In this latest installment of the O365 Productivity Tips series, Tom Duff (@duffbert) and Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet) return with another head-to-head battle of the Microsoft Office and Office 365 productivity hints and tips, delivered via webinar on January 15th, 2019 with audience members voting on each round. Follow us on Twitter for future webinars and sessions where we'll share more great tips, and be sure to follow the CollabTalk YouTube channel!

1. Office 365 Productivity Tips
“New Year Brouhaha"
Christian Buckley
CollabTalk LLC
Thomas Duff
Cambia Health

2. Christian Buckley
Founder & CEO of CollabTalk LLC
cbuck@CollabTalk.com
@buckleyplanet
http://www.buckleyplanet.com
Please remember to subscribe on YouTube!

3. Thomas Duff
Software Engineer at Cambia Health
Thomas.Duff@CambiaHealth.com
@Duffbert
http://oneminuteofficemagic.com

4. Rules of Engagement
1. Each opponent will take turns
2. No duplicates
3. Audience votes after each round
4. No hitting below the belt
5. Winner based on overall voting

5. Let’s get started!

6. Round 1

7. The Office App for Windows 10
Last year, we updated Office.com with a
new experience focused on two simple
things: helping users get the most out of
Office and getting them back into their
work quickly. The streamlined site has
clearly resonated with customers, and now
more than 40 percent of Office 365 web
users start their work by visiting
Office.com.
The new app is simply called Office. It’s
now available to Windows Insiders (Fast)
and will roll out to all Windows 10 users
soon. The app itself is free and it can be
used with any Office 365 subscription,
Office 2019, Office 2016, or Office
Online—the free web-based version of
Office for consumers.

8. The Office App for Windows 10
 A few key reasons to use the app include:
 Quickly switch between apps. See all your Office
apps in one place and switch between them with a
single click.
 Get back into your work. Jump to your most
recently used documents, pinned documents, and
documents shared with you—whether they’re on
your local machine or stored in OneDrive or
SharePoint.
 Find what you need. With Microsoft Search
integrated prominently, you can quickly find the
apps, documents, people, and sites you need to get
your work done.
 Tailor it to your organization. Organizations can
apply company branding and integrate other line of
business applications through single sign-on to
customize the experience for their users.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
365/blog/2018/12/19/introducing-the-office-app-for-windows-10/

9. Using the Read Aloud feature in Outlook
Have you ever gotten an email from someone that looks more like a novel than a request? Have you
wished you could just have someone read it to you while you focus on something else? Well, with
the Read Aloud feature in Outlook, you can now do that! Here's how…
First of all, you need to turn the feature on in your Outlook Options panel. Go to Ease of Access
and select the Show Read Aloud setting:

10. Using the Read Aloud feature in Outlook
Now when you open an email, you'll see the Read Aloud Speech option. When you click that
option in the Ribbon Bar, a speech toolbar will appear and you'll start to hear the email being read
aloud. The toolbar allows you to Rewind, Pause/Start, Fast Forward, set Options, and Stop:

11. Using the Read Aloud feature in Outlook
With the Options setting, you can alter the speed of the narration, as well as the voice used. David is
a lower-pitched male voice, while Mark has a higher-pitch. Zira is the female voice:
While this isn't something I'd necessarily use all that often, I can see it being useful for long emails with a
ton of text. It could also be extremely useful in the case of people who have vision issues that make it hard
to read and/or digest longer emails.

12. Who won the round?
17 votes 43 votes

13. Round 2

14. Following videos in Microsoft Stream
Stream is Microsoft's video platform for Office 365. I often describe it as "YouTube for Office 365",
as that's a familiar site for many people (and a pretty close analogy to Stream). One of the nice
things you can do with Stream is follow a channel where people are posting videos on a particular
topic. Here's how that works…
When you're on your Stream home page
(https://web.microsoftstream.com), you'll see
various channels listed as cards on the page
showing the channel title, description, a list
and count of videos in the channel, and how
many people are following the channel. If you
want to follow a channel so you can see when
new content is added, click on the red Follow
button. If you want to unfollow a channel
you're following, click on the Following
button to turn off the Follow:

15. Following videos in Microsoft Stream
If you click on the channel title of the card, you'll go into the channel itself, and you can also follow
and unfollow the channel from there:

16. Following videos in Microsoft Stream
Once you're following one or more channels, you'll see a Followed Channels area on the home
page of Stream. It will show you the cards for all your followed channels, as well as a New label
when a new video has been added to the channel:
By visiting the Stream home page every two or three days, you can see what videos have been added
to your channels of interest!

