Can't uninstall Microsoft Office?

I recently found I was still using the 32-bit version of Office. I tried to download Office 64-bit but it would not install, it told me I must first remove/uninstall the existing Office 32-bit. Fine I thought, I went to Settings | Apps | Installed Apps. I found Microsoft Office in my list and uninstalled it. When I tried the Office 64-bit installer again, it still complained Office 32-bit was still installed. 

Solution

I downloaded a special Microsoft app called 'Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant'. You can find it here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/uninstall-office-from-a-pc-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

Install and run that application, it will take some time but eventually it does cleanly remove the existing Office installation from the computer. 

Outlook - disable e-mail auto-read

By default Microsoft Outlook marks e-mails you click on once, that appear in the preview pane, as 'read'. 

You might not want this behaviour because, perhaps you have access to not only your personal mailbox but also one for the team your work in. Imagine an e-mail comes into the team mailbox, you click on it, you read it in the preview pane. You realise it is not for you. Outlook will mark it read, others in your team might miss it.  

It might be better to take control back from Outlook for you to decide when an e-mail is marked 'read' or 'unread'. This can also be useful for your own e-mails, to help you manage them better perhaps. Here's what to do...

Instructions

In Outlook, click the View menu:

Click Reading Pane (right near the end)

Click Options

Click to disable (remove the tick) Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane

Click OK

Behaviour

Whenever you click on an e-mail it will not be marked as read. It will remain open/unread. 

• To mark an e-mail Read, click Ctrl-Q
• To mark an e-mail Unread, click Ctrl-U

If you double click an e-mail it will be marked Read.

Conclusion

I've been working this way for a couple of months now and I prefer it. At first it was strange but now Ctrl-Q is second nature. I've also found that when I really want to work on an e-mail properly, I do tend to double click it to see it in a separate window. It therefore makes perfect sense that in this circumstance, it is automatically marked Read. 

As we all receive so many e-mails, this is one way we can help ourselves manage them. Of course this method isn't for everyone, I'm just making a suggestion here, it's up to you! Also there are many other tools in Outlook to assist, the Follow Up and Reminder options are excellent and well worth using. It's always best to experiment to find the way of working that feels best for you.

Excel - Abbreviate huge numbers

Are you often working with very large numbers, possibly hundreds of thousands or even millions? Those numbers can become very long and difficult to read. There's an easy way to format them in Excel so they appear abbreviated. For example, 100,000 would appear as 100K. Here's what to do:

In the above example we have a couple of huge numbers. Select both cells, right click and click Format Cells.

Click Custom

Enter:
[>999999]#,,"M";#,"K"

Click OK

Now the numbers will appear abbreviated:

If you use pivot tables, this is invaluable. You can format the measures (Values) to be abbreviated just as above. Click the down arrow on the measure in the Values box, click Value Field Settings, click Number. This brings up the Format Cells window. Add the Custom template as explained above. Whenever you use that particular measure all the numbers will be formatted with this abbreviated format.

Word - view hyperlinks within your document (Alt-F9)

For anyone with a very long Word document and lots of text that have hyperlinks (URLs) attached, it is very difficult to keep those links up-to-date. Periodically you have to check they are correct. You can of course browse the document and hover your mouse pointer over each link but that is a very slow solution.

Instead, with your document open in Word, press Alt-F9. Lots of codes will be revealed. Press Alt-F9 a second time to hide them.

Here's a simple example:

In the above example the second sentence is hyperlinked. A URL is behind that link, but what could it be?

Press Alt-F9 and you will see it:

As you can see, it's inline, this should help you verify your links.

It's just a view, if you press Alt-F9 again the hyperlink will no longer be visible.

Excel - There are too many records to complete this operation

In Excel I was working with a pivot table. The following message popped up:
"There are too many records to complete this operation."

Solution
Click Analyze (or Options in Excel 2010)
Click Fields, Items & Sets
Click Solve Order

If you have something listed, it is probably causing the problem. Delete it, then try working with your pivot table again, all should be well.



NOTE: I've tested this with Excel 2013 but it should work the same way with other versions.

Microsoft Word has stopped working - error when editing an existing document

I opened an existing Word document and edited the footer. I just typed some letters and bang - I got a message Microsoft Word has stopped working and then I have to close Word!

I tried several times including using the recovery option and I continued to have this issue. It was really annoying because I hardly typed anything before Word would crash and the document was only two pages so hardly anything to tax Word or the computer's resources.

