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www.office.com/setup Blogs: Sway: Microsoft Office presentation software. PowerPoint: Microsoft Office presentation software. So what's the difference? You're watching Jeopardy! when the presenter utters the following answer in keeping with the game show's famous format: "A software tool from Microsoft for creating presentations, web-based reports and projects." Quick as a flash you spit out the question in unison with the contestant: "What is PowerPoint?" To your astonishment, presenter Alex Trebek shakes his head and utters a curt "No". The correct question was "What is Sway?" To the best of our knowledge, that scenario has yet to surface on the American quiz show, but it's hypothetically possible. After all, there are a number of similarities between PowerPoint and Sway on first inspection: Both are part of Microsoft Office Both can be used to create rich presentations Both support multimedia including video, audio and images Both feature customisable templates There's no disputing that there are areas where PowerPoint and Sway overlap. But if you're thinking Sway is just a web-based clone of PowerPoint, think again - each piece of software has highly specific functions. It's well worth familiarising yourself with the differences between the two, cos if you Sway when you're meant to PowerPoint, you're gonna have a bad time. POWERPOINT IN A PARAGRAPH As the world's preeminent slideshow software, PowerPoint requires no introduction. From classroom projects to delivering keynote addresses, Microsoft's easy to use presentation software has graced overhead projectors on every continent. Slides; audience handouts; speaker's notes. Whatever you choose to create and however you choose to deliver your story, PowerPoint makes it simple. SWAY IN SUMMARY Sway is an online presentation and storytelling app that's free for anyone with a Microsoft or Office 365 account. The newest addition to Microsoft Office, Sway helps

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: Excel is a spreadsheet program that allows you to store, organize, and analyzeinformation. While you may believe Excel is only used by certain people to process complicated data, anyone can learn how to take advantage of the program's powerful features. Whether you're keeping a budget, organizing a training log, or creating an invoice, Excel makes it easy to work with different types of data. Watch the video below to learn more about Excel. GETTING TO KNOW EXCEL If you've previously used Excel 2010 or Excel 2013, then Excel 2016 should feel familiar. If you are new to Excel or have more experience with older versions, you should first take some time to become familiar with the Excel interface. THE EXCEL INTERFACE When you open Excel 2016 for the first time, the Excel Start Screen will appear. From here, you'll be able to create a new workbook, choose a template, and access your recently edited workbooks. From the Excel Start Screen, locate and select Blank workbook to access the Excel interface. The Excel Start screen - www.office.com/setup Click the buttons in the interactive below to become familiar with the Excel interface. - www.office.com/setup WORKING WITH THE EXCEL ENVIRONMENT The Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar are where you will find the commands to perform common tasks in Excel. The Backstage view gives you various options for saving, opening a file, printing, and sharing your document. THE RIBBON Excel 2016 uses a tabbed Ribbon system instead of traditional menus. The Ribbon contains multiple tabs, each with several groups of commands. You will use these tabs to perform the most common tasks in Excel. Each tab will have one or more groups. Groups on the ribbon - www.office.com/setup Some groups will have an arrow you can click for more options. Some groups have a menu for more options - www.office.com/setup Click a tab to see more commands. Tabs on the ribbon - www.office.c

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Indenting text adds structure to your document by allowing you to separate information. Whether you'd like to move a single line or an entire paragraph, you can use the tab selector and the horizontal ruler to set tabs and indents. Optional: Download our practice document. Watch the video below to learn more about how to use indents and tabs in Word. INDENTING TEXT In many types of documents, you may want to indent only the first line of each paragraph. This helps to visually separate paragraphs from one another. - www.office.com/setup It's also possible to indent every line except for the first line, which is known as a hanging indent. - www.office.com/setup TO INDENT USING THE TAB KEY A quick way to indent is to use the Tab key. This will create a first-line indent of 1/2 inch. Place the insertion point at the very beginning of the paragraph you want to indent. - www.office.com/setup Press the Tab key. On the Ruler, you should see the first-line indent marker move to the right by 1/2 inch. The first line of the paragraph will be indented. - www.office.com/setup If you can't see the Ruler, select the View tab, then click the check box next to the Ruler. - www.office.com/setup INDENT MARKERS In some cases, you may want to have more control over indents. Word provides indent markers that allow you to indent paragraphs to the location you want. - www.office.com/setup The indent markers are located to the left of the horizontal ruler, and they provide several indenting options: First-line indent marker adjusts the first-line indent Hanging indent marker adjusts the hanging indent Left indent marker moves both the first-line indent and hanging indent markers at the same time (this will indent all lines in a paragraph) TO INDENT USING THE INDENT MARKERS Place the insertion point anywhere in the paragraph you want to indent, or select one or more paragraphs. - www.office.com/setup Click and drag the desired indent marke

