s default DOCX file type, PDFs don’t require proprietary software to open without conversion. They’re also better suited for high-quality printing than DOCX files.

The good news is that saving Word documents as PDFs is no more difficult than saving them as DOCX. Just follow our guide below and you’ll be able to create your PDFs in seconds.

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Because you can perform the entire process within Word, there’s no need for any file conversion software. You don’t even need your document to be saved in DOCX first, though it might be useful to keep a copy as backup since PDF files aren’t easily editable.

Either way, all you need is Microsoft Word, so just follow the steps below to start saving your documents as PDF files.

How to save a Word document as a PDF

1. In the top-left corner of Word, click “File.”

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2. Click “Save As.”

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3. Check the current save file location; you can find this up on the right, just above the file name and file type fields. If you’re happy saving to this folder, click the file type field and select “PDF (*.pdf)." Then, click “Save.”

(Image credit: Future)

4. If you want to save your PDF to a different folder, or in a OneDrive cloud storage folder, first click on one of the “Other locations” options. You can also select “OneDrive – Personal," if you have an account already set up.

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5. Click “Browse” to save to a different folder on your PC. Navigate to your preferred folder, then click on the “Save as type” field and select “PDF.”

(Image credit: Future)

6. Click “Save.”

(Image credit: Future)

Once you save your Word document as a PDF, it should appear in whatever your default app for opening PDFs is. If you need to make amendments, you can always go back to the original Word document, make the changes then repeat the steps above to save it as a new PDF. Alternatively, with one of the best PDF editors you could tweak your new file directly.

For more Microsoft Word tips and tricks, be sure to check out our guides on how to sign a Word document, how to delete a page in Word and — if you want to go the other way — how to convert a PDF to Word. You can also learn how to convert a PDF to Excel and how to convert JPG to PDF on Windows PC and Mac.

Microsoft Office is getting a big makeover for Windows 11 and ARM

tom.pritchard@futurenet.com (Tom Pritchard) — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 09:55:35 +0000

Windows 11 is coming, and it’s naturally coming with a whole bunch of upgrades to improve the general Windows experience, among them is a native 64-bit ARM version of Office.

Not just that, but Office will also be getting a brand new redesign, which is long overdue. Though this change is available on the Office beta for Windows 10 as well, just in case your PC doesn’t support Windows 11.

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According to Microsoft, the 64-bit ARM Office has been designed specifically for Windows on ARM. It’s also been recompiled for ARM’s RISC architecture and promises to run faster, offer more memory, and has better support for larger documents. Plus it’ll be compatible with existing 64-bit Office add-ins, thanks to Windows’ new x64 emulation abilities.

Frankly it’s about time Microsoft got round to launching 64-Bit Office on ARM for Windows. Especially since a similar version of Office has been available for MacBooks with the Apple M1 chip since last year. It may still be in beta, but this is a good start.

64-bit Office on ARM is currently available for those running the Windows 11 Insiders Preview, though not all Office software is available in ARM-optimized form. Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word are enabled as ARM64 right now, which should cover the majority of general Office users.

Other Office apps will be available usingx64 emulation, and will run the same way they did on Intel-based machines.

64-bit Office on ARM requirements

Of course, like any software, running 64-bit Office on ARM will rely on you having the right hardware for the job. For that reason Microsoft has outlined some system requirements that you can check to make sure you’re going to be able to run this new version.

Have a Windows device running on an ARM processor.
Have a machine running a Windows 11 Insider Preview Build.
There are no 32-bit versions of Office installed on your machine.

How to install 64-bit Office on ARM

Install Office using the most recent installer on office.com.
Join the Office Insider program and update to the current beta channel build.

Provided you meet all the above criteria, and are running the Windows 11 preview on ARM hardware, Office will automatically install the ARM-optimized version of Office. It’s possible to check which version you’re running by checking the ‘Details’ tab in the Task Manager:

(Image credit: Microsoft office)

How to check your PC has an ARM processor

Find the Windows search box and type Settings.
Click System > About.
When you find the Device Specifications section, check System type.
If the entry includes the words ‘ARM-based processor’ you’re good to go. If not, you’re out of luck.

What about the Office redesign?

The Office redesign is currently available for Windows 10 users and Windows 11 Insiders running an Office beta channel build. Activating it is also as simple as turning it off in the Coming Soon feature.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Simply click the megaphone icon in the top right corner to open this menu, and you’ll be able to read about the redesign and activate it in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. It can also be turned off again if you change your mind.

The redesign is all based on Fluent Design principles, and built to offer an intuitive and familiar user interface across Office apps. That means your entire Office experience is a more consistent, seamless experience. Naturally it also utilizes user feedback to make improvements to your workflow, which you’ll be able to experience when you switch it on for yourself.

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Look out, Slack — Google is uniting its Workplace apps with Smart Canvas

alex.wawro@futurenet.com (Alex Wawro) — Tue, 18 May 2021 18:01:59 +0000

Collaborating remotely using Google products should get a little easier soon thanks to Smart Canvas, which aims to better integrate Google Workspace products like Google Meet, Google Sheets, and Google Docs.

Essentially, Google is pitching a future where all of its Workspace apps work better together. During his keynote at Google I/O today company CEO Sundar Pichai said Smart Canvas features that mimic contemporary remote collaboration tools like Slack will be added to Google Workspace apps from now through the fall. For example, you'll be able to type an @ symbol before someone's name in a collaborative Google Doc to notify and assign them to a task or start a Google Meet call directly from a shared Google Doc.

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Smart Canvas: Smart chips

When you type @ before someone's name in a Google Doc you'll now see what Google is calling a "smart chip" — basically a pop-up window that shows you more info about that person and offers you an algorithmically-generated list of relevant files, meetings, and people.

Smart Canvas: Google Sheets

These smart chips will arrive in Google Sheets later this year, which is also getting improvements like a new timeline view which lets you dynamically schedule tasks tracked by category, owner, campaign, or other attributes.

Smart Canvas: Google Docs

In addition to smart chips, Google Docs is getting updated with a new feature that lets you create checklists and assign items on them to other collaborators, assignments which will automatically appear in their Google Tasks list.

(Image credit: Google)

Google Docs will also get a new pageless format, some new table templates (including one for tallying collaborators' votes on specific topics), and a new document template designed to make taking meeting notes simple, with support for importing data from Google Calendar and attendees' smart chips.

Smart Canvas: Google Meet

Google Meet calls will become more closely integrated with other Workspace products via Smart Canvas, and starting today you can present Google Docs/Sheets/Slides content directly into a Google Meet call.

A demo of how Smart Canvas will unite products like Google Docs and Google Meet (Image credit: Google)

This fall, Docs, Sheets, and Slides will be updated with tighter Google Meet support, which in plain terms means you'll be able to start calls from within those apps and keep participants' videos up live alongside whatever document you're collaborating on.

Google is also updating Google Meet's live captioning and translation features — live captions in five languages are currently offered, with more due later this year, as well as live translations of captions.

Smart Canvas: Outlook

It would be hard not to feel a sense of familiarity about Google Smart Canvas. It's got a hint of long-dead project Google Wave to it.

Introduced 11 years ago, Google Wave was supposed to be a new approach to project management. Designed to tie media, chat and project management together it caused a lot of excitement at the time. However it never took off, and Google handed the project to Apache in December 2010. Apache kept Wave in its incubator for eight years, finally shutting it down in 2018.

Perhaps Wave was ahead of its time, but with the global pandemic we've certainly needed to find new ways of working together. Perhaps now is the time for Google's new collaboration tool, which may well be the result of what it learned with Wave.

