Newsletter Archives

• How to safely migrate to a Microsoft 365 mailbox

  Posted on November 7, 2022 at 02:43 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  There’s an official way to migrate mailboxes to Microsoft 365 mailboxes (including Outlook.com) — but there’s a better, more prudent method I’ll explain in this article.

  Most of Microsoft’s advice is for medium and large organizations, but there’s a more direct option for smaller orgs, families, or individuals — and it also leaves you with an offline backup.

  I’ll focus on moving a free Gmail account to Outlook.com. You can use a very similar process to move small numbers of paid Google Workspace accounts to Microsoft 365 Business, or to migrate any mailbox, such as ISP-based email.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.45.0, 2022-11-07).

  Microsoft 365 Gmail, Microsoft 365, Newsletters, outlook, Outlook.com

• Use free Teams to make calls like Zoom

  Posted on October 10, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Anyone can use Teams Free to set up a group call with video, screen sharing, and other goodies — bypassing all the other Teams stuff about channels, posts, and mentions — which can confuse less-confident computer users.

  Microsoft Teams has a lot going for it, perhaps too much at times. In this article, I’ll explain how to use it for one-to-one and small-group calls. I’ll also review which features are available and what’s not possible with Teams Free.

  Microsoft loves to confuse Teams customers by mixing up the free and paid options. Many of the promoted “Teams features” are really for paid plans only — but you’d know that only by looking in the very fine print.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.41.0, 2022-10-10).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Teams, Zoom

• The surprising truth about ultra-cheap Microsoft Office

  Posted on September 12, 2022 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Ever wondered about those ultra-cheap deals for Microsoft Office? Are they safe to buy, or a scam? Is the license legal and recognized by Microsoft?

  The answers might surprise you as much as they surprised me.

  It’s part of the modern world that’s widely advertised but not much talked about. My research includes feedback (generally positive) from many readers, plus my own purchases from a well-known site. I’ll focus on Office 2021, but the same info and warnings apply to cheap offers for Windows or other software.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.37.0, 2022-09-12).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Office 365, Prices

• Using PowerShell to manage Word documents

  Posted on August 22, 2022 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  PowerShell for Word document management? Yes, of course. That’s something the plain old command prompt can’t handle.

  The more-complex and more-capable PowerShell can open Office apps (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint) to automate the making or editing of documents, sheets, or decks. Command prompt can do basic file management only. (As a little bonus, this article lists the DOS commands that still work in PowerShell.)

  The point of this article is to provide an “entry level” script for performing a basic document-management task. So let’s go through a PowerShell script that can deal with a Word document, while showing off some clever PowerShell commands.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.34.0, 2022-08-22).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, PowerShell

• Solo collaboration: Office’s untold advantage

  Posted on July 25, 2022 at 02:45 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 19.30 • 2022-07-25

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Modern Office app “collaboration” features are hyped by Microsoft for businesspeople to share a document. But all those features — comments, tracking, versioning, and multi-computer access — are available and useful for solo, personal work, too.

  Using the collaboration tools on your own is an easy way to become confident with those features without embarrassing yourself — nobody is looking over your shoulder. The same tools are useful to help you manage a complex document by leaving notes and reminders to yourself. The also help you recall deleted text and access the latest version from wherever you are.

  I’ll focus on Word in this article because it has the most comprehensive collaboration features. The same tips apply generally to Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and even a little bit for Outlook.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.30.0, 2022-07-25).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Collaboration, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Office

• How to access Microsoft 365 from PowerShell

  Posted on June 20, 2022 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  PowerShell can be daunting at first, no doubt about that. But it can be very useful and sometimes essential for managing Microsoft 365, so I’ll explain how to use PowerShell from the very start.

  From the Microsoft 365 Web dashboard, it is difficult (and sometimes impossible) to make certain changes. Only PowerShell can make them, but the online help makes a lot of assumptions and isn’t easy for beginners to understand.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.25.0, 2022-06-20).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, PowerShell

• Discover the useful but hidden extras at Office.com

  Posted on May 23, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Microsoft has done a lot of work on the Office.com home page, especially for business and enterprise users.

  There’s a lot more available on those pages than first appearances indicate. In fact, some of the most useful features are hiding behind faint, almost hidden, icons.

  Office.com is a useful portal to access recent documents saved on OneDrive or SharePoint/Teams across all your Office apps and document types. I’ll first look at the many changes for Business, Enterprise, and Education users, and then I’ll explore some hidden extras for Microsoft 365 Family/Personal.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.21.0, 2022-05-23).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Office 365, office.com

• The twists and turns of Office Fast Account Switching

  Posted on May 16, 2022 at 02:45 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 19.20 • 2022-05-16

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Fast Account Switching lets you quickly “change hats” between work, home, and other Microsoft accounts in Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and 2019, and now the browser-based Office.com apps.

  Most of us have more than one online life, usually a work account — and a personal account and possibly more for other work or voluntary commitments. For Office users, that means separate Microsoft accounts and switching between those accounts to see recent documents and online storage related to that part of your life. In the past, and still in Office for Mac, changing accounts meant reopening the Office app.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.20.0, 2022-05-16).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Accounts, Office 365, tips

• Get more OneDrive with these tips

  Posted on April 25, 2022 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  There are a few tricky ways to beat the 365 plan quota, to get more than one terabyte of OneDrive space for nothing and save local disk space by pushing files to OneDrive.

  Most Microsoft 365 plans, including Family, Personal, and most Business plans, include one terabyte of OneDrive storage. That’s 1,000 GB, more than enough for most people. But if you need more, there are cheaper – or even free – options available that are legitimate, inside the bounds of Microsoft’s rules.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.17.0, 2022-04-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, OneDrive, tips

• License and registration, please

  Posted on March 28, 2022 at 02:45 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 19.13 • 2022-03-28

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Knowing exactly which version of Office you have is important, but many people forget or don’t know — because it was installed by someone else, it’s been on their system for years, or their record-keeping leaves something to be desired.

  True story: I recently met someone who swore blind they had bought a “Microsoft subscription.” But my quick check of the machine revealed they had Office 2019, the result of having been misled by a computer salesperson.

  First, I’ll talk about the single-purchase, perpetual-license Microsoft Office, from the latest Office 2021 back to Office 2013. Then I’ll tell you how to find the hidden details for Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.13.0, 2022-03-28).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Microsoft licensing, Office Versions

• Saving money on your Microsoft 365 subscription

  Posted on February 14, 2022 at 02:43 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Using the tips in this article, you can pay less for new subscriptions and renewals.

  Let’s start with Microsoft’s official, full prices for the two main consumer plans for Microsoft 365. Both have the same features for a different number of separate users.

  In the United States, the Microsoft 365 Personal plan, for one person, has a list price of US$69.99 per year. The Microsoft 365 Family plan, for up to six people, lists for $99.99; each person in the plan gets individual access to all the apps, including 1TB of OneDrive storage. It doesn’t take higher math to see that the Family plan is the best value for more than one person and a great price for a family of four.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.07.0 (2022-02-14).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Microsoft licensing

• Dive into Microsoft To Do

  Posted on January 17, 2022 at 02:44 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  To Do from Microsoft is more than just a simple list of tasks. It has tentacles connections to Outlook, Teams, and other people.

  Cutting through all the Microsoft hype about “Set yourself up for success,” To Do is a cloud-based service for task management with connections to other Microsoft services.

  I’m going to show To Do as an online app in a Web browser, then show how it works with Outlook desktop and Teams. There are also To Do apps for Windows, iOS, and Android.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.03.0 (2022-01-17).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, To Do
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