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: PowerPoint allows you to add audio to your presentation. For example, you could add background music to one slide, a sound effect to another, and even record your own narration or commentary. You can then edit the audio to customize it for your presentation. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about inserting audio in PowerPoint. TO INSERT AUDIO FROM A FILE: In our example, we'll insert an audio file saved locally on our computer. If you'd like to work along with our example, right-click this link to our example file and save it to your computer (music credit: Something Small (Instrumental) by Minden, CC BY-NC 3.0). From the Insert tab, click the Audio drop-down arrow, then select Audio on My PC. Inserting audio from a file - www.office.com/setup Locate and select the desired audio file, then click Insert. Selecting the desired audio file - www.office.com/setup The audio file will be added to the slide. The inserted audio file - www.office.com/setup RECORDING YOUR OWN AUDIO Sometimes you may want to record audio directly into a presentation. For example, you might want the presentation to include narration. Before you begin, make sure you have a microphone that is compatible with your computer; many computers have built-in microphones or ones that can be plugged in to the computer. TO RECORD AUDIO: From the Insert tab, click the Audio drop-down arrow, then select Record Audio. Clicking Record Audio - www.office.com/setup Type a name for the audio recording if you want. Renaming the audio recording - www.office.com/setup Click the Record button to start recording. Clicking the Record button - www.office.com/setup When you're finished recording, click the Stop button. Clicking the Stop button - www.office.com/setup To preview your recording, click the Play button. Previewing the recording - www.office.com/setup When you're done, click OK. The au

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: FROM USING ONENOTE FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT TO DISCOVERING HIDDEN FEATURES IN WORD, THERE ARE TONS OF WAYS YOU CAN GET MORE OUT OF OFFICE 365. HERE'S A LOOK BACK AT THIS YEAR'S MOST POPULAR TIPS. @MENTIONS IN OUTLOOK www.office.com/setup Blogs: This is an excerpt from our post Get Someone's Attention in Outlook with @Mentions. Using the @ symbol is a quick way to draw people's attention to important things. Microsoft has rolled this handy feature into Outlook, so here's how you can use it to get people's attention in emails and also save time. (Note: This feature is only available in Outlook 2016, Outlook 2016 for Mac, Outlook on the web for Office 365 Business, Outlook.com, and Outlook on the web for Exchange Server 2016.) ONENOTE FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT This is an excerpt from our post 5 Keys to Using OneNote for Project Management. Instead of investing in costly project management software, how about using a free program like Microsoft OneNote? OneNote digital notebooks are available on all your devices and can be used for a variety of projects. Whether you are planning a wedding, heading up an office presentation, or writing a thesis paper, OneNote bends to your needs. This post focuses on tips for the office, but personal and school projects can be managed with OneNote using many of these same key principles. HIDDEN FEATURES IN WORD This is an excerpt from our post 3 Hidden & Useful Tricks in Microsoft Word. There are lots of great hidden features tucked away in Microsoft Word that you probably don't know about. From activating research tools, to changing the page color of documents to reduce eye strain, to easily capturing screenshots, here are three tricks that you will enjoy. WORD ONLINE VS. WORD DESKTOP This is an excerpt from our post 3 Things You Can Do With Word Online That You Can't Do With Word Desktop. Word Online isn't just a simple online word processor. To get the full value of the product