Google Docs and Drive are back online after outage — here's what happened

roland.moore-colyer@futurenet.com (Roland Moore-Colyer) — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 17:16:47 +0000

You can now use Google Docs and other Google Drive services as normal, as the partial outage Google's productivity suite had been suffering is over.

Earlier today, trying to create a new Google Doc threw up an error message after an unusually long loading time. Google's message advised users to try refreshing and to be patient as it tried to fix the problem. We tried this and it didn't work at the time, but now it appears the Google Docs and other affected services, like Sheets and Slides, are all running fine.

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We don't know what exactly caused the issue, but as Google Drive is a cloud-based service it would appear something went wrong on Google's side.

“On April 12, as of 9:20 Pacific Time, we resolved an issue with creating new and copying existing Google Docs, Slides and Sheets within Google Workspace and Google Workspace for Education accounts. More details can be found on the Workspace Status Dashboard.” a Google spokesperson told us.

At the time, when trying to create a new Google Doc, within the Google Drive in Chrome or the Docs app in the browser, the page took a long time to load and then serves up an error message. "Google Docs encountered an error,” a message from the Google Docs Team said. “Please try reloading this page, or coming back to it in a few minutes.”

However, we found you could still write and edit existing documents. But that was hardly ideal for people who rely on Google Docs for their daily work.

Unfortunately, t the time, the only solution was to wait for Google to fix the problem or use other world processing services or productivity tools. If you’re on Windows 10 then Microsoft Word is available, as is the Office suite. But if you wanted a free service OpenOffice offers a solid word processor. And on macOS there’s the Pages app.

Google fixed the problem rather quickly. But it’s another good sign that no matter how useful cloud-powered services are, particularly when it comes to saving and sharing files and folders, when they go down, that one major disruption can completely upend workflows.

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Keep your small business safe: Upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business with Dell today

Sponsored — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 13:26:23 +0000

Is your business running on an older version of Windows? With Dell, you can upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business, protect your business from cyber threats and get access to incredible new features, all while saving you a ton of dough. The Dell Technologies account team makes this upgrade smooth and painless, giving you 24/7 support and a dedicated team of Microsoft 365 technical support engineers.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft 365 Business: Protection from cyberthreats

Microsoft 365 Business comes with over 900 built-in controls to help you stay on top of the ever-evolving digital landscape. With over 50 global, U.S. government, industry, and regional certifications, you can trust Microsoft 365 to protect your business. With all the added protection of Microsoft 365 Defender, you won’t need a degree in cybersecurity to protect your business and data.

Microsoft 365 Defender stops cyberattacks with automated, cross-domain security and built-in AI. Defender works across all your Microsoft 365 services to prevent cyber threats in the first place, as well as swiftly deal with more sophisticated attacks. It automatically prevents cross-domain attacks, reduces signal noise by prioritizing incidents in a single dashboard, auto-heals affected assets, and hunts down threats across all your Microsoft 365 data.

(Image credit: Dell)

Microsoft 365 Business: Streamline your business with new features

Upgrading to Microsoft 365 Business won’t just give you added protection from cyberthreats. It will also give you access to updated new features, like Teams, Exchange, and SharePoint.

With Teams, you can chat, meet, call, and collaborate all in one, convenient place with an immersive and dynamic experience. Teams is constantly adding new features to help you deliver more professional presentations and create more engaging experiences. Incorporating all the familiar apps you’re already using, like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, as well as new features, like Teams Connect, Dynamic View, and Together mode, Teams will have you ditching Zoom for good.

Exchange, Microsoft’s email and calendaring server gives your employees access to hosted business email, calendars, and contacts from anywhere. Exchange is easy to maintain and incorporates all the top-notch security Microsoft is known for. It even offers integration with Outlook for a familiar, user-friendly experience.

You will also be able to better facilitate collaboration within your business using SharePoint Online. SharePoint Online lets you create websites to store, organize, share and access information from any device, through any web browser or the mobile app. Best of all, SharePoint Online eliminates the need to host your own server, with cloud-based hosting.

(Image credit: Dell)

Microsoft 365 Business brought to you by Dell

Upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business with Dell and enjoy extra support and assistance at no additional cost. As a Dell Technologies customer, you’ll have the support of a dedicated team of Microsoft 365 technical support engineers. You’ll get access to Microsoft Certified Licensing specialists, as well as round-the-clock support through email, chat, or phone.

The Dell Technologies account team will consolidate all your IT purchasing in one centralized location. You’ll also get added support setting up your account, migrating your email, and onboarding, freeing up your time and energy to focus on your business. You won’t have to muddle through the process alone or shell out a ton of money hiring an IT professional.

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Microsoft 365 Business from Dell: One cost-effective solution

There has never been a better time to upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business. Starting as low as $15 a month, you not only get all the security and new features Microsoft 365 Business has to offer but also the full support of Dell Technologies to make sure your upgrade is seamless.

Microsoft Word getting killer upgrade to battle Google Docs

denise.primbet@futurenet.com (Denise Primbet) — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 08:00:48 +0000

You could soon find yourself finishing Microsoft Word documents a lot faster, as the software is getting a new text prediction feature.

Coming in the form of an update to the Microsoft 365 roadmap, Word is getting a smart tool that will suggest the next words in a sentence by analyzing your writing style and preferences and let you add them in a single tap. It should become available to Word users as soon as next month.

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Until now, text prediction was one of the features that set Google Docs apart from Microsoft Word. Google Docs Smart Compose first introduced back in 2018.

According to Microsoft, the new update will help users "write more efficiently by predicting text quickly, timely and accurately."

Added to the Microsoft Roadmap on February 19, this time-saving feature is designed to simultaneously autogenerate text as the user composes the document.

The feature will generate greyed-out text predictions, which users will then be able to either accept using the Tab key, type over them, or opt-out via the Escape key.

The update will also adapt to the user's writing style over time by analyzing linguistic preferences and writing habits. And it will also make sure to avoid any occasional spelling and grammar mistakes.

While the feature is planned to be rolled out next month, the company hasn't yet specified as to when the feature will be released for the web client and the macOS versions of Microsoft Word.

Microsoft appears to be on quite the push to build out Word's features. Last year it added a transcription feature to its word processor, it now allows you to upload audio into Word, and then get a transcript you can immediately drop into your document.

And now it's bringing a proper version of Microsoft Office, which includes Word, to the iPad, potentially making it a perfect fit for the productivity-centric iPad Pro 2020. We have no doubt that Word and the rest of the Office suite wil continue to build out their features as 2021 moves onwards.

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Microsoft Word just got a killer feature that puts Google Docs to shame

Henry T. Casey — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 18:06:58 +0000

I don't use Microsoft Word, but I might have to start trying it. That's because a new audio transcription feature has debuted in Microsoft 365, and it's the kind of thing that will save me (and many others) time and money — and make me wonder when Google Docs will catch up.

Debuting today in Word on the web (as a part of Microsoft 365), this new Transcribe feature allows you to upload audio into Word, and then get a transcript you can immediately drop into your document, one chunk of dialogue at a time.

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And if you want to write and edit live, there's a Dictate button for live audio. But for those like myself who capture audio via the iOS Voice Memos app (or any other program) there are some limits to be aware of. Transcribe supports MP3, MP4, WAV and M4A formats and limits you to 200MB uploads.

Microsoft first promised that this feature would be coming to Word on October 2, 2019, in a blog post. Here's a GIF of how it works in action:

(Image credit: Microsoft)

How to use Transcribe in Microsoft Word

Here's how to use Transcribe if it's available in your version of Word:

Click the Dictate button in the toolbar
Click Transcribe
Click Upload Audio
Find your audio file
Watch as your text appears
Drag and drop text from the menu to the document.