I tried repairing my Office 2013 but this did not help me. I searched online and found some articles, here's one that was particularly clear and helpful:
https://www.online-tech-tips.com/ms-office-tips/fix-microsoft-word-has-stopped-working/
However, it didn't help me, my problem persisted!


Solution
Instead of double clicking the Word document from Windows/File Explorer I tried opening it from within Word (File | Open). This did not help. Then I realised there was a repair option when you open the document - I tried this and it worked for me! Here's exactly what to do:

In Word click File | Open
Click Computer and Browse to where you have stored the document
Select the document you wish to open - but don't open it, look at the bottom right of the window:

Click the down arrow on the Open button (as shown above)

Click Open and Repair

The document opens and you may edit it, it should not crash! 

Click File | Save As, replace the old document with this new one.

Conclusion

The Open and Repair option worked for me. I hope it helps you but if not try the link I included above, there were other ideas there that might help you. Good luck!

NOTE: In the above example I was using Windows 7 and Word 2013. 

Recover an unsaved document

Imagine you create a new Word document, you write for a couple of hours and you were so absorbed in what you were writing that you forgot to click Save. Or perhaps you did save it but only once when you started. In the blink of an eye there's a power cut (or a similar calamity), your computer switches off! After all that work, oh no, it's lost forever!

Don't panic! In fact Word (and other Microsoft Office applications) periodically saves your work for you, even if you've not saved and named your file. This article explains how you can recover your document and breath easily again.


Instructions
In Word click File | Open

At the bottom of the Recent Documents list, click Recover Unsaved Documents

By default all unsaved documents (.asd) can be found here:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

Word will show you this folder location:

You can select a file you wish to recover and click Open

That's it! 

NOTE: The above example was with Word 2013 but other versions from 2010 onward should work fine. Also, the above will work for other Office applications such as Excel and PowerPoint.

Options

You can control how the Word auto-save function works. Click File | Options | Save

In the top part of the screen you can set the AutoRecover frequency, by default it is every 10 minutes. If you are a cautious person, perhaps change this to every 5 minutes. 

You'll also notice in the above Options screen that the path to the AutoRecover file is shown. You can change this if you wish but I recommend you leave it as it is.


Other File Recovery Solutions
There are many other situations where files may be deleted accidentally or where your hard disk might die, etc. I've written some other articles that may help you:

If you delete a file but you can't recover it from the Recycle Bin, there still might be a chance you can find a shadow copy in System Protection:
https://mgxp.blogspot.com/2016/11/system-protection-shadow-copy-recover.html

A general article about backing up your files on a Windows computer:
https://mgxp.blogspot.com/2017/04/windows-pc-backup-strategy.html

Also take a look at Recuva - this is a free tool for un-deleting files, it's worth a try:
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva


Conclusion
It's a scary moment when you realise you've lost your work but modern software has a few safeguards that can help you out. However, please try not to rely to heavily on the computer to do this for you. It's still much better to click save or even Save As (make multiple copies) just to be sure all will be well. I also cannot stress enough how important backups are. Even copying a file to a USB flash drive or to the cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive, etc) should be part of your usual workflow. Don't take chances. But if all else fails Word does have your back!


Disclaimer
You are responsible for your files and how you use your computer. If the above steps do not help you, I am sorry but there's nothing I can do. My article here is just to assist you, to provide some information. I cannot be held responsible for any loss of files, always backup and take care!

Outlook - Find e-mails by date received or sent

Every January I tidy up my Outlook inbox. I move the e-mails from the previous year into a folder (it makes it easier to archive later). To do this I need to select a range of e-mails by date. In this article I'll explain how use Outlook's advanced find to do this. I'm using Outlook 2013 but other versions should be similar.


Scenario 1
It is January 2018. I would like to find all e-mails received and sent during 2017. I currently have no e-mails in my inbox from years prior to 2017.

1. With the Outlook inbox (Mail) on the screen press Ctrl-Shift-F and the Advanced Find window will appear.
2. Click Browse and select the Inbox and Sent Items
3. Click the Advanced tab
4. Under 'Define more criteria' click Field | Date/Time Fields | Received
5. Condition = on or before
6. Value = 31/12/2017
7. Click Add to List
8. Under 'Define more criteria' click Field | Date/Time Fields | Sent
9. Condition = on or before
10. Value = 31/12/2017
11. Click Add to List
12. Click Find Now

In the above screen shot you can see the list of e-mails (received and sent) for 2017 are shown. At this point I could select those (use Shift-click or Ctrl-A to select them all) and drag them to a folder in my inbox.