We're all creators-each in our own way. I'm part of an organization that advocates for those who are creatively talented or gifted: artists, creators, and entrepreneurs. But I've found that we all bring creativity to our jobs in some form or another. I know that I can approach problems in a more creative way and find innovative solutions when I have the right tools and information within easy reach. At Copyright Alliance, we're a small team that serves more than 40 institutional members and thousands of artists around the country. For each of us, the ability to find and share files while on the go is a huge priority, especially because we tend to fill in for each other on different projects at a moment's notice. Balancing tasks like writing opinion pieces for news publications, giving talks at conferences, and meeting with members-all in the same day-is the norm. In the past, technology issues sometimes sapped my creative energy, making it difficult to stay focused on the task in front of me. Instead, I would have to scramble to find a document or a presentation that I needed. We had a file server at the office and I would routinely download all the documents I thought I would need before dashing off to the next engagement. This not only took extra time out of my day, it also wasn't a foolproof system. There were times when I just couldn't access the information I needed while out in the field. With Microsoft Office 365, all that has changed. Now that we have an online suite of tools for creating documents and managing them in a systematic way, we can all work together more fluidly. The menus and navigation in Microsoft SharePoint Online are simple to use, and it's reassuring to see exactly when a document was last updated. We're looking forward to using more of the tools in Office 365, including Microsoft Lync Online to make calls and hold meetings-all in a couple of clicks. I hardly think about the technology we use anymore. The transition to

Part of the thrill of working for the Office Division is the opportunity to tackle thorny business issues on behalf of our customers while providing them with a road map for the future. That may be why an interesting article caught my attention this week. In it, the author examined some of the investments Microsoft is making in the unified communications space. While I didn't agree with all of the conclusions it contained, the article certainly underscored the interest in communications and collaboration and how to make people more productive. Communicating and collaborating with others is really at the heart of what we do every day. Whether at work or at home, people have the need to make meaningful connections with one another. Compounding that need are the realities of the world we live in where instant access to information is expected, friends and coworkers are scattered across geographies and many adults are juggling multiple mobile devices. At Microsoft, we believe technology isn't the problem to these complexities, it's the answer. We're committed to providing capabilities that help people make sense of it all and to do so in a way that is intuitive, barrier free and agnostic to the devices on which we rely. We're incredibly proud of the fact that our long term-term vision for communications and collaboration not only marries the best of the cloud and the desktop, it's a holistic approach that spans "from the living room to the boardroom" placing people at the center of everything we do. Our communication and collaboration vision comes to life utilizing client and cloud assets, including Lync, Skype, Yammer, Outlook and SharePoint. These tools are enabling enterprise social capabilities, HD video conferencing and document collaboration as part of a highly secured, reliable and extensible platform. At the risk of looking geeky, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Lync and it's comforting to know I'm not alone. More than 90% of

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Having come around to the idea that it needed different versions of Office for different kind of users, Microsoft introduced lightweight versions of Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote that are neither as pricey or as feature laden as the main versions included in Office. iPad users were the first to get their hands on this new take on Office. With Windows 10, the free Microsoft Office Mobile apps have arrived for some Windows users. 10 Things to Love About Windows 10 (7) - www.office.com/setup Blogs Read: Windows 10 Review - A Love Affair Here's how to get that free Microsoft Office in Windows 10, and what you need to know about it why it's possible for some to take advantage and not possible for others. HOW TO GET FREE MICROSOFT OFFICE IN WINDOWS 10: WHAT IS IT? Microsoft Office is wildly successful. Everyday millions of users all open it to get work done. Millions of documents are written in Microsoft Word. Millions of budgets and sales breakdowns are created in Microsoft Excel. Everyone has created a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation at some point in their life. Screenshot (236) - www.office.com/setup Blogs Windows and Microsoft Office are synonymous. Because the two are often used together and both made by Microsoft, many assume that one comes included with the other. That's never been true. Windows device makers often included shortcuts to trials for Microsoft Office with new PCs. Some even bundled it with their PCs, passing the cost on to buyers. Microsoft Office costs $149 if purchased outright or $6.99 a month through Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service. Office Mobile is what Microsoft collectively calls the free Microsoft Office apps that are now available. Word Mobile lets Windows 10 users view documents. Excel Mobile focuses on spreadsheets. PowerPoint Mobile lets users look at presentations. Outlook is separated into to apps, Outlook Calendar and Outlook Mail. Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar are a