Word Transcribe also offers automatic formatting options, so you can insert quotes as pull-quotes. Want to verify Transcribe's accuracy? Click the timestamp next to the text to jump to that part of your audio file.

Tom Warren at The Verge notes that transcription time varies while uploading audio, but text translation works in seconds if done live.

Transcribe only supports English at the moment, and it's due to hit the Android and iOS Word apps later this year. Transcribe was originally slated for "early 2020," with the mobile app support coming in "the spring," so it might be another season before it makes it to other devices.

Personally, if this works as well as it should, I could see myself starting to use Microsoft Word over Google Docs — except Google Docs is free.

Microsoft 365 starts at $6.99 per month, but if you want a free option, Otter.ai has free live transcription and has a $9.99 monthly version that adds uploading. Hopefully Google Docs adds a Transcribe option, which seems like a no-brainer considering how Google Assistant is capable at hearing what you say.

Here's why this small business owner uses Microsoft 365 Business from Dell

Sponsored — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 04:01:00 +0000

Rohith Namboothiri has been building websites since he was just 8 years old. He started his own business when he was 15. At 18, while working with multiple brands as the Director of Operation & IT at an Indian company based in Canada, he identified a general pain point: “I encountered a very common problem people from India faced, which is a language barrier,” Rohith explained.

He realized language skills were essential for people to succeed, and in 2015, he co-founded Inzpira to help break down those barriers for non-native English speakers in India.

Inzpira’s program focuses on spoken English, helping students practice 1-on-1 with trainers through more engaging methods of learning, including rhymes, songs, movies, and games. The program can prepare the students to be more confident and effective speakers and ready them for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

Initially, Rohith built his own platform to run Inzpira, but he told us, “as we started growing we started to feel limited by the platform I developed.” He initially tried several different platforms to run the business, but “the features, the scalability and the user-friendly approach of Microsoft made me choose M365,” he explained.

Only about a year later, the tools available to Inzpira through Microsoft 365 have become nearly indispensable to the business. Here’s just how Microsoft 365 has helped Rohith run and grow his business:

Access

The tools and features of Microsoft 365 are readily accessible to people inside and outside the company, which lets Inzpira communicate with all of its 40 employees, its 80+ remote trainers, as well as all the people seeking language training across the globe. For both staff and clients alike, Microsoft 365 offers an approachable and effective set of tools. Features like Teams have been especially helpful for remote work. “Microsoft Teams is the bread and butter of my organization. I cannot think of a situation without teams now,” says Rohith.

“With Microsoft 365, I have all my trainers on one platform. Our communication is seamless now and we don’t need a separate project management or communication platform to communicate with each other. Planning, Scheduling, and Inviting a student for a session is just a click of a button, thanks to Teams.”

A solution for everything

Microsoft 365 has tools for almost anything. The Teams application has provided Inzpira an easy way to schedule lessons, send out invites, and conduct those lessons all in the same pipeline. Inzpira can rely on Microsoft 365 for email service through Outlook. And, it can get information from clients easily with Forms. In Rohith’s words, “Teams, Forms, Remote Work, Streams, Outlook, Flow (Power Automate)...Microsoft 365 is a package that if used in the right way can do magic to your business.”

(Image credit: Dell)

The power of OneDrive and Stream

Having an effective means of sharing information is important in any business. For Rohith’s team, that means sharing the company’s lessons. With Stream and OneDrive, Inzpira can easily record all of the lessons it teaches and provide them to clients over OneDrive.

Tools that are better together

Having all the tools needed to run a successful business is one thing, but having them all in one place makes them all even better. Inzpira didn’t need to look for separate platforms to handle each separate aspect of its business, and the unified platform helped Rohith and the Inzpira team in more ways than one.

Rohith praised the way that, in Microsoft 365, “a lot of independent modules or services are closely integrated into one platform that saves time, money and effort. Before, if I had to provide an online session to a student, I would have to find a video conferencing system, use a calendar platform to schedule sessions, create a form with a separate platform, use a different email service provider to send the form to the student and once the student replied...then I’d manually schedule the session and send the video meeting link. It was a very time consuming and hectic job.”

Scalability

A tool that works for a small company may not work for a large one and vice versa, but Microsoft 365 is ideal to help companies scale. Rohith’s company has been growing, and Microsoft 365 can grow right beside it. From personal users to small businesses to large enterprises, the Microsoft 365 platform can keep up.

Since its founding, Inzpira has grown to serve over 15,000 students of all ages and walks of life. Rohith plans for the company to become an “Uber for Language Training,” and Microsoft 365 will be instrumental in that growth. Using the Microsoft 365 platform, Rohith sees so many capabilities that he says, “My imagination is the limit today.”

You can learn more and try out the platform for your business with Microsoft 365 from Dell.

(Image credit: Inzpira)

Check out Inzpira on Facebook here.

Office 365 adds new security feature, but not everyone will get it yet

Nicholas Fearn — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 17:22:18 +0000

Microsoft yesterday (June 22) announced that Safe Documents -- unveiled in February through a private preview -- is now available for some enterprise and educational users of Office 365.

The new feature alerts users to security threats within documents that the users have downloaded. The feature is set to “keeps enterprise users safe by verifying untrusted files on their behalf”.

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The Safe Documents feature analyses files for security risks and won’t enable users to exit Protected View until the analysis has been completed.

Writing in a blog post, Microsoft’s Kenny Shi said: “Although Protected View helps secure documents originating outside the organization, people too often exit the protection sandbox without considering if the document is safe -- leaving their organizations vulnerable.

“To improve this trust promotion experience for Microsoft 365 Apps, Safe Documents takes away the guesswork by automatically verifying the document against the latest known risks and threat profiles before allowing users to leave the Protected View container.”

Safe Documents is powered by Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, ensuring that files aren’t compromised and don’t pose a risk to users.

“Safe Documents leverages the power of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph and brings it to the desktop,” Shi explained.

“When an admin enables Safe Documents for their tenant, untrusted files that open in Protected View go through an additional flow where the document is uploaded and scanned by Microsoft Defender ATP.”

Microsoft Defender ATP is the enterprise counterpart of the Windows Defender antivirus software available on consumer Windows systems. Safe Documents is not switched on by default, but must be enabled by an administrator.

Extra protection for Office users

Microsoft confirmed that when a scan takes place, users can view their documents but won’t be able to edit them until the scan is finished.

If a malicious file is detected, Microsoft said users will be “blocked from leaving the Protected View container”.

The firm explained: “Admins can configure whether users can bypass and ‘Enable Editing’ for malicious scenarios in the Admin portal.”

Users will also be able to use the Advanced Hunting functionality from Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection.

Microsoft said people can use this to “get additional details in their tenants by using the DeviceEvents table and filtering for ActionType ‘SafeDocFileScan’.”

To set up the feature, security admins should head to the Security & Compliance center > Threat Management > Policy > ATP Safe Attachments. Here, you’ll see an option for “‘Turn on Safe Documents for Office clients."

This feature should significantly reduce the number of successful malware attacks upon Office 365 customers. Malware often sneaks into computers via Word or Excel attachments to email messages.

Protected View has long aimed to counter that, but clearly too many people just find Protected View an annoyance and exit it without thinking of potential consequences. Microsoft is, in effect, giving you greater protection by removing some of your power to make mistakes.

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Microsoft Fluid Office puts Google Docs to shame — here’s why

Henry T. Casey — Tue, 19 May 2020 16:15:22 +0000

As Microsoft Build 2020 starts today, the tech titan is expanding its Fluid Office technology, which it announced will be coming to Office.com in the next months.

