You can purchase an Office 365 subscription – this includes Office for Mac 2011, as well as all future upgrades to the product. You can also still download updates for Office for Mac 2008 until April 19, 2014, but we recommend you try Office 365 for the best experience.

Thanks!

Our goal remains to deliver the best communications experience for everyone, everywhere. We want to focus our efforts on making things simpler for our users while continuously improving the overall experience. Starting April 8, Messenger users will begin upgrades* to Skype. While it starts with Windows users, we encourage Messenger for Mac customers to upgrade to Skype on their own so they can discover all the new ways of staying in touch with both their Skype and Messenger friends – anytime, anywhere.

Here are a few of the great things you can do:

* Free Skype to Skype calls and instant messaging.

* Low cost calls and text messages to mobiles and landlines.

* Video call on Skype and Facebook.

* Free instant messages to your friends, family and colleagues.

* Low cost premium subscriptions for group video calls.

All you need to get started is Mac OS X v10.5.8 (Leopard) or above, a webcam for video calls, and a microphone.

Lastly, a popular question is, “Does Skype on Mac support Retina display?”  Yes. You can take full advantage of your higher resolution screens!

Let us know what you think about the new offerings and benefits! We’re always listening!

*With the exception of mainland China where Messenger will continue to be available

Subscription services are best suited for customers who use Office on multiple devices because it allows any combination of Mac/PC installs via 5 reusable licenses; however, even if you have only a single device there is lots of value including free version upgrades, Skype minutes and extra SkyDrive storage.

Please note that the minimum requirement for Office 365 subscriptions on the Mac is OS X 10.6; while perpetual Office for Mac 2011 remains OS X 10.5.8. This difference is due to some of the services functionality included with subscription offers.

I’m sure many are wondering when the next version of Office for Mac will be available now that Office on Windows has launched 2013; I’m sorry to say that we are not yet ready to make any announcement, but know we are working hard on the future of Office productivity for the Mac. Office for Mac 2011 remains the most current version available to Mac users.

For more information on Office subscription offerings please visit: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/

Let us know what you think about the new offerings and benefits! We’re always listening!

Many of the advanced features in Excel are best explained by example, so I’ll use marathon training to show you some great tricks, like how to use different kinds of tables for various situations, and how to alter them for your needs By showing you how to use Excel to keep track of a sports routine, you’ll learn advanced Excel features with a simple example, and hopefully it will inspire you to analyze your data more efficiently. Although analyzing data isn’t always the most fun of tasks, this post will help you to see how you can make your data more effective. Using this example, you’ll be able to see other types of data in a new light, by using charts to see the trends and answers you’re looking for.

Click here to download the sample file for this example!

My town has an annual marathon, and I made a resolution to participate. I want to see how my mileage increases through the weeks, and how much mileage I’ll have for each type of run, so I decided to build my own marathon training plan, which I started below:

Ok, so I definitely have everything prepared on my spreadsheet, but I want to know, visually, how many painful joyful runs I’m going to suffer happily run through. A chart will do the trick! I’m going to turn the data above into this:

To create my chart, I need to decide what I want it to display. It sounds obvious, but spending some time on this question will save time later. Honestly, five miles of marathon pace is much different than five miles of easy runs… I browse the chart types and choose the Stacked Column chart—it’s an easy visual indicator to show how much work the runner has to do each week and how that work breaks down into different categories each week.

Create a Chart

1. Select the data for the chart, from B4 to I23. I don’t want to chart rest days, but we can remove them after creating the initial chart. I’m also not including week 20, because it’s race week.

2. Click the Charts tab and choose the Column>Stacked Column chart.

Remove the Rest Days

3. Control-click the chart and click Select Data….

4. In the Series box, click ‘Monday,’ then click Remove.

5. Repeat step 4 for ‘Friday’ and click OK. The updated legend should look like the one below:

Add Data Labels (optional)

Now we’ll add Data Labels to better understand what we’re looking at. You can skip this step if you’d like, because we’re going to remove the Data Labels later—this is just to demonstrate how to do it.

6. Control-click a Data Series in the chart, then click Add Data Labels. When you select a Data Series, the corresponding data in the spreadsheet will be highlighted.

7. Repeat step 6 with each Data Series in the chart.

Rename the Data Series

But wait! The chart above isn’t showing us what we want to see!

This chart currently shows how much I have to run each day for each week, but not what type of run (Long, Tempo, etc.). We can fix this, though.

8. Control-click the chart, then click Select Data….

9. Click ‘Tuesday,’ then in the Name field, type ‘Easy Run.’

10. Click ‘Wednesday,’ then in the Name field, type ‘Tempo Run.’ In the Y Values field, click the Select Data button to the right of the field, delete the existing text, then click and drag and/or use Command-click to select all the ‘Tempo Run’ data for both Wednesday and Thursday.

11. Click ‘Thursday,’ then in the Name field, type ‘Marathon Pace.’ In the Y Values field, click the Select Data button to the right of the field, delete the existing text, then click and drag and/or Command-click to select all the ‘Marathon Pace’ data from both Wednesday and Thursday.

12. Click ‘Saturday,’ then in the Name field, type ‘Easy Run 2.’

13. Click ‘Sunday,’ then in the Name field, type ‘Long Run.’

Remove Data Labels

We no longer need the values in the Data Labels, since we only want to see the visual data, so let’s