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Presentations are used every day to educate, enlighten and energize. Head teachers will have to present to teachers, teachers will need to present daily to their students, and those students will have to present on many occasions throughout their education and beyond. Because of this, it is important that presentations are engaging, modern and easy to create, in order to have the impact that is intended. This tutorial in our Sway series will show you how Sway can be used to make great presentations, and how you can make the most of the easy to use features to make your presentation as interactive and informative. Recently we're been working our way through a number of Sway video tutorials, and this next offering demonstrates the ways you can use Sway to create and liven up your presentations: In education planning is key, so most educators and students will draw up a plan of their presentation before they start creating it and, now you have Sway, it has never been easier to transform your plan into fun, interactive content in just a few clicks. If you write up an outline in Word for example, just drop it into Sway and it will automatically create headings and sections based on your document. You can then update and change the formatting of the text cards by using the emphasis and accent features, which draw attention to what matters to you in your presentation. To support the messaging in your text, you can then add some helpful or exciting images to the storyline, categorising them easily with the grouping tool and using focus points to make sure you don't lose what is important. If, like many educators, you like to have visual signposts in your presentation, then you can use the images and text as headings to section your work. This will make it easier for the student navigating the presentation, and allow you to keep the flow when you are presenting. And if you like to have a brief preview of what is coming in the presentation

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Project 2016 has all the functionality and features you're used to, with some enhancements and the best new features from Office 2016. NOTE: The following feature updates are available to Project Online subscribers. They will first roll out to Office Insider participants. If you have a Project Online subscription, make sure you have the latest version of Office. MARCH 2017 TASK SUMMARY NAME FIELD With long lists of tasks, it can be difficult to know what a task is indented under in the overall project plan. The Task Summary Name field is a read-only field that shows the name of a task's summary task. Adding this field as a column in your Task view can help clarify your project's structure. To add this field, right-click the title of a column (to the right of where you want to add the field), select Insert Column, and then choose Task Summary Name from the drop-down list. Task Summary Name column - www.office.com/setup NOVEMBER 2016 TIMELINE BAR LABELS AND TASK PROGRESS Communicating project progress just got easier! Timeline bars can now be labeled, and task progress is shown right on the tasks themselves, making it simple to quickly illustrate your plan and the work in progress when sharing status. Timeline bars with labels and task progress - www.office.com/setup OCTOBER 2016 IN-APP FEEDBACK Have a comment or suggestion about Microsoft Office? We need your feedback to help us deliver great products. In Project, you can suggest new features, tell us what you like or what's not working by clicking File > Feedback. Click File > Feedback to offer comments or suggestions about Microsoft Project - www.office.com/setup SEPTEMBER 2015 MORE FLEXIBLE TIMELINES With Project 2016, not only can you leverage multiple timelines to illustrate different phases or categories of work, but you can also set the start and end dates for each timeline separately, to paint a clearer overall picture of the work involved. Formatted timeline in Project

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Forms is a new part of Office 365 Education that allows teachers and students to quickly and easily create custom quizzes, surveys, questionnaires, registrations and more. When you create a quiz or form, you can invite others to respond to it using any web browser, even on mobile devices. As results are submitted, you can use built-in analytics to evaluate responses. Form data, such as quiz results, can be easily exported to Excel for additional analysis or grading. WHAT YOU'LL NEED An Office 365 Education subscription. If you're not sure you have this, please contact your IT administrator to verify. An organizational or school ID account for yourself with permissions to use Microsoft Forms. Screenshot showing monitor with form open - www.office.com/setup Create forms in minutes Screenshot showing three people sharing a form - www.office.com/setup Send forms to anyone Screenshot of a monitor displaying charts for a form - www.office.com/setup See results in real time Why can't I log in to Microsoft Forms? Microsoft Forms is available only to Office 365 Education subscribers using a school or organization ID account. GET STARTED QUICKLY Clipboard Bring together teachers and students. Get more done! Create a form or quiz with questions, define settings, share your form, and check the results-in a few easy steps. Step 1: Sign in and create a new form or quiz Step 2: Adjust settings for your form or quiz Step 3: Send your form or quiz to others and collect responses Step 4: Check your form results or quiz results Are you an admin? Learn about security and privacy, Microsoft Forms data storage, and how to turn on or turn off Microsoft Forms in your organization. ADD PICTURES AND VIDEOS TO YOUR FORM OR QUIZ People Enhance your quizzes and forms with pictures and videos. Want to add a logo to your form or display pictures or videos next to quiz questions? You can do all of these tasks quickly in Microsoft Forms. Add a picture