Think of Fluid Office as a super-powered building block that you can slot into a wide array of documents. In a blog post announcing Fluid's upcoming arrival in Outlook and Office.com, Dan Zarzar (a Head of Product at Microsoft) writes that Fluid "is designed to make collaboration adaptable, flexible, and focused by breaking down the barriers between apps."

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It's best to think of Fluid elements not as a kind of doc, but as a building block that takes all sorts of shapes and forms. Zarzar writes "Fluid Components come in many forms – tables, charts, task lists, and more," enabling you to "Easily insert a wide range of components right into emails and chats."

In a preview video online, Microsoft showed how a pie chart could live in Word, PowerPoint and Outlook at the same time. This chart becomes a living document that can be updated by those who have been given the appropriate privileges.

As you interact with Fluid elements, you see the avatars of your other coworkers, just like in Google Docs. This way, your projects become living, breathing entities, and you can provide updates to team members throughout the process. And unlike in Google Docs, you won't have to update multiple documents to make sure every chart and table is consistent across pages.

Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft told The Verge that Microsoft is thinking about Fluid on a large scale, saying "It’s truly real time for 5, 10, 15, or 100 people to do things at the same time."

Developers can find out more at the Microsoft Fluid preview site, but regular users like myself with regular Microsoft.com accounts won't be allowed in.

New Microsoft Office app combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and it's pretty impressive

Henry T. Casey — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 07:00:50 +0000

Sure, it makes sense that Microsoft offers separate mobile apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but in a "No duh!" moment, all three apps are now folded into one. And it's got a really easy name to remember: Microsoft Office.

Available now on iOS and Android, Office isn't just about having less apps on your home screen or avoiding folders. It's focused on making Office more mobile-friendly, with support for Box.com, Dropbox, Google Drive, and -- yes -- even iCloud. Tablet-optimized versions will soon debut on iPadOS and on Android tablets.

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How the Microsoft Office app works

Microsoft Office's home screen looks a lot like the Google Drive home screen I see when I go looking for the different docs and spreadsheets I rely on for work. You get a list of the files you've already got in a left tab, and a click of the … button allows you to share, pin and perform other file management tweaks.

The big guns come out when you tap the Actions tab on the right, which brings up tools including Image To Text, which is supposed to extract text. I saw mixed success in a quick test in the office as I wrote this story; it captured some, but not all of the start of this article, creating a note that starts as such:

"Sureat makes sense that Microsoft offers separate mobilb app$ forWqrdq •owerPoint, buf in a '"No all three apps are now folded =Æallyeasynameto remember: Microsoft Office."

So, yeah, the text you get requires some editing, and hopefully will get smarter over time.

The other features available to me out of the box — and I don't pay for any Microsoft Office products — revolve around PDF editing. These tricks often match Apple's own Notes app, including Sign a PDF, Scan to PDF and Document to PDF.

There's also "Scan QR Code," which the Apple Camera app already does. Not all Android phones offer this trick, though Google Lens does.

For folks who love Office and already use it for most tasks, this all makes sense. However, I don't think this will bring many folks like me (who moved to Google's GSuite) back.

Microsoft's already promising more features

Oh, and don't expect Microsoft to release the Office app and forget about it. Microsoft told us via email that a voice-to-text Word Dictation translator is coming, with buttons for easily inputting punctuation (ever said "comma" to Siri, hoping it will understand? This sounds a lot better).

Office is also going to include a version of Excel that actually looks and feels right on a phone screen. This is called Excel Cards View user interface, which Microsoft is thankfully pivoting to, as the spreadsheet interface we're used to was designed for big monitors.

Lastly, Microsoft's new trick for PowerPoint could turn note-takers into presentation wizards. Dubbed "PowerPoint Designer," it turns outline lists into presentable slides.

Microsoft Excel Tool Could Get You Hacked: What to Do

Paul Wagenseil — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 16:32:02 +0000

Microsoft Excel ships with a whole lot of active tools that many users won't ever need, and Excel users should turn off one of those tools if they can.

(Image credit: PixieMe/Shutterstock)

London-based security firm Mimecast today (June 27) showed how Power Query, an Excel feature that pulls in data from databases, websites or even other Excel documents, can be abused to load and run malware on the recipient's machine.

Power Query is an optional add-on for Excel 2010 and Excel 2013. But for Excel 2016, Excel 2019 and Excel for Office 365, it's called Get & Transform and is built right into the main software. (The tool is not available for Macs.)

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No one is actively using Mimecast's proof-of-concept methods to attack Excel users—yet. And in Excel's default settings, the software is set to prompt you before automatically updating data imported from other sources.

Mimecast said it reached out to Microsoft about its attack, but also said that Microsoft declined to change the Power Query/Get & Transform tool because there were already several ways to prevent the attack, especially on the enterprise level.

If you're an ordinary consumer using Excel, you can protect yourself by disabling what Microsoft calls Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), a broader concept that Power Query/Get & Transform relies upon.

How to disable Dynamic Data Exchange in Excel

1. Click File in the top left corner of the Excel interface.

2. Scroll down to and click Options in the resulting menu.

3. Scroll down to and click Trust Center in the resulting pop-up window.

4. Click the Trust Center Settings button in the resulting frame.

5. Scroll down to and click External Content in the resulting pop-up window's navigation column.

6. Under the heading "Security settings for Workbook Links," select the radio button next to "Disable automatic update of Workbook Links."

7. Click the OK button in the bottom left corner of the window.

Zombie Flaw Hits Microsoft Office Users: Protect Yourself Now

Zombie Flaw Hits Microsoft Office Users: Protect Yourself Now

Paul Wagenseil — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:28:00 +0000

Sometimes what should be dead never truly dies. An ancient vulnerability in Microsoft Office, patched in November 2017, is still being successfully used to attack Windows systems that have never been properly updated.

(Image credit: Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock)

Hapless victims can become infected simply by opening malicious documents, which can arrive as email attachments or as downloads. Microsoft on Friday (June 7) tweeted out a series of warnings from its Security Intelligence Twitter feed that an "active malware campaign" was sending malicious email messages containing corrupted files to users in Europe.

The command-and-control server for this campaign is now offline, but it would be simple for the attackers to resume operations with a new server. Other groups have exploited the same Office flaw in the past, and it's sure to be part of an attacker's toolkit for the foreseeable future.

To make sure you're immune to this flaw, make sure your Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 machines are fully patched. Go into Windows Update and check when your latest updates were run; if it was earlier than November 2017, you're still vulnerable. Microsoft Office 2019 should not be vulnerable, but older versions of Office may be.

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The flaw, known only by the catalog name CVE-2017-11882, has to do with the way Office handles Rich Text Format (RTF) files and translates certain bits of code using a component called Equation Editor.

If a user of an unpatched system opens a malicious RTF file in Microsoft Word, "the RTF file downloads and runs multiple scripts of different types (VBScript, PowerShell, PHP, others) to download the [malware] payload," Microsoft explained Friday.

"The backdoor payload then tries to connect to a malicious domain" that, fortunately, is "currently down."

The bug dates all the way back to 2000 and the first edition of Equation Editor, which let users construct scientific and mathematical formulas in Word. A different equation editor was introduced in Office 2007, but the older Equation Editor was kept on for compatibility purposes.

Microsoft's patch of CVE-2017-11882 in November 2017 revealed to the world the existence of the longstanding flaw in Equation Editor, and attackers began using it to target unpatched systems.

As a result, Microsoft removed Equation Editor from then-supported versions of Microsoft Office (Office 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016) with a subsequent patch in January 2018.