Scenario 2
Perhaps you'd like to be more specific and select between a date range? It's very similar to the above but use the Condition 'between' and enter the Value as <start date> and <end date>. Here's an example:

The above will show all the e-mails from 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2017. It doesn't show those from 1st January 2018.

NOTE: Excel uses the date format you have set on your computer. In my examples I'm using dd/mm/yyyy but for those of you in the US you would use mm/dd/yyyy.


Conclusion
The Advanced Find is very powerful and can save you some time. You can do it manually instead of course, it's easy enough to select e-mails by their date from your inbox directly - but it's rather slow and cumbersome, using the Advanced Find it's much faster and more accurate. I hope this has been helpful, feel free to add comments in below if you have some similar tips to share.

Outlook - Change text between upper, lower and mixed case

Sometimes when writing an e-mail in Outlook I would like to change the case of my text. For example, recently I was listing usernames and they were all lower case. Sometimes there were typos (often due to Outlook's auto-correct) so if I could select those words and force them to lower case, that would be great.

Menu
In Outlook 2013 click the Format Text menu and the Aa button:

Keyboard
Even more useful than that, you can use the shortcut Shift-F3:

Shift-F3 works in Outlook, Word and Powerpoint. I have tested with Office 2013, it is likely to work in other versions of Office, older and newer. Try and write in the comments what you discover.

Shift-F3 doesn't work in Excel. Shift-F3 in Excel is to insert a function.

Excel - split e-mail addresses in one cell to separate rows

In Outlook if you copy e-mail addresses from the To or CC lines you end up with something like this:

email01@address.com;email02@address.com;email03@address.com;

Paste the above into Excel and it's the same, all the addresses are in one line and in one cell. What if you'd prefer them in a vertical list like this:

email01@address.com

email02@address.com

email03@address.com

In this article we'll go step-by-step through the process of splitting the addresses from one cell into many rows. 

Instructions

Select the cell containing the e-mail addresses

Click Data | Text to Columns

Click Delimited

Click Next

Click Semicolon

Click Next

Each e-mail address will now appear in separate columns...

Select all the column cells of all the e-mail addresses (as shown above)

Press Ctrl-C to copy them

Click in a cell below (A6 in our example above)

Right click...

Click the Paste Transpose button (as shown above)

The addresses will now be listed on separate rows:

That's it!


Tidy Up
However, there's a space before some of them, if you want to tidy that up, use the Replace option as follows:

Click Home | Find & Select | Replace

In the 'Find what' box put a space, do not enter anything in the 'Replace with' box

Click Replace All

The following is the result:

Conclusion
I hope that was helpful. The above works fine in Excel 2013 but it's very likely to work in Excel 2010 and other versions too.

Reduce the size of a PowerPoint pptx file

When adding a lot of photos to a PowerPoint presentation you may find that the file size grows. It would be more convenient for e-mailing and sharing if the presentation was as small as possible. PowerPoint has a way to do this, in this article I'll explain how for PowerPoint 2013 but it should be similar on other versions of PowerPoint too.

Open the presentation in PowerPoint.

Click on one of the graphic images (photo perhaps) in your presentation.

A new menu option will appear, PICTURE TOOLS, FORMAT...

Click Compress Pictures

Click to deselect (disable) Apply only to this picture - this will mean all the pictures in your presentation will be compressed at the same time. If you don't do this you will have to go one by one.

For the 'Target output' select E-mail (96 ppi): minimize document size for sharing
Click OK

Click File | Save As, use a different name - this way you can compare the file size and also, if need be, revert to the uncompressed presentation. When you look at the file size you should see that it's decreased.

Above is an example where I had an 11MB presentation and after compressing it came down to under 4MB. It's just an example of course, it all depends on how many images you have and how big they are.

NOTE: Compressing the images does reduce the image quality. However, I had full colour photos and I did not notice any difference in quality on the screen.

I hope that was helpful!

Add a custom colour to your default colour palette in Word and other Office applications

I'm currently using Office 2013 and there's a colour I use often in my documents, it isn't the usual blue, it is different from any of the blues provided with the Office applications. To get this special blue I have to add it as a custom colour using the colour code RGB 0, 144, 188. But I have to do this every time I open Word, for example.

After entering my custom colour it is shown at the bottom of the window in the Recent Colors, so I can quickly select it. However, when I close and reopen Word, my custom colour has gone. I have to enter the custom colour every time I start Word. It's the same story for the other Office applications.

