Autocorrect – more tricks

You can do more with autocorrect than just correct spelling and type fancy characters In my blog post of 17/11/2023, I covered “re-setting Word options”. This included setting up your own autocorrect options so that, for instance, “thier” would automatically be changed to “their” every time you mis-type it. Let’s be clear that this is …
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Re-setting Word Options

A few weeks ago I started writing about re-setting Word options if an update from Microsoft has set them back to defaults Then I allowed my attention to be hijacked away from Word options when Bard (Google’s AI) admitted lying to me. Let’s try again By default, Word automatically capitalises the first letter of every …
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Replacement iPhone Battery

Is it worth replacing an iPhone battery with an “unauthorised” one? A long time ago (before Covid, even), I would buy a replacement iPhone battery at a shop just off Tottenham Court Road. This was before Apple introduced “authorised” replacement batteries. Alas, they are no longer there. Your phone battery is probably due for replacement …
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A Conversation with Bard (aka Gemini)

One of Microsoft’s least endearing habits is re-setting “options” after installing updates Every now and again I get a phone call or email from a particular client telling me that Microsoft has done it again. It has installed an update and now Word has gone back to automatically starting sentences with a capital letter, and …
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Version History in OneDrive

Since the end of 2022, OneDrive has supported version history for all file types Previously, only Microsoft Offices files (eg Word documents and spreadsheets) retained earlier versions in OneDrive. My experience of Microsoft’s cloud storage facility – OneDrive – is that it is a bit of a curate’s egg. The basic idea of automatically backing …
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Predictive typing in Word and Windows (10 & 11)

The spirit of Clippy is back Do you remember the good old days of the Microsoft “Clippy” character in Microsoft Word? If you started to create a document that looked anything like a letter then it popped up a totally useless box with a totally fatuous and infantile piece of clipart, and a caption saying …
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Use “Quick Parts” in Word to re-use pieces of text

You can save pre-defined pieces of text for re-use in different Word documents I have described in other blog posts how you can use “autocorrect” in Word to correct your oft-repeated spelling mistakes automatically, and also to replace several words with just a few keystrokes. You can find these posts here: Re-setting Word Options Autocorrect …
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Outlook Search – Where Did it Find the Results?

Outlook Search may be good at finding things – but it’s not so good at telling you WHERE it found them Simple search in Outlook To begin with, a bit of clarification about “Outlook” This article is about the version of Outlook that is part of Microsoft 365 (or Microsoft Office, as it used to …
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Sort on two or more columns in Outlook and Explorer

Sorting on one column in Outlook and Explorer In Outlook, you can sort the display of emails on any column simply by clicking on the column name – eg clicking on “Subject” above the column of the email subject headings will sort on that column. Clicking on it again will sort in the opposite direction …
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