Why Adobe Is Still the Best Mobile PDF Reader

marshall.honorof@futurenet.com (Marshall Honorof) — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Having recently come into possession of a huge PDF cache, I needed a convenient way to read these files on the go — and frankly, the default options on iOS and Android are just not that good.

My search for a good mobile PDF reader began a few months ago, when I started buying pencil-and-paper RPG rule books in preparation for a Star Trek Adventures campaign. As any old-school game master can attest, buying digital RPG books is a huge boon for both your wallet and your bookshelf space. But convenience comes at the cost of usability. Because RPG books are often oversize and full of ornate illustrations and sidebars, it's hard to get a digital experience that's as easy as the real thing.

Tom's Guide has compiled a list of the Best PDF Reader Apps, which is extremely helpful if you need to find a full-featured PDF app, complete with scanning, annotation, cloud storage, themes and syncing. However, I was more interested in one simple question: What is the absolute best way to read PDF documents on a phone or tablet? I'd been using Adobe Reader for months, but I figured that there must be something a little more lightweight and straightforward.

Well, as it turns out, there are programs like that. But they're still not as good overall as Adobe.

Why not use the defaults?

Both Android and iOS have default programs that parse PDFs, and they're technically functional. For most people, the most important thing in a PDF reader is ease of use, and it's hard to get easier than software that works right out of the box. And yet, neither OS handles PDFs that well without some third-party software.

Let's tackle iOS first, because it's easily the weaker of the two operating systems. Assuming you download a PDF via the internet, it'll open in Safari. As you might imagine, the only thing you can do here is zoom and scroll. Once you close the tab, you'll lose your progress and settings. Accessing a PDF here is not much of a solution, especially if you don't have internet access.

(Image credit: Adobe)

Slightly better is copying the PDF over to iBooks — which is a bit of a process. While you're on the Safari PDF page, you'll have to open up the sharing menu and then scroll over to iBooks. (One wonders why you can't just save the file somewhere, but then again, iOS got an official file browser only about a year ago.) iBooks has a few things going for it: It loads pages quickly and offers a full table of contents. But you can view only one page at a time, and the app doesn't save zoom levels.

Android devices fare a little better, because the OS includes a built-in PDF reader (Google PDF Viewer, sensibly enough). When you download a PDF, Android will give you the option to open the file there. That's fine — except that there is no way to launch Google PDF Viewer by itself. You need to either download a PDF or navigate to a PDF in your file browser. As such, the program won't save your place, unless you keep the file open indefinitely. Scratch that option, unless you're dealing with a document you can read in one sitting.

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Like with iBooks, you can transfer a PDF into Google Books. This process takes a surprisingly long time, because, for some reason, you need to upload the PDF to the internet first, then re-download it. (Google Books won't simply open a PDF that's already on your phone or tablet.) Even assuming you can jump through all of those hoops, the program still won't correctly parse PDF tables of contents, and it forces you to read one or two vertical pages at a time, a profound annoyance with landscape documents.

The old standard

Using our Best PDF Apps slideshow as a guide, I dived into every Adobe Reader alternative I could find. However, none of them is as good as the plain old Adobe Acrobat Reader app. (Well, maybe Foxit — more on that in a bit.) Full office-suite programs weren't specialized enough; copycat programs like Xodo were basically just Adobe Reader with fewer features.

In fact, almost every program I tested fell into one of three categories: not enough features (Google PDF Viewer), too many features (Polaris Office) or "like Adobe but not as good" (Xodo). The only program that distinguished itself was Foxit, which is like Adobe Reader, but a little faster, with better annotation options. (Again, making comments wasn't my primary concern in this experiment, but it's never a bad feature to have.)

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I'll be perfectly honest: Adobe Reader takes while to load when you first open it, and flipping from page to page is not nearly as instantaneous as it would be on a PC. Searches take a long time, because the program insists on loading miniscule versions of entire pages rather than just pointing you to text blurbs. Navigating the program's myriad menus can be cumbersome, and typing in fillable forms (like character sheets) is not nearly as smooth as it should be.

(Image credit: Adobe)

Aside from that, though, the program is rock-solid. You can select from five different viewing modes, including an extremely useful one that formats a document to page width in landscape mode. This is an extremely smart way to read RPG rule books, which usually split up text into two (or more) columns, without having to constantly zoom in and out.

(Image credit: Adobe)

Once a PDF is loaded up, you can flip through pages quickly, and the table of contents is both accurate and detailed. I wish it were a little easier to jump to a specific page, but you can make as many bookmarks as you like.

It's always a little disappointing to learn that the best option out there is just "good enough," but PDFs themselves are very much a "good enough" file format. Their versatility has a cost. The good news is that the Adobe Reader app is free on both Android and iOS.

Credit: Tom's Guide

Microsoft Office for iPad Review

mike.prospero@futurenet.com (Mike Prospero) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 20:18:00 +0000

It was only a matter of time, right? Microsoft finally committed to developing its full Office productivity suite — Excel, PowerPoint and Word — for the iPad. But rather than releasing a warmed-over version in a grudging acceptance of Apple's position in the market, Office for iPad was designed with some touch-friendly features that will make Surface Pro 2 users jealous. But how well does Office for iPad work?

Setup

Office for iPad requires that your tablet run iOS 7.0 or later. We installed Word, Excel and Powerpoint on our iPad Air; instead of a single file, you must download each app separately, so it's easier to find them by searching for their individual names. Word (246MB), Excel (221MB) and PowerPoint (205 MB) all downloaded within a few minutes over Wi-Fi.

When we first launched Word, we were prompted to enter our Office 365 email address and password; from there, we could access all of our documents stored on OneDrive. We like that once we had signed into one of the apps, we were automatically signed into all of them.

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Pricing

Word, Excel and Powerpoint are all free to download. Any user can view, copy and share documents; sort and filter tables in Excel; and present in PowerPoint. However, in order to use all the features of Office for iPad — including editing — you must have a subscription to Office 365.

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Office 365 Home Premium 1 Year Subscription

The Home Premium subscription costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year, and lets you install Office on up to five Macs or PCs and five tablets. It also comes with 20GB of online storage each for up to five users.

Office 365 University costs $79.99 for four years, and you can install the suite on a total of two PCs, Macs or tablets. It comes with 20GB of online storage for one user.

When it's released later this spring, Office 365 Personal will cost $6.99 per month or $69 per year; you will be able to install it on one PC or Mac and one tablet.

On their own, other productivity suites for the iPad are much less expensive. Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote are all free for newer iPad users. Evernote also lets you edit, sync and share documents for free, and a $45/year subscription to Evernote Premium lets others edit documents and take them offline.

However, for those who already have a subscription to Office 365 — such as a business — using the Office for iPad suite is free.

Interface

Similar to other versions of the Microsoft productivity suite, Office for iPad employs the company's Ribbon toolbar. The top bar of each app is color-coded: blue for Word, green for Excel and red for PowerPoint. In this bar are various menu options (such as Home, Insert, Layout, Review and View for Word), but common to all are Search and Share icons on the right, and Save, Autosave, Undo and Redo icons on the left.

All the icons are fairly large; we found them much easier to press with our finger than when using Office 365 on a Surface tablet. However, Office for iPad lacks the radial menus found in OneNote, a feature that we think would be helpful for any touch-based Office app. Office for iPad is also optimized for Retina displays, so all text looked extremely crisp on our iPad Air.

Other iPad-friendly features include the ability to input text using your voice: simply press the microphone icon in the onscreen keyboard and begin speaking. The Air accurately transcribed all of our words as we spoke at a normal pace.

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Like the desktop iteration, the Office for iPad apps require you to go to a different screen in order to save or share a document. It's a very jarring experience, and we wish Microsoft would bring back the more intuitive drop-down menu.