I would like to have my custom colour available for all new documents I create. This can be very important, imagine your company has it's own corporate colours, shouldn't they be available to everyone as part of the standard colour palette? It's a bit much to expect user to enter custom colours using RGB codes for every document. Having the colours available easily will make the adoption of the correct colours much easier.


NOTE: I'm using Office 2013 / Word 2013 in my example here, in other versions you may find some differences but I hope at least this will help you find your way.


Solution for Word 2013
In Word, click File, New and Blank Page (or the template you would like to add your custom colour to)

Click Design

Hover the pointer over Colors to see which theme you are currently using - as in the example below:

In the above example I am currently using the Office theme.

Click Colors

Click Customize Colors (at the bottom of the drop-down list)

On the ‘Create New Theme Colors’ window, select one of the preset colours, in my example I will change Accent 5 because it is already close to the custom colour I want to add.

Click More Colors

Click the Custom tab

Enter the colour you would like, in my example RGB 0, 114, 188

Click OK

In the Name box change Custom 1 to the theme name that you’d like, in my example “Corporate Colours” and click Save.

Now your new colour is accessible for the current document (you can see it at the top of the menu - above). However, if you’d like it to be available for all new documents using this template, on the Design tab...

...and click Set as Default.

Here's what it looks like to actually use it:

Outlook 2013
Once you've created a new Colour Theme in one Office application, it'll show up in other applications. For example, when I am composing an e-mail the same colours will be available. In the screen shot below you can see the Options menu where the Colors menu is located.

Excel 2013
As with Outlook, the same is true but look on the Page Layout tab for the Colors option.


Powerpoint 2013
It is a little different here, go to the Design tab. Click the expand button on the 'Variants' box:

There is the usual Colors option to select from.

Deploy to other computers
I am sorry but I have not done this myself so I cannot provide a full explanation here. However, I did discover that the new Colour Theme I created and named "Corporate Colours" in Word, was stored as an XML file like this:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes\Theme Colors\Corporate Colours.xml

I copied the Corporate Colours.xml file to the same folder on another computer with Office 2013. I opened Word, clicked Design, looked on the Colors button and yes, my Corporate Colours option was there at the top of the list. This means you could distribute this file to all workstations on your network to provide the corporate colours to everyone.

I also found the following page on the subject, using Group Policies:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178992(v=office.15).aspx

I hope that helps!


Conclusion
If you are using a particular colour often, this really is a great little time saver. If you are using a whole palette of colours, perhaps a corporate colour scheme - this is essential. I say essential because expecting users to enter RGB numbers is a lot to ask them. They will make mistakes or forget. Customising the colours available in Office applications is best and as you can see here, it is not difficult.


Reference
Microsoft Office Change a Theme
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Change-a-theme-and-make-it-the-default-in-Word-or-Excel-c846f997-968e-4daa-b2d4-42bd2afef904

Deployment
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178992(v=office.15).aspx

Deploy templates
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/custom-templates-installation-location-office

Excel 2013 - Compare two spreadsheets

A few years ago I wrote an article explaining how to use a third-party tool to compare worksheets in Excel 2010, click here to read it. Recently I wanted to do the same but using Excel 2013 and I was pleasantly surprised to find there is a special tool included with Office 2013 that can do this job. The tool is called Spreadsheet Compare, the chances are that if you are an Excel 2013 user, you already have this tool on your computer.

Using the Windows search (press Win-S or click Start and type in the search box) do a search for "spreadsheet compare", it'll come up, run it and you'll see it's a nice straightforward little program. Just click the Compare Files button and enter the Excel worksheets you'd like to compare.

In my example above I compared two files and you can see in the lower middle window three changes are listed. One is a spelling correction of Woburn and I've clicked on it - then in the two windows above showing the original worksheets, it moves to that position to show the difference.

Also, Spreadsheet Compare can be started from the INQUIRE tab from within Excel 2013. Just make sure you have the worksheets you want to compare open before running it from there.

For more details including a step-by-step explanation please see the Microsoft page, they've done a good job already so there wasn't a need for me to redo it here. Click the following link (last accessed 17/01/2017):
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Basic-tasks-in-Spreadsheet-Compare-f2b20af8-a6d3-4780-8011-f15b3229f5d8

Outlook 2013 - when composing a message clear text formatting

In MS Outlook 2013 often when I am writing an e-mail I copy and paste some text from a different source. Often I end up with text that is formatted differently than my message text. The best thing to do is to clear all the formatting for that text. Previously I'd used the red eraser button on the MESSAGE tab to do this but I have just discovered that there's a handy shortcut - press Ctrl-Space.


Example

Select the text... 