www.office.com/setup Blogs: PowerPoint allows you to insert a video onto a slide and play it during your presentation. This is a great way to make your presentation more engaging for your audience. You can even edit the video within PowerPoint and customize its appearance. For example, you can trim the video's length, add a fade in, and much more. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about inserting videos in PowerPoint. TO INSERT A VIDEO FROM A FILE: In our example, we'll insert a video from a file saved locally on our computer. If you'd like to work along with our example, right-click this link to our example video and save it to your computer. From the Insert tab, click the Video drop-down arrow, then select Video on My PC. Inserting a video from a file - www.office.com/setup Locate and select the desired video file, then click Insert. Selecting a video to insert - www.office.com/setup The video will be added to the slide. The inserted video - www.office.com/setup With the Screen Recording feature on the Insert tab, you can create a video of anything you are doing on your computer and insert it into a slide. the Screen Recording button on the Insert tab - www.office.com/setup TO INSERT AN ONLINE VIDEO: Some websites-like YouTube-allow you to embed videos into your slides. An embedded video will still be hosted on its original website, meaning the video itself won't be added to your file. Embedding can be a convenient way to reduce the file size of your presentation, but you'll also need to be connected to the Internet for the video to play. Inserting an online video - www.office.com/setup WORKING WITH VIDEOS TO PREVIEW A VIDEO: Click a video to select it. Click the Play/Pause button below the video. The video will begin playing, and the timeline next to the Play/Pause button will advance. The Play/Pause button and the timeline - www.office.com/setup To jump to a different part of the video, click anywhe

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Whenever you use the Internet, you use hyperlinks to navigate from one webpage to another. If you want to include a web address or email address in your PowerPoint presentation, you can choose to format it as a hyperlink so a person can easily click it. It's also possible to link to files and other slides within a presentation. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about inserting hyperlinks in PowerPoint. ABOUT HYPERLINKS Hyperlinks have two basic parts: the address of the webpage, email address, or other location they are linking to, and the display text (which can also be a picture or a shape). For example, the address could be http://www.youtube.com, and YouTube could be the display text. In some cases, the display text might be the same as the address. When you're creating a hyperlink in PowerPoint, you'll be able to choose both the address and the display text or image. TO INSERT A HYPERLINK: Select the image or text you want to make a hyperlink. Right-click the selected text or image, then click Hyperlink. Alternatively, you can go to the Insert tab and click the Hyperlink command. - www.office.com/setup The Insert Hyperlink dialog box will open. - www.office.com/setup If you selected text, the words will appear in the Text to display field at the top. You can change this text if you want. Type the address you want to link to in the Address field. Click OK. The text or image you selected will now be a hyperlink to the web address. - www.office.com/setup TO INSERT A HYPERLINK TO AN EMAIL ADDRESS: Right-click the selected text or image, then click Hyperlink. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box will open. On the left side of the dialog box, click Email Address. - www.office.com/setup Type the email address you want to connect to in the Email Address box, then click OK. - www.office.com/setup PowerPoint often recognizes email and web addresses as you type and will format them as hyperlin

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Another tool you can use to connect to a webpage, file, email address, or slide is called an action button. Action buttons are built-in shapes you can add to a presentation and set to link to another slide, play a sound, or perform a similar action. When someone clicks or hovers over the button, the selected action will occur. Action buttons can do many of the same things as hyperlinks. Their easy-to-understand style makes them especially useful for self-running presentations at booths and kiosks. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about using action buttons in your presentations. INSERTING ACTION BUTTONS You can insert action buttons on one slide at a time, or you can insert an action button that will show up on every slide. The second option can be useful if you want every slide to link back to a specific slide, like the title page or table of contents. TO INSERT AN ACTION BUTTON ON ONE SLIDE: Click the Insert tab. Click the Shapes command in the Illustrations group. A drop-down menu will appear with the action buttons located at the very bottom. - www.office.com/setup Select the desired action button. Insert the button onto the slide by clicking the desired location. The Action Settings dialog box will appear. Select the Mouse Click or Mouse Over tab. Selecting the Mouse Click tab means the action button will perform its action only when clicked. Selecting the Mouse Over tab will make the action button perform its action when you move the mouse over it. - www.office.com/setup In the Action on click section, select Hyperlink to:, then click the drop-down arrow and choose an option from the menu. - www.office.com/setup Check the Play Sound box if you want a sound to play when the action button is clicked. Select a sound from the drop-down menu, or select Other sound to use a sound file on your computer. When you're done, click OK. - www.office.com/setup TO INSERT AN ACTION BUTTON ON A