Also, unless you first save a document to your iPad, it's tricky to transfer a document stored on OneDrive to your iPad; you must either create a duplicate document or go through the separate OneDrive app to make the document available offline.

Sharing options are limited to emailing as a link or attachment, which is a bit of a bummer. While Apple's Pages only lets you email, message or share a link in iCloud, it also lets you open a document in a number of different apps, including OneDrive, Evernote and Google Drive.

On the plus side, iPad owners will appreciate the ability to beam a document, such as a PowerPoint presentation, via AirPlay to a larger screen.

Word

Since Word is the bread-and-butter program of Office, we're glad to see that nearly all of the functionality of the desktop version of the program is present in the iPad offering. Along the top are all the traditional tools for changing font, color, alignment and text size. You can also adjust the margins, headers and footers, and orientation of the document.

Typing on screen — Office uses the standard iPad keyboard — was as easy as with any other app on the iPad, but you'll probably want to use a Bluetooth keyboard for writing anything longer than an email.

Perhaps the most useful feature of Word for iPad is Track Changes. As with the desktop version, we could accept, reject, and reply to changes and comments.

After inserting an image into a document, you can add various effects, such as a Style (adding a border, making it a rounded image), Shadow and Reflection. You can resize the image by selecting a corner, or rotate the image by pressing and holding on the rotation icon at the top of the image. You can also drag an image around the document, and the text will automatically reflow around the image, similar to what happens in Apple's Pages. However, you can't crop images, an unfortunate omission.

In one feature (among many) touted by Microsoft, the program preserves a document's formatting as you go from the desktop to the mobile version.

You can also copy and paste items from one Office document into another; for example, we created a chart in Excel for iPad and pasted it into Word. Oddly, the color of the bars in the chart changed.

Multiple users can collaborate on a document at the same time (the icon in the upper right changes to show the number of collaborators), but unlike what happens in Google docs, changes don't appear in real time. In order to see what others have added (or deleted), you must go back to the file menu and hit Save and Refresh. A little icon appears next to each paragraph that has been changed, but it won't be visible in your version of the document until you've saved.

Excel

Among productivity apps, perhaps none is trickier to integrate into a touch environment than a spreadsheet program. In addition to entering data into small boxes, you must also be able to manipulate the formulas and charts with your fingers.

Fortunately, as with Word, we found it easy to enter text — double-tap on a cell to pull up the onscreen keyboard. In the upper right corner, pressing the "123" icon lets you switch to a special formula keyboard that contains a number pad, arrow keys and symbols. Pinch-and-zoom let us shrink and grow the entire spreadsheet, so that we could see more data at a glance, or get in close to look at individual cells.

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A number of helpful features have made their way over from the desktop version. Flash Fill remembers what you type, and suggests text so that you can avoid typing the same thing over and over. Recommended Charts will suggest the best ways to present the selected data.

Those who use math and other functions will especially like the Formulas tab. Here, formulas are divided into categories: Recent, Financial, Logical, Text, Date & Time, Lookup and Reference, and Math and Trig. Select a category, and a huge alphabetical dropdown list will appear with all the formulas for that category. An "I" next to each provides an explanation as to its function. We only wish we could search each category by name; it can be tedious to scroll through so many formulas. Once you select a formula, you can then tap on the cells you want to include. It couldn't be simpler.

Also carried over from the desktop version of Excel is the Sum box in the lower right corner. Select a series of cells with numbers, and by default, their sum will appear in the corner. Press and hold on this number, and you can change the result to Average, Count, Numerical Count, Minimum and Maximum. It's a nice time saver.

However, Excel for iPad lacks some of the power features found in the desktop version. After making a chart, for example, you don't have as much control as you do on the desktop version. You can't add data labels, or change the color of an individual bar on a chart. Also, Excel for iPad doesn't support macros or pivot charts.

PowerPoint

With PowerPoint for iPad, traveling salespeople have an even better reason to leave their laptops at home. Not only does the tablet version of this ubiquitous app pack the features needed to create presentations, but it also makes showing them to others effortless.

Within a few minutes, we were able to quickly put together a short deck with photos from our last vacation and add captions, headers and transitions. As with Word and Excel, we could easily import charts and photos and resize them, but we couldn't crop these images.

When it came time to show our slides, a few new features in PowerPoint let us better get our point across. When in presentation mode, if you hold your finger on the screen, a small red laser dot appears. Also, in the upper right corner is a pen and a highlighter tool that let you circle or emphasize something on a slide. These markups will disappear once you close the presentation.

We found both features easy to use, but wish there were an option to change the color of the laser pointer, or have it show up as an arrow or some other shape. It's not a critical omission, but something that we'd like to see in a future update.

Battery Life Impact

Good news for road warriors: Office for iPad isn't all that taxing on your tablet. We turned our iPad Air's brightness to 50 percent, and opened Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. After an hour and a half of switching among the four apps but spending the majority of the time typing this review in Word, our iPad's battery life was at 86 percent.

Office for iPad vs. Competition

For those who have an Office 365 subscription, and want to get work done on their tablets, downloading Office for iPad is a no-brainer. However, for those who don't have Office, the decision is not as clear-cut.

In comparison to, say, Pages' interface, which hides or minimizes toolbars such as font size, etc., until you need them, Word's toolbars are always present at the top of the screen. However, they don't make the screen feel cluttered. And those accustomed to Office's interface will feel right at home on the iPad.

Google Drive's app for the iPad lets you make and view edits in real time, but lacks many of the features of Office, such as the ability to insert photos or charts.

When it comes to creating and editing, Office for iPad offers more than the competition, as you get greater control over how your documents look. For example, there's a much wider range of colors to choose from for text. Unlike Word, Pages only lets you resize photos.

As noted earlier, sharing options within Office for iPad are limited. By comparison, Kingsoft Office for iPad lets you access Google Drive, OneDrive and DropBox, among others. To be fair, Pages' sharing options are limited, too.

One glaring omission: You can't print from any of the Office for iPad apps, a feature offered with Pages.

Verdict

With the release of Office for iPad, Microsoft has finally acknowledged that people use Apple's tablet for work. What's more, Microsoft paid attention to the way people use their iPads, making its productivity apps very touch friendly — more so, in fact, than the versions for Windows tablets. While Word, Excel and PowerPoint are missing some features of the desktop versions of the apps, the iPad incarnations don't feel watered down to the point you would feel cheated.

However, while Microsoft wants to make its products platform-agnostic, it's clear that the company also wants to keep you within its ecosystem, as sharing options to other cloud-based storage utilities are far too limited. Microsoft also needs to develop a real-time collaboration engine, a la Google Docs, and let you print, too..

Considering that Apple offers its productivity apps for free to all new iPad owners, we wish that Microsoft would offer the fully functional version of Office for iPad charging for an Office 365 subscription. But for business users and consumers who are already subscribers, Office for iPad is an invaluable addition to the world's best productivity suite.

Advanced Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Tom's Guide Staff — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel is a program that is useful across many industries and professions. In the first part of this guide, we took a look at the basic function shortcuts for both PCs and Macs. In this guide, we'll examine the more complicated functions and their shortcuts for users who need Excel for more advanced applications.

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Formatting data

Excel is useful in the organization of data, including dates, times, percentages and other numbers. In this section, learn shortcuts to better format the cells and their respective data.