Click the red eraser button or
Press Ctrl-Space

The above is the result, it's your default font and formatting.

NOTE: It will not clear highlighting from text.


Versions
Ctrl-Space works with Outlook 2013 and Word 2013. I haven't tried it with other versions of Outlook and Word but it is likely to work with them too. In Excel Ctrl-Space selects a column.

Lync 2013 - blank desktop after accepting a Desktop sharing request

Someone wanted to share their desktop with me using Lync 2013. Everything looks fine, I accepted the request, the Lync window grew larger but my colleague's desktop was not there! There was just a blank white space. The colleague sharing their desktop with me did not realise anything was wrong. Why can I not see their desktop?

Solution
I searched on the web and read a few articles and forum messages. It seems to be a problem with object security and you need to remove a registry key to fix this. I found this article:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/lync_tips_and_tricks/archive/2013/01/11/lync-2013-desktop-sharing-shows-blank-screen.aspx

It has fixed the problem for me. Here are the steps I took:

NOTE1: You must have Administration access permission for Windows.
NOTE2: My example is using Windows 8.1 64-bit and Lync 2013 32-bit.

First start the Event Viewer and look for the Office 2013 alerts, there will be one generated from your attempt to use Lync's desktop sharing - here's how:

Press Windows key and R to bring up the Run dialogue box
Enter eventvwr and press Enter
Expand the Application and Services Logs section

Click Microsoft Office Alerts - see the screen shot below...

In the above screen shot, you'll see I had an alert at 10:23. I clicked on it and in the space below it lists some information. The interesting part is the CLSID number - note this! In my case it's a whole string of zeros.

Start Regedit (press Windows key and R, enter regedit)

Browse the tree to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
Wow6432Node
Microsoft
Internet Explorer
ActiveX Compatibility

Select the folder that is named the same as the CLSID number you saw in the Event Viewer - in my case the one with just zeros.

BACKUP: Click File | Export  - save a copy of this registry entry as a backup. If later you decide this didn't help or there's some problem, you can restore it.

Delete the key Compatibility Flags

Now ask someone to connect with you and share their desktop - hopefully it should work!


Conclusion
This is a strange problem and I wonder if Microsoft will roll out a fix for it at some point? From what I can understand it looks like an ActiveX component is blocked. I read on a forum that one person said they could get around the problem by using Firefox as their default browser. Presumably Lync would us Firefox to render the shared desktop rather than IE, as Firefox doesn't use ActiveX then there would be no security issue? I also believe from what I've read that this issue only affects Lync 2013, since there was an update to security for it. Lync 2010 users may not have this problem at all. Whatever the reason for this, I hope that Microsoft fixes it properly at some point. I'll be watching my PC carefully to see whether this issue comes back - after all, I don't know why it happened in the first place, I was previously using Lync 2013 desktop sharing without a problem.

If/when I discover more about this issue I'll update this blog article. In the meantime, feel free to write your experiences in the comments.


Reference
As mentioned above, I found this here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/lync_tips_and_tricks/archive/2013/01/11/lync-2013-desktop-sharing-shows-blank-screen.aspx (last accessed 22/09/2014)
Many thanks to Joao Loureiro for this.

Also explained here:
http://lyncuc.blogspot.ch/2014/07/lync-2013-client-desktop-sharing-show.html (last accessed 25/08/2016)

Excel 2010 - highlight every two rows

Highlight every other row

Excel 2010 makes it easy to add stripes to your worksheet to help with readability. Click Home | Format As Table (click here for help on this) and select a layout - instantly every other row is a different colour.

Every two rows

But what if you'd like to highlight every two rows? Sometimes this can be useful if data comes in pairs perhaps. In this case you can use conditional formatting. Here's an example:

In my example I have a table of data, the first row is my header (City, Country, County). I don't want my header to be included in the highlighting (stripes) so the first thing to do is:

1.  Select all the data excluding the header (as shown above)

2.  Click Conditional Formatting (on the Home menu)

3.  Click New Rule (as shown in the above screen shot)

4.  Click Use a formula to determine which cells to format

5.  Enter the formula:
=MOD(ROW()+0,4)<2

6.  Click the Format button and select a background colour (in my example above I selected blue)

7.  Click OK - you'll see something similar to the following:

Every two rows are highlighted blue! 

You can adapt this formula for different combinations of rows if you wish. Try it yourself and experiment to find what is useful to you.

References

Highlight every other row (stripes) for readability - use Format as Table.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/excel-help/format-an-excel-table-HA010013769.aspx