Chrome Unboxed: Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides will now warn you of Office file compatibility issues. “First and foremost, a new warning indicator will appear if your file has compatibility issues in Drive. It will appear and stay for the entirety of your editing session or so long as there are problems to be certain you address them before shipping the document off to its recipient.”
PC Magazine: Document Editing on the Cheap: How to Use Microsoft Office for Free on the Web. “If you want to use Microsoft Office but don’t want to pay for it, why not try the free Office for the web? Formerly known as Office Online and now known simply as Office, the web-based apps reside online, accessible through your browser.”
Bleeping Computer: Microsoft starts blocking Office macros by default, once again. “Microsoft announced today that it resumed the rollout of VBA macro auto-blocking in downloaded Office documents after temporarily rolling it back earlier this month following user feedback. The change comes after the company improved its user and admin support documentation to make it easier to understand the available options when a macro is blocked.”
Bleeping Computer: Microsoft rolls back decision to block Office macros by default. “While Microsoft announced earlier this year that it would block VBA macros on downloaded documents by default, Redmond said on Thursday that it will roll back this change based on ‘feedback’ until further notice. The company has also failed to explain the reason behind this decision and is yet to publicly inform customers that VBA macros embedded in malicious Office documents will no longer be blocked automatically in Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Word.”
Tom’s Guide: Google Docs just got a big upgrade to help you ditch Office. “Google Docs is getting the ability to edit Microsoft Office documents while offline, essentially paving the way for you to fully ditch any reliance on Microsoft’s productivity software.”
The Register: Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: ‘Follina’ will work even when macros are disabled. “Dubbed ‘Follina’, the vulnerability has been floating around for a while (cybersecurity researcher Kevin Beaumont traced it back to a report made to Microsoft on April 12) and uses Office functionality to retrieve a HTML file which in turn makes use of the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) to run some code. Worse, it will work in Microsoft Word even when macros are disabled.”
How-To Geek: How to Make LibreOffice Look Like Microsoft Office. “If you’re a longtime Microsoft Office user, you might find trying out LibreOffice difficult because of the foreign interface. To make things more comfortable, you can give LibreOffice a look that’s similar to MS Office with a few simple tweaks.”
How-To Geek: LibreOffice vs. Microsoft Office: How Does It Measure Up?. “LibreOffice is the premier open-source office suite, and it’s the default office package on most Linux distributions. But can a free product go toe-to-toe with one of Microsoft’s flagship applications?”
CNET: New Microsoft Office rollout: When you’ll get it, pricing and major changes . “Microsoft’s new, flat-price version of its Office productivity software started rolling out Oct. 5 — the same day as Windows 11. The company previously emphasized that while its main focus remains on its Microsoft 365 subscription offering, it will release the one-time purchase Office 2021 for those who aren’t yet ready to move to the cloud.”
Make Tech Easier: How to Use Microsoft Office on Chromebook for Free. “As you know, Chrome OS is a different operating system from your regular Windows, and you can’t install Windows applications on it. So if you want to use Microsoft Office on your Chromebook, you won’t be able to install the Microsoft Office software, but there are ways to get around it. Here’s how you can run Microsoft Office on a Chromebook for free.”
MakeUseOf: 6 Ways You Can Use Microsoft Office for Free. “Numbers don’t lie. Microsoft Office has a 47.5 percent market share for productivity software. There’s also 1.3 billion Windows 10 devices in use. It stands to reason that a sizeable percentage of these people would rather use Microsoft Office for free – if you’re one, don’t feel alone. Even Microsoft has created many loopholes to help you achieve this goal. Let’s examine all six ways you can use Microsoft Office for free.”
Neowin: Gmail now lets users edit Microsoft Office files in attachments. “Google has announced a handful of new capabilities for the tools in Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite. The improvements are coming to Gmail, Google Docs, and Sheets, and they’re rolling out today, for the most part.”
PC World: Zoho Office Suite taps AI to provide a free, powerful alternative to Office 365. “If you don’t want to pay for Microsoft’s AI-powered Microsoft Office, there are alternatives—including Zoho’s free Zoho Office Suite. Zoho’s alternatives to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Google Keep launch today, complete with their own intelligent features that are arguably friendlier than Microsoft’s own.”
I am shocked at how quickly Microsoft updates have turned into a tire fire. From Ars Technica: Now it’s Office’s turn to have a load of patches pulled. “On November’s Patch Tuesday two weeks ago, Microsoft released a bunch of updates for Office to update its Japanese calendars. In December 2017, Emperor Akihito announced that he would abdicate and that his son Naruhito would take his role as emperor. Each emperor has a corresponding era name, and calendars must be updated to reflect that new name. The Office patches offer updates to handle this event. Two of these updates, KB2863821 and KB4461522, both for Office 2010, are apparently very broken, causing application crashes.”
BetaNews: Microsoft Office is now available for all Chromebooks . “A key piece of software that has been missing from Chromebooks is now available to everyone — Microsoft Office. Microsoft has made its office suite available for a range of platforms over the years, but Chromebook support has been notable by its absence. Now, without announcement from the company, this changes.”
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