Remember the vintage game "Pull the Rug Out?" It is a board game where players stack different items on top of a rug. Eventually, one of the players tries to pull out the rug without tumbling the pieces stacked on top of it. Google's recent announcement that it is phasing out several additional services, including the highly popular Google Reader, reminded me of this game, as I recall that the stack most always toppled to the ground. Google introduced Google Reader, gradually built up its popularity, and then pulled the rug out with little warning, causing its customers to stumble. As one Google customer put it: "Google spends millions of wasted dollars on pet projects, then kills one of their best products on a whim." Google's most recent spring cleaning brings the total number of services it has discontinued to 70 in just a year-and-a-half. That's right-a whopping 70 services that have been shut down in just 18 months. Among the services Google will discontinue with little warning is Google Cloud Connect, introduced with a lot of fanfare just two years ago. Cloud Connect is a plug-in that enables Google users to share and edit Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel files. To continue collaborating with Microsoft Office, Google users have just four weeks to uninstall Cloud Connect and install Google Drive. Companies that can't get to it by April 30 will be out of luck, leaving them without a way to collaborate on Office documents used by millions of employees, partners, and customers. But of all the services Google is discontinuing this time, the one that's drawing the biggest backlash is Google Reader, a service used by hundreds of thousands of users to keep track of their favorite websites and blogs via RSS feeds. The news of Google Reader's shut down drew outrage from users, who put together a petition demanding that Google reinstate the service. "Our confidence in Google's other products - Gmail, YouTube, and yes, even Plus - requ

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: USE THIS HELPFUL FEATURE TO QUICKLY VERIFY FACTS AND FIND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AS YOU WORK. www.office.com/setup Blogs: Among all of Office 2016's useful new features, there's one in particular you'll definitely want to take the time to master: Smart Lookup. In short, it serves as a digital research assistant, pulling in information from the Web to enhance your work or help you decipher unfamiliar content. If you're an Office regular, Smart Lookup holds the key to a more powerful workflow. WHERE TO FIND IT Smart Lookup is just one right-click away in any Office 2016 app. Highlight a word or phrase you want to research, right-click, and select Smart Lookup from the context menu. You can also get to this feature by launching Review > Smart Lookup and entering a query. smart lookup word - www.office.com/setup Right-click on a word or phrase to launch Office's Smart Lookup tool. Smart Lookup works similarly in both Windows and Mac versions of Office 2016. When you launch the tool, a sidebar appears on the right side of the screen that displays the results of your query. Here's the really cool thing about Smart Lookup: It takes context from the words around the one you're searching for in order to provide you with the most relevant results, because so many words and terms have multiple meanings. There's a reason it's called Smart Lookup! Smart Lookup proves its value in many scenarios. Here are some examples. BE A WORD NERD Living up to its name, Smart Lookup will find a definition, synonyms, and the parts of speech for any word you highlight. smart lookup definitions - www.office.com/setup Find definitions and other information to assist with writing. Select the Explore tab to get word-usage information, or scroll down the page for entries from Wikipedia or Bing search results. Click on Define for a word's meaning and to hear how it's pronounced. PULL IN RESEARCH FROM THE WEB The most useful feature for me on a day

www.office.com/setup Blogs: ML Gomes is getting a new PC running Windows 8, and wants to know which version of Microsoft Office is best for her needs Microsoft office - www.office.com/setup Blogs Which version of Microsoft Office is best with Windows 8? Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Which version of Microsoft Office should I use on Windows 8? I am buying a new laptop and need to use Outlook. ML Gomes Microsoft usually brings out new versions of Office to match new versions of Windows, and Windows 8 is no exception. The new Office 2013 is designed to work with Windows 8, and both have a similar modern styling that puts the emphasis on your content rather than Microsoft's software. Also, both are designed to work with cloud (online) services, particularly Microsoft's SkyDrive. However, other things have changed now that Microsoft is not a software company but a cloud-based "devices and services company". As chief executive Steve Ballmer said last year, this "impacts how we run the company, how we develop new experiences, and how we take products to market for both consumers and businesses." Under the old system, you could buy a copy of Microsoft Office on DVD, and use it without an internet connection. Under the new system, you buy a Product Key, which is 25 alphanumeric characters long. Entering the code online enables you to download your copy of Office, or activate a free trial version pre-installed on your new PC. FREE OFFICE WEB APPS The good news is that under the new system, most home users don't need to pay anything for Microsoft Office: they can use the free, cloud-based service in the form of Microsoft Office web apps. Sign up for an email address at Outlook.com, and you get free web-based email, a contacts book (People), a calendar, and 7GB of online storage in SkyDrive. (Outlook.com has replaced Hotmail, so you can use a Hotmail address, if you already have one.) Log on, click SkyDrive, and you can create and edit files in the four main Of

