Microsoft 365 is the most popular of all major office productivity software with 48.8% of the global market share. It is used by lots of individuals, SOHO’s and large corporate enterprises.

M365 does everything a modern office needs, including:

• email
• cloud storage
• collaboration
• word processing
• spreadsheet
• video conferencing
• presentations
• security

To name just a few! Microsoft 365 is a vast platform and depending on your license type has over 20 apps in total. As people tend to stick with what is familiar, it can be easy to miss some of the helpful features beyond the core applications.

Some of the many apps you get, depending on your subscription plan, include:

• Outlook
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• OneDrive
• SharePoint
• Visio
• To Do
• Teams
• Forms
• Defender
• Yammer
• Lists
• Access
• Bookings
• Intune
• Planner
• And much more

Get More Out of M365 With These Six Tips

To get the most out of the platform, check out the tips below.

1. Skip the Menu Bar and Use the Search Tool

We have all been there at one time or another, madly looking at the different menus and tabs to find what you want but coming up negative. You can save time by using the search box at the top. It is not just for searching for help topics, you can use a search to quickly jump to settings like margins, page orientation, and many more.

2. Use the Free Stock Images and Videos

It is great to use professional images from on websites, brochures and presentations.

Finding professional looking business images though, can be expensive. Some people just do a Google search to find them but the majority of images that are on the Internet are copyrighted. You need to have images that you can use commercially without any problems.

Inside the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint you have a treasure trove of images. These are free to use in your marketing. You also have icons, videos and even 3D models, all there for the picking.

To find these images, go to:

Insert > Pictures > Stock Images

Use the tab at the top to tab between the different media. Then, click to insert it directly into your document, spreadsheet, or presentation.

3. Save Time on Customer Surveys with Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms is one of the best-kept secrets in M365. This feature allows users to create cloud-based surveys that you can email out of post to your social media channels.

You get the results back as soon as they click “submit” on the form and you can also download the results directly to Excel. From there you can create graphs and use the data as you wish.

4. Use PowerPoint’s Presenter Coach

Most people don’t feel comfortable when talking and presenting in front of groups of people. This is where a handy AI-powered feature in PowerPoint called Presenter Coach comes to the fore.

Turn this feature on when practicing your presentation. It will provide you with tips on your pacing, use of filler words (e.g., umm), repetitive language and much, much more!

Look for the “Rehearse with Coach” option on the Slide Show menu to access this feature.

5. Save Recurring Email Text in Outlook’s Quick Parts

In certain emails do you repeatedly use the same wording? Instead of typing the same things in multiple email use a feature called Quick Parts. This will save you time and effort and is easy to set up:

• • Within an email, highlight the text you would like to use.
  • On the Insert menu, click Quick Parts.
  • Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.
  • When ready to insert that text into another email, use the same menu and select the text you would like to insert.

6. Create Keyboard Shortcuts in Word

Keyboard shortcuts are a great feature for saving time. But there is not always one there for what you need. One handy keyboard shortcut to add for MS Word is to paste as text only –  this removes any formatting that copied text might have had so your document is not messed up.

Here’s how to make a keyboard shortcut for this (ie paste as text only):

• • In MS Word, click File > Options.
  • Click Customize Ribbon on the LHS.
  • At the bottom of the panel, next to Keyboard shortcuts, click the Customize button.
  • Scroll in the left pane under Categories to All Commands.
  • Look for “PasteTextOnly”
  • Enter your keyboard command (ie Control Shift V) , then click the Assign button.

Do You Need Help Optimising Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 has many time-saving, security-enhancing and money-saving features. Learn how else we can help by contacting us today.