WINDOWS

Ctrl + 1	Format cells dialog
Ctrl + b (or ctrl + 2)	Apply / remove bold
Ctrl + i (or ctrl + 3)	Apply / remove italic
Ctrl + u (or ctrl + 4)	Apply / remove underline
Ctrl + 5	Apply / remove strikethrough
Ctrl + Shift + f	Display the Format Cells with Fonts Tab active. Press tab 3x to get to font-size
Alt + ' (apostrophe)	Display the Style dialog box

Number Formats

Ctrl + Shift + $	Apply the Currency format with two decimal places
Ctrl + Shift + ~	Apply the General number format
Ctrl + Shift + %	Apply the Percentage format with no decimal places
Ctrl + Shift + #	Apply the Date format with the day, month, and year
Ctrl + Shift + @	Apply the Time format with the hour and minute, and indicate am or pm
Ctrl + Shift + !	Apply the Number format with two decimal places, thousands separator, and minus sign (-) for negative values
Ctrl + Shift + ^	Apply the Scientific number format with two decimal places
F4	Repeat last formatting action: Apply previously applied Cell Formatting to a different Cell

Apply Borders to Cells

Ctrl + Shift + &	Apply outline border from cell or selection
Ctrl + Shift + _ (underscore)	Remove outline borders from cell or selection
Ctrl + 1, then Ctrl + Arrow Right/Arrow Left	Access border menu in 'Format Cell' dialog. Once border was selected, it will show up directly on the next Ctrl + 1
Alt + t	In Cell Format in 'Border' Dialog Window, set top border
Alt + b	In Cell Format in 'Border' Dialog Window, set bottom border
Alt + l	In Cell Format in 'Border' Dialog Window, set left border
Alt + r	In Cell Format in 'Border' Dialog Window, set right border
Alt + d	In Cell Format in 'Border' Dialog Window, set diagonal and down border
Alt + u	In Cell Format in 'Border' Dialog Window, set diagonal and up border

Align Cells

Alt + h, ar	Align Right
Alt + h, ac	Align Center
Alt + h, al	Align Left

MAC

⌘ (Command) + Shift + l	Display the Style dialog box
⌘ + 1	Display the Format Cells dialog box
Ctrl + Shift + ~	Apply the general number format
Ctrl + Shift + $	Apply the currency format with two decimal places (negative numbers appear in red with parentheses)
Ctrl + Shift + %	Apply the percentage format with no decimal places
Ctrl + Shift + ^	Apply the exponential number format with two decimal places
Ctrl + Shift + #	Apply the date format with the day, month, and year
Ctrl + Shift + @	Apply the time format with the hour and minute, and indicate A.M. or P.M.
Ctrl + Shift + !	Apply the number format with two decimal places, thousands separator, and minus sign (-) for negative values
⌘ + Option + 0 (zero)	Apply the outline border around the selected cells
⌘ + Option + Arrow Right	Add an outline border to the right of the selection
⌘ + Option + Arrow Left	Add an outline border to the left of the selection
⌘ + Option + Arrow Up	Add an outline border to the top of the selection
⌘ + Option + Arrow Down	Add an outline border to the bottom of the selection
⌘ + Option + -	Remove outline borders
⌘ + b	Apply / remove bold
⌘ + i	Apply / remove italic
⌘ + u	Apply / remove underscoring
⌘ + Shift + x	Apply / remove strikethrough
Ctrl + 9	Hide rows
Ctrl + Shift + (	Unhide rows
Ctrl + 0 (zero)	Hide columns
Ctrl + Shift + )	Unhide columns
⌘ + Shift + w	Add or remove the shadow font style
⌘ + Shift + d	Add or remove the outline font style
Ctrl + u	Edit the active cell
Esc	Cancel an entry in the cell or the formula bar
Delete	Edit the active cell and then clear it, or delete the preceding character in the active cell as you edit the cell contents
⌘ + v	Paste text into the active cell
Return	Complete a cell entry
Ctrl + Shift + Return	Enter a formula as an array formula
Ctrl + a	Display the Formula Builder after you type a valid function name in a formula

Creating and working with formulas

Excel spreadsheets are often used to crunch numbers. To do this, one must understand the basics of formulas. Whether calculating sums or averages, these shortcuts will help users be more efficient in formula creation and use.

WINDOWS

=	Start a formula
Alt + =	Insert the AutoSum formula
Shift + F3	Display the Insert Function dialog box
Ctrl + a	Display Formula Window after typing formula name
Ctrl + Shift + a	Insert Arguments in formula after typing formula name
Shift + F3	Insert a function into a formula
Ctrl + Shift + Enter	Enter a formula as an array formula
F4	After typing cell reference (e.g. =E3) makes reference absolute (=$E$4)
F9	Calculate all worksheets in all open workbooks
Shift + F9	Calculate the active worksheet
Ctrl + Alt + F9	Calculate all worksheets in all open workbooks, regardless of whether they have changed since the last calculation
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F9	Recheck dependent formulas, and then calculates all cells in all open workbooks, including cells not marked as needing to be calculated
Ctrl + Shift + u	Toggle expand or collapse formula bar
Ctrl + `	Toggle Show formula in cell instead of values

Names

Ctrl + F3	Define a name or dialog
Ctrl + Shift + F3	Create names from row and column labels
F3	Paste a defined name into a formula

MAC

Delete	Edit the active cell and then clear it, or delete the preceding character in the active cell as you edit the cell contents
Return	Complete a cell entry
Ctrl + Shift + Return	Enter a formula as an array formula
Esc	Cancel an entry in the cell or formula bar
Ctrl + a	Display the Formula Builder after you type a valid function name in a formula
⌘ + k	Insert a hyperlink
Ctrl + u	Edit the active cell and position the insertion point at the end of the line
Shift + F3	Open the Formula Builder
⌘ + =	Calculate all sheets in all open workbooks
⌘ + Shift + =	Calculate the active sheet
=	Start a formula
⌘ + t	Toggle the formula reference style between absolute, relative, and mixed
⌘ + Shift + t	Insert the AutoSum formula
Ctrl + ; (semicolon)	Enter the date
⌘ + ; (semicolon)	Enter the time
Ctrl + Shift + " (quotation marks)	Copy the value from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the formula bar
Ctrl + ` (grave accent)	Alternate between displaying cell values and displaying cell formulas
Ctrl + ' (apostrophe)	Copy a formula from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the formula bar
Ctrl + Option + Arrow Down	Display the AutoComplete list
Ctrl + l	Define a name

Working with data forms

Excel offers a built-in data entry form as an easy way to enter data into an Excel database. The form allows users to start new databases, add new records to existing databases, scroll through records, search for records and edit or delete individual records. The shortcuts below will enable the user to better work with data forms.

WINDOWS

Tab	Move to the next field that can be edited
Shift + Tab	Move to the previous field that can be edited
Enter	Move to the first field in the next record
Shift + Enter	Move to the first field in the previous record
Page Down	Move to the same field 10 records forward
Page Up	Move to the same field 10 records back
Ctrl + Page Down	Move to a new record
Ctrl + Page Up	Move to the first record
Home	Move to the beginning of a field
End	Move to the end of a field

MAC

Arrow Down	Move to the same field in the next record
Arrow Up	Move to the same field in the previous record
Tab	Move to the next field that you can edit in the record
Shift + Tab	Move to the previous field that you can edit in the record
Return	Move to the first field in the next record
Shift + Return	Move to the first field in the previous record
Page Down	Move to the same field 10 records forward
Page Up	Move to the same field 10 records back
Ctrl + Page Down	Move to a new record
Ctrl + Page Up	Move to the first record

Basic Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Tom's Guide Staff — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 14:46:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel is an expansive program that allows for the organization of data in many capacities. The spreadsheets are useful for a wide range of applications, but navigating within them can be a daunting task. Use the shortcuts below to better navigate the program and be more productive in the use of Excel.