Remember the vintage game "Pull the Rug Out?" It is a board game where players stack different items on top of a rug. Eventually, one of the players tries to pull out the rug without tumbling the pieces stacked on top of it. Google's recent announcement that it is phasing out several additional services, including the highly popular Google Reader, reminded me of this game, as I recall that the stack most always toppled to the ground. Google introduced Google Reader, gradually built up its popularity, and then pulled the rug out with little warning, causing its customers to stumble. As one Google customer put it: "Google spends millions of wasted dollars on pet projects, then kills one of their best products on a whim." Google's most recent spring cleaning brings the total number of services it has discontinued to 70 in just a year-and-a-half. That's right-a whopping 70 services that have been shut down in just 18 months. Among the services Google will discontinue with little warning is Google Cloud Connect, introduced with a lot of fanfare just two years ago. Cloud Connect is a plug-in that enables Google users to share and edit Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel files. To continue collaborating with Microsoft Office, Google users have just four weeks to uninstall Cloud Connect and install Google Drive. Companies that can't get to it by April 30 will be out of luck, leaving them without a way to collaborate on Office documents used by millions of employees, partners, and customers. But of all the services Google is discontinuing this time, the one that's drawing the biggest backlash is Google Reader, a service used by hundreds of thousands of users to keep track of their favorite websites and blogs via RSS feeds. The news of Google Reader's shut down drew outrage from users, who put together a petition demanding that Google reinstate the service. "Our confidence in Google's other products - Gmail, YouTube, and yes, even Plus - req

Microsoft Office allows you to add more functionality through add-ins. Many modern add-ins also work with Office for iPad, Office Online, and Office for Mac-not just traditional desktop versions of Office for Windows. Add-ins are available for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Project, and SharePoint. They allow you to do everything from translate text or search the web to schedule a meeting at Starbucks and call an Uber. You can get add-ins in one of two ways. In a Microsoft Office application, you can click the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, click the "Add-ins" icon on the bar, and select "Store". While we're showing Word 2016 for Windows in the screenshot here, this option is available in the same place in other Office applications and Word for other platforms, including Word for iPad, Word for Mac, and Word Online.

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: HOW TO CREATE FORMS IN WORD www.office.com/setup Blogs: If you've ever used Microsoft Word, you've probably spent a lot of time customizing different options to get your document to look exactly the way you want. But have you ever created a document for other people to use? For example, let's say you're organizing a field trip and want everyone to send in their permission forms electronically. To simplify the process, you could create a form in Microsoft Word. A form allows you to create placeholders for different types of information, such as text, dates, yes-no questions, and so on. This makes it easier for everyone to know what type of information to include, and it also helps ensure all of the information is formatted the same way. We'll use Word 2013 to show you how to create a form, but this should work the same way for Word 2010 or Word 2007. You can also download our example file if you'd like to follow along. STEP 1: TURN ON THE DEVELOPER TAB Before you create form elements in a document, you'll need to activate the Developer tab on the Ribbon. To do this, click File > Options to access the Word Options dialog box. Select Customize Ribbon, then click the check box for the Developer tab. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup The Developer tab will appear on the Ribbon. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup STEP 2: ADD CONTENT CONTROLS Now you're ready to add the different parts of the form, which Word calls content control fields. To add a content control field, place your cursor in the desired location, then choose a field from the Controls group on the Developer tab. You can hover your mouse over the fields to see the different options. In this example, we're adding a text field so users can type their first names. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup The content control field will appear in the document. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup You can add severa