Microsoft 365 Blog

A laptop with the Copilot icon on screen on a blue desk with a vase of purple flowers, sewing cushion, and cell phone.

3 min read

New agent capabilities in Microsoft Copilot unlock business value

Microsoft Copilot is already helping individual employees boost productivity, creativity and time savings. With the announcements at Microsoft Build 2024, we’re delivering an entirely new set of capabilities that unlock Copilot’s ability to drive bottom-line business results for every organization.

Microsoft Copilot text boxes with meeting prompts and text screens in front of a background of three stacked books.

5 min read

Microsoft and LinkedIn release the 2024 Work Trend Index on the state of AI at work

For our fourth annual Work Trend Index, out today, we partnered with LinkedIn for the first time on a joint report so we could provide a comprehensive view of how AI is not only reshaping work, but the labor market more broadly.

Decorative image of Microsoft Copilot including the logos of Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, and OneNote.

4 min read

Bringing Copilot to more customers worldwide—across life and work

Continuing our vision for Microsoft Copilot to bring the power of generative AI to everyone across work and life, we’re expanding availability and purchase options for individuals and organizations and bringing new value to Copilot Pro subscribers.

6 min read

Introducing Microsoft Copilot for Finance: Transform finance with next-generation AI in Microsoft 365

We’re announcing the public preview of Microsoft Copilot for Finance, a game-changer for finance professionals and the newest role-based extension of Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft Copilot for Finance is a momentous leap forward, specifically crafted to revolutionize the daily grind of well-known financial processes.

5 min read

Expanding Copilot for Microsoft 365 to businesses of all sizes

We are updating our Microsoft Copilot product line-up with a new Copilot Pro subscription for individuals; expanding Copilot for Microsoft 365 availability to small and medium-sized businesses; and announcing no seat minimum for commercial plans.

Screen showing 'Catch up' with Microsoft Copilot.

1 min read

The right way to AI: what we’re learning from customers

We want to help everyone navigate this new world of work. At Microsoft, we’re taking a learn-it-all approach with Copilot, working alongside our customers and employees to understand what the organizations getting the most value out of Copilot are doing right.

6 min read

Microsoft Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service are now generally available

Microsoft is dedicated to helping organizations transform the way people work using secure, enterprise-grade AI capabilities, no matter which business applications teams depend on. Starting today, you can seamlessly integrate role-specific Copilot capabilities into Microsoft 365 applications and popular customer relationship management (CRM) and contact center systems for sales and customer service professionals.

10 min read

Introducing Microsoft Copilot Studio and new features in Copilot for Microsoft 365 

At Microsoft Ignite 2023, we are announcing new innovations across Microsoft Copilot—one copilot experience that runs across all our surfaces, understanding your context on the web, on your PC, and at work to bring the right skills to you when you need them across work and life.

4 min read

Announcing Microsoft Copilot Studio: Customize Copilot for Microsoft 365 and build your own standalone copilots

At Microsoft Ignite 2023, we’re excited to announce Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code tool to customize Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and build standalone copilots.

Recent articles

Published May 11, 2012

1 min read

Grouping emails by conversations

Have you ever had to find an email that was part of a long thread--an email with lots of replies about the same topic? For example, your boss might have asked for the results of last month's important meeting, and you know Sherry sent an email outlining them, but then you remember that Todd followed hers with more information. If you group your emails into conversations, you can find the emails you want more quickly.

Published May 3, 2012

2 min read

Using a Combo Box to search as you type

Here's a neat trick that you can use to filter a Continuous or Split form while your users are typing in a Combo Box. As the user types, the form filter updates to display full or partial matches for the value entered. This example uses a slightly modified version of the Northwind 2007 Template, available for download from Microsoft. The "Customer List" form is a Split form that displays a list of all customers. We want to allow users to filter this list to easily find a customer, even without knowing the full customer name.

Small conference meeting in modern workspace.