17. Reuse existing slides in new PowerPoint presentations
Instead of recreating slides from scratch,
quickly find and reuse slides from your
files or from others in your organization
with the help of Microsoft AI in
PowerPoint.
Simply click the Reuse Slides button on
the Home tab to surface existing
PowerPoint decks in the sidebar to
browse through recommended
PowerPoint decks that you have access
to, view the slides in each presentation,
and insert them into the deck you are
creating.
This feature will be available in January
for all Office 365 subscribers.

18. Who won the round?
56 votes 9 votes

19. Round 3

20. Live captions & subtitles in Microsoft PowerPoint
A new feature, powered by Microsoft AI, enables presenters to reach and
engage all audiences with live presentation captions and subtitles that
automatically appear in real-time. With live captions & subtitles in
PowerPoint, you can ensure your presentations are understood by everyone,
across languages and hearing access needs. This feature will support
presenters across 12 spoken languages and display on-screen captions or
subtitles in one of 60+ languages. Starting in January 2019, this feature will
start rolling out to Office 365 subscribers worldwide for PowerPoint on
Windows 10, PowerPoint for Mac, and PowerPoint Online.
Live captions & subtitles in PowerPoint brings:
 The power of AI to presenters, so they can convey simple and complex
information across subjects and topics.
 Speech recognition that automatically adapts based on the presented
content for more accurate recognition of names and specialized
terminology.
 The ability for presenters to easily customize the size, position, and
appearance of subtitles. Customizations may vary by platform.
 A peace of mind with security and compliance knowing that the feature
meets many industry standards for compliance certifications.
Live captions & subtitles in PowerPoint will begin rolling out in late January
2019 and will be available for Office 365 subscribers worldwide for
PowerPoint on Windows 10, PowerPoint for Mac, and PowerPoint Online.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2018/12/03/present-
more-inclusively-with-live-captions-and-subtitles-in-powerpoint/

21. Closing original emails in Outlook when replying or forwarding…
As I get older, I find that my mind is much more… "efficient" when it comes to "erasing" short-term
memory… such as "why did I have this particular email open on my screen, and did I already
respond to it?" Well, I just saw an option in Outlook that closes the original email when you do a
Reply or Forward, eliminating all the screen clutter. Here's how it works…
Here's an example of how Outlook was working before. I'd click on an email message to make it
appear in a separate window, and then I'd click Reply, Reply All, or Forward:

22. Closing original emails in Outlook when replying or forwarding…
You can see that I get a new email window, but my original email window is still there:

23. Closing original emails in Outlook when replying or forwarding…
My Task Bar in Windows also has two items there for my original and my new emails:
However, by going out to my Outlook options and selecting Mail > Replies and forwards >
Close original message window when replying or forwarding, I can get Outlook to "declutter"
my screen by closing my original email before showing my new email screen:

24. Closing original emails in Outlook when replying or forwarding…
Much cleaner, and I don't have to remember later why I had a particular email open for reading:

25. Who won the round?
14 votes 56 votes

26. Round 4

27. Changing an Excel column of text numbers to actual numbers in
a couple of clicks
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Excel. I know it's very powerful, but I really don't know how to use
it beyond the very basics. Today was one of those instances where I had a column of "numbers" in a
spreadsheet that I wanted to sort, but Excel thought they were text strings. I wasn't sure how to get Excel to
truly treat them as numbers until I found this cool trick…
Here I have a spreadsheet with site sizes in column C. I wanted to sort them largest to smallest, but it was
sorting them as text values instead of numeric values:

28. Changing an Excel column of text numbers to actual numbers in
a couple of clicks
To change them into numeric formats, I can use the Text To Columns option (yeah, not very
intuitive). I selected the entire contents of column C and clicked Data > Text To Columns:

29. Changing an Excel column of text numbers to actual numbers in
a couple of clicks
In the wizard, don't do anything but click Finish:

30. Changing an Excel column of text numbers to actual numbers in
a couple of clicks
Now when I sort that column, I get a sort based on actual numeric values!