Note that in Excel 2010, there are no longer screen reminders of ALT+ menu shortcuts, and some shortcuts may not work. However, all of the CTRL+ keyboard shortcuts will work.

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Selecting data

WINDOWS

Shift + Space	Select the entire row.
CTRL + Space	Select the entire column.
CTRL + Shift + * (asterisk)	Select the current region around the active cell.
CTRL + A (or CTRL + Shift + spacebar)	Select the entire worksheet or the data-containing area. Press CTRL + A twice to select entire worksheet.
CTRL + Shift + Page Up	Select the current and previous sheet in a workbook.
CTRL + Shift + O	Select all cells with comments
Shift + Arrow Keys	Extend the selection by one cell.
CTRL + Shift + Arrow Key	Extend the selection to the last cell with content in row or column.
Shift + Page Down	Extend the selection one screen down.
Shift + Page Up	Extend the selection one screen up.
Shift + Home	Extend the selection to the beginning of the row.
CTRL + Shift + Home	Extend the selection to the beginning of the worksheet
CTRL + Shift + End	Extend the selection to the last used cell on the worksheet (lower-right corner).

Managing Active Selections

F8	Turn on extension of selection with arrow keys without having to keep pressing shift.
Shift + F8	Add another (adjacent or non-adjacent) range of cells to the selection. Use arrow keys and shift+arrow keys to add to selection.
Shift + Backspace	Select only the active cell when multiple cells are selected.
CTRL + Backspace	Show active cell within selection.
CTRL + . (period)	Move clockwise to the next corner of the selection.
Enter	Move active cell down in a selection.
Shift + Enter	Move active cell up in a selection.
Tab	Move active cell right in a selection.
Shift + Tab	Move active cell left in a selection.
CTRL + Alt + Arrow Right	Move to the right between non-adjacent selections (with multiple ranges selected).
CTRL + Alt + Arrow Left	Move to the left between non-adjacent selections (with multiple ranges selected).
Esc	Cancel selection.

Selecting inside cells

Shift + Arrow Left	Select or unselect one character to the left.
Shift + Arrow Right	Select or unselect one character to the right.
CTRL + Shift + Arrow Left	Select or unselect one word to the left.
CTRL + Shift + Arrow Right	Select or unselect one word to the right.
Shift + Home	Select from the insertion point to the beginning of the cell.
Shift + End	Select from the insertion point to the end of the cell.

MAC

F8	Turn on extend selection mode; use with arrow keys or cursor.
Shift + F8	Add to the selection.
CTRL + Return	Fill the selected cell range with the text that you type.
Shift + Return	Complete a cell entry and move back in the selection.

Inserting and editing data

Working with the data within an Excel spreadsheet often calls for the insertion and editing of the cells themselves. This can include using Clipboard to copy or cut cells, editing within specific cells, or hiding elements to make the spreadsheet easier to read.

WINDOWS

Work with Clipboard

CTRL + C	Copy contents of selected cells.
CTRL + X	Cut contents of selected cells.
CTRL + V	Paste content from clipboard into selected cell.
CTRL + Alt + V	If data exists in clipboard: Display the Paste Special dialog box.
CTRL + Shift + (plus sign)	If data exists in clipboard: Display the Insert dialog box to insert blank cells.

Edit Inside Cells

F2	Edit the active cell with cursor at end of the line.
Alt + Enter	Start a new line in the same cell.
Enter	Complete a cell entry and move down in the selection. With multiple cells selected: fill cell range with current cell.
Shift + Enter	Complete a cell entry and move up in the selection.
Tab	Complete a cell entry and move to the right in the selection.
Shift + Tab	Complete a cell entry and move to the left in the selection.
Esc	Cancel a cell entry.
Backspace	Delete the character to the left of the insertion point, or delete the selection.
Delete	Delete the character to the right of the insertion point, or delete the selection.
CTRL + Delete	Delete text to the end of the line.
CTRL + ; (semicolon)	Insert current date.
CTRL + Shift + : (colon)	Insert current time.

Edit Active or Selected Cells

CTRL + D	Fill complete cell down (Copy above cell).
CTRL + R	Fill complete cell to the right (Copy cell from the left).
CTRL + " (quotation marks)	Fill cell values down and edit (Copy above cell values).
CTRL + ' (apostrophe)	Fill cell formulas down and edit (Copy above cell formulas).
CTRL + L	Insert a table (display Create Table dialog box).
CTRL + - (minus sign)	Delete Cell/Row/Column Menu
CTRL + - (minus sign) with row or column selected	Delete row or column.
CTRL + Shift + + (plus sign)	Insert Cell/Row/Column Menu
CTRL + Shift + + (plus sign) with row or column selected	Insert row or column.
Shift+F2	Insert / Edit a cell comment.
Shift + F10, then M	Delete comment.
Alt + F1	Create and insert chart with data in current range as embedded Chart Object.
F11	Create and insert chart with data in current range in a separate Chart sheet.
CTRL + K	Insert a hyperlink.
Enter (in a cell with a hyperlink)	Activate a hyperlink.

Hide and Show Elements

CTRL + 9	Hide the selected rows.
CTRL + Shift + 9	Unhide any hidden rows within the selection.
CTRL + 0 (zero)	Hide the selected columns.
CTRL + ` (grave accent)	Alternate between displaying cell values and displaying cell formulas. Accent grave /not a quotation mark.
Alt + Shift + Arrow Right	Group rows or columns.
Alt + Shift + Arrow Left	Ungroup rows or columns.
CTRL + 8	Display or hides the outline symbols.
CTRL + 6	Alternate between hiding objects, displaying objects, and displaying placeholders for objects.

MAC

F1	Undo.
F2	Cut text from the active cell.
Shift + F2	Edit a cell comment.
F3	Copy text from the active cell.
Shift + F3	Open the Formula Builder.
F4	Paste text into the active cell.
Esc	Cancel a cell entry.
Command + Y	Repeat the last action.
Shift + F2	Edit a cell comment.
CTRL + D	Fill down.
CTRL + R	Fill to the right.
CTRL + L	Define a name.

Microsoft Office 2010 System Requirements

Kevin Parrish — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:40:00 +0000

The official blog for the Microsoft Office 2010 product development group today revealed the system requirements for the upcoming office software suite. Slated to launch next month, most users will be able to use the new suite on the same hardware used in Office 2007 according to Alex Dubec, Program Manager on the Office Trustworthy Computing Performance team.

"If your current computer can run Office 2007, it can run Office 2010," he said. "If you’re purchasing a new laptop or netbook, it can run Office 2010. If you have a computer with a multi-core processor, it can run Office 2010 even faster. If your computer is currently running Office 2003, it’s possible that it can run Office 2010 (check the requirements to be sure). "

Based on the blog, the minimum requirements consist of a 500 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. While these two factors were the same requirements for Office 2007, they've doubled since the release of Office 2003, requiring a 233 MHz processor and 128 MB of RAM. Dubec also added that the “footprint” of most Office applications have gotten larger--most standalone application disk-space requirements have gone up by 0.5 GB, and the suites have increased by 1.0 or 1.5 GB.

For consumers running 32-bit operating systems, the 32-bit version of Office 2010 is compatible with Windows 7, Vista with SP1, XP with SP3, Server 2008, and Server 2003 R2 with MSXML 6.0. For those running 64-bit operating systems, the 32-bit version of Office 2010 is compatible with Windows 7, Vista SP1, Server 2008 R2, Server 2008, and Server 2003 R2 with MSXML 6.0. The 64-bit version of Office 2010 will not work on Server 2003 R2 with MSXML 6.0.

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