Published April 26, 2012

4 min read

Using multiple criteria in Excel LOOKUP formulas

If you want to look up a value in a table using one criteria, it's simple. You can use a plain VLOOKUP formula. But if you want to use more than one criteria, what can you do? There are lots of ways using several Excel functions such as VLOOKUP, LOOKUP, MATCH, INDEX, etc. In this blog post, I'll show you a few of those ways.

Published April 23, 2012

5 min read

Working with the Toshiba Portégé Z830

For the past few weeks I have been working with the sleek and stylish Toshiba Portégé Z830. The Portégé Z830 is one of the lightest 13” PC on the market, weighing in at just under 2.5 pounds, and incredibly thin at just 16 mm (a literal hair over 0.6”). The Portégé Z830 is an Ultrabook

Published March 28, 2012

9 min read

VLOOKUP Tutorial: Updating prices in a master price list

In honor of VLOOKUP Week, MVP Bill Jelen has created a VLOOKUP tutorial for those of you who have a basic working knowledge of Excel but want to improve your skills. This tutorial assumes you've heard about VLOOKUP and its benefits, but that you don't really know how to use it. Bill uses the example of updating prices in a product list to introduce the value of this time-saving function.

Published March 28, 2012

<1 min read

Yammer + Ultimate Software = More Engaged Workplace

Today, we are thrilled to announce an integration with Ultimate Software, a leading provider of unified human capital management SaaS solutions, at the company's Ultimate Connections Conference in Las Vegas. The bi-directional integration allows updates from Ultimate Software to appear in Yammer, as well as conversations from Yammer to be published in a custom feed inside…

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Published March 23, 2012

2 min read

5 tips on using Bcc in Outlook email

It's kind of funny that a software application would use abbreviations that refer to pre-software days. Remember carbon copies? Cc means carbon copy and Bcc means blind carbon copy. For emailing, you use Cc when you want to copy others publicly, and Bcc when you want to do it privately. Any recipients on the Bcc line of an email are not visible to others on the email. These five tips get beginners started and provide info for those who already know how to use Bcc.

Published March 8, 2012

1 min read

Tip: Add a watermark to an Excel worksheet

If you're collaborating or creating sensitive material in Excel, you probably need either a DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL watermark. Excel doesn't come with a built-in way to add a watermark, but there's a pretty painless way to do so. We show you how and give you sample watermarks to get you started.

Published March 6, 2012

1 min read

Change the default line spacing in Word

When the default line spacing in documents changed from single spacing in Word 2003 to a slightly roomier 1.15 spacing in Word 2007 and Word 2010, customers asked the inevitable: Why did the default line spacing change? And how do I change it back? The short answer is that the default line spacing changed in Word 2007 to make online documents more readable. If you want to change the default line spacing in Word 2007 or Word 2010, or learn how to set the line spacing in a single document, here are the best resources we've found for step-by-step instructions.

Published February 27, 2012

4 min read

Conditional Formatting Rules Simplified

Conditional formatting is a popular feature and is a great way to easily identify cells with a range that meet some criteria. However, users often want to create conditional formatting rules that go beyond comparing a cell’s value to a single value or a single cell reference - row or column comparisons are commonly requested operations. In this blog post, we will learn how to use relative references in conditional formatting rules to make such tasks easier.

Published February 17, 2012

1 min read

Circular Reference? Excel’s most popular (!#?%) error message explained

Millions of people using Excel don't get why they see the "circular reference" error message right after they've entered a formula. The message means that your formula is trying to calculate its own cell--kind of like when a dog chases its own tail. Because so many of you (millions) searched on "circular reference" on Office.com, we thought we should very clearly explain how to remove or fix your formula.

Published February 10, 2012

1 min read

Tip: How to cut and paste without messing up formatting

Why does formatting sometimes get messed up when you cut and paste text? And what is that thing that appears at the end of the last sentence every time you paste-like a fly returning to honey. That thing--the Paste Options button--is your friend, a worker bee and not a fly whose only job is to follow your formatting instructions. Learning how it works keeps you from wasting time manually formatting pasted text.