31. The new Accessibility Checker
 Already discoverable next to Spelling
Checker in several Office 365 PC and
Mac applications, the Accessibility
Checker will be enhanced to run
proactively in the background. It will
alert you in real-time of issues that make
your content difficult for people with
disabilities to access. For example, it will
alert you of low-contrast text that is
difficult to read because the font color is
too similar to the background color.
 Lower bullets at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoft-
365/blog/2018/05/16/reimagine-
accessibility-and-foster-inclusion-in-the-
modern-workplace/

32. Who won the round?
28 votes 37 votes

33. Round 5

34. Convert Word documents into beautiful webpages
using Transform to Web
With Transform to Web, you can easily transform your
Word documents into interactive, easy-to-share
webpages with just three clicks.
Transform to Web offers a variety of styles that look
great on any device, helping you easily publish a wide
variety of polished content, including newsletters and
training manuals.
You can also view analytics on the page, including who
has viewed or read your content.
 To transform a document, go to File > Transform and
select a style. This feature will be available for Word
with an Office 365 subscription and Word Online
beginning November 2018.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
365/blog/2018/10/31/new-to-microsoft-365-in-october-tools-
to-create-impactful-content-and-help-transition-to-the-cloud/

35. Using Text Fill for interesting graphic effects in PowerPoint
In today's attention-deficit world, you sometimes need to take an extra step to make things pop in a
presentation. In today's tip, I share how to fill text in a PowerPoint slide with pictures for that extra bit of pizazz…
First, add text into a Text Box on a slide. In order to get the best effect, you should choose a font that is thick so
that the background picture will be easier to view. Highlight the text and select Drawing Tools > Format. In that
contextual Ribbon Bar, you should see an option for Text Fill. Select the Picture option in the Text Fill
dropdown menu:

36. Using Text Fill for interesting graphic effects in PowerPoint
You can choose your picture from a file you have on your own device, from the icon collection, or from Online
Pictures (like I've done here):

37. Using Text Fill for interesting graphic effects in PowerPoint
I'll use Bing to do searches for pictures involving Space (my search term), and then click the Search icon:

38. Using Text Fill for interesting graphic effects in PowerPoint
I like the first picture in my search results, so I'll select it in the upper left corner and click Insert:

39. Using Text Fill for interesting graphic effects in PowerPoint
Voila! The text in your slide is now using that image as the coloring:

40. Who won the round?
22 votes 33 votes

41. Overall winner?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
WHO WON ROUND 5?
WHO WON ROUND 4?
WHO WON ROUND 3?
WHO WON ROUND 2?
WHO WON ROUND 1?
New Year Brouhaha
Christian Tom
Tom!

42. Current Leaderboard
Most Rounds Won – Tom (27)
Most Events Won – Tom (6)
Most Overall Votes – Tom (958)
Event Date Location Rounds Won Votes Won Rounds Won Votes Won
9/12/2017 Online 3 31 2 29
10/28/2017 SPSTC 1 74 4 96
11/28/2017 Online 2 11 3 15
1/16/2018 Online 4 167 1 104
2 54 3 53
3 152 2 122
3 141 2 136
2 87 3 104
3 63 2 33
4 178 1 137
TOTAL 27 958 23 829
Tom Christian
1/15/2019 Online
7/25/2018 Online
2/3/2018 SPSUTAH
8/28/2018 Online
11/17/2018 SPSTC
12/19/2018 Online

43. Our next bout:
Thursday, February 7th 2019
“February Frenzy”
Register at http://bit.ly/O365frenzy

44. Thank you!
Christian Buckley
@buckleyplanet
http://www.buckleyplanet.com
Tom Duff
@Duffbert
http://OneMinuteOfficeMagic.com
Please remember to subscribe on YouTube!