Fix slow link clicks in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc)

When working with a spreadsheet with roughly 90 rows of links, I got frustrated with a 1-3 second delay when clicking on each link.

The cause

For those who don't have Internet Explorer as their default browser (who in their right mind would?), Office has implemented a workaround which does a request internally to check the response before opening the link.

This internal request also handles other cases like checking if the link points to another spreadsheet file or an external word doc file on a network drive.

The behaviour is noticeable in Office 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and probably 2019 onwards.

Fortunately there is an easy fix which forces link clicks to be handled by the system instead of Office.

The catch

If this all sounds too good to be true, then it is.

The fix changes a setting which sets ForceShellExecute=1, which means all links will be treated as if it was clicked from within the shell (aka Windows Explorer).

Because of that, Office no longer has any way to intercept the clicks and this breaks multi-document linkage. See this page to see if any of the scenarios affect your daily workflow before running the fix.

The fix

To stop the internal request from being made (and causing delays), go to this Office troubleshooting page and download the "Easy fix".

Run it and follow the instructions.

That should be all you need to do.

Sources:

• Error message when clicking hyperlink in Office: "Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server"
• Impact of using ForceShellExecute=1 in Office 2007, 2010 and 2013

Word/Excel: How to add strike-through (or any other command) to toolbar

This is such an easy task but I've never thought of doing it before! Why!?

Current toolbar, without strike-through.

• Right click the toolbar and click "Customise"
• Click on "Commands" tab then the group of commands you want.
• In this case, I want "Formatting".

• Find "Strike-through" in the list and drag it to the position in a toolbar you want
• Laugh at how easy it is and proceed with striking things out!

Deadpool dancing with Castle Crashers? Sure why not!

Sources

• How do I add "Strike-Through" (or any other formatting tool) to my Toolbar?

Office: Dear Microsoft, Your Ribbons Suck!

MS: Love the Office Ribbon?
Twig: NO.
MS: LOVE IT MORE! 

Please don't ruin Windows 8 with ribbons. As soon as I heard that they were going to be scattered all over the place I was immediately put off by the decision and will chose to stick with Windows 7.

I don't care how much faster you make it. I don't care what sort of neat tools add or fancy animations you slather on.

The ribbons suck. Please understand this.

Oh but the ribbons make everything easy to access!

Please refer to the Search Commands plugin from OfficeLabs.

You know there’s a button for it, but you don’t know or remember where it is. If this ever happens to you, check out Search Commands.

Wait a second, wasn't this the problem that the ribbons were DESIGNED to solve?

The ribbons will improve efficiency

According to the results of this survey from ExcelUser.com, no they don't.

People who have used it for a while love the Ribbon

A teaser link to a blogpost by Jensen Harris, Office User Experience Manager, called "The Story of the Ribbon" brings a whole heap of comments from frustrated users.

Many of which have tried Office 2007 and either reverted back to Office 2003 or gone to an Office alternative such as Google Docs or Open Office.

Also, companies are opting NOT to use Office 2007. With big companies with as many staff as 150,000 worldwide, this is a huge mistake on behalf of Microsoft. Think of all the rupees they're losing out on!

There are more arguments here, it's pretty entertaining.

Microsoft Office: How to print background of Word document to PDF

PDF's are great when they work, but one of the small issues with printing in general is that the process tends to strip out some stuff you want as well.

Background colours or images may be lost upon printing, so to keep them, go to File > Print > Options and tick the "Background colours and images" option.

That should generate a beautiful PDF with background colour for you.

Office: Manage Microsoft Word's automatic formatting which has gone out of control

A friend asked "Does anyone know how to get rid of extra blank pages on Word? Trying to fix up my resume and for some reason I added 4 extra blank pages".

Well, good thing its simple enough to enable the "Show All" button in the toolbar.

If the option is enabled, all non-printable characters are now shown and you know exactly where to select and delete them.

This includes all sorts of rogue new lines, page breaks and tabs.

After you're done, just disable it again.

Office 2007: Save as Office 2003 compatible document format by default

Previously, Office has always provided backward compatibility with the .doc and .ppt file extension.

As of Office 2007, Microsoft made 2 majorly terrible decisions. The first was to change the UI to something that resembled my left scrotum and wasted more screen space than Paul Mason.

I know its not Paul Mason, but I just found this picture funny.

The second was to bring a new file extension and save it as default. Microsoft must of realised they pissed off several hundreds and thousands of people, because they release a compatibility pack allowing people with older versions of Office to open the new format. Install it here.

Luckily, they provided a way to change the default compatibility. Unfortunately, its hidden away in that stupid "Office" button that doesn't have a damn label.

• First, click on that stupid Office orb thing in the top left corner.
• This will show you a menu with some common tasks, but skip all that and go down to "Word Options" in the bottom. (For other applications such as Powerpoint and Excel, etc, it'll display their respective names)
• Click into the "Save" category in the options and change the "Save files in this format" option to the older 2003 format.

 

• OK to save and close.
• Do the world a favour and pass this onto every other poor soul that has to use Office 2007.

Microsoft Office: Open up .docx, .pptx and .xlsx In Older Versions of Office

Office 2007 is one of those love me or hate me types of changes. Personally, I think its very much form over function. Too much relearning involved to be practical in the office.

To help promote transition to the new 2007 edition, they've set the new file extensions as default when saving. How fucking annoying!

That means everyone running the older versions of Office will have to either:

• a) Upgrade (theoretically this is ideal for Microsoft, but not for everyone else)
• b) Request they "Save as" the older format (.doc, .ppt, .xls, etc)
• c) Install the compatibility pack.
• d) Install the Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 1.
• e) Install the Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 2. (How annoying!)

I presume that there has been enough complains about this that Microsoft felt the need to release this. It simply provides compatibility with the new format for older versions of Office, allowing them to at least read from the new format.

Get the person using Office 2007 to save in an older format by default.

Compatibility seems limited to Office 2000/2002 and 2003 at most.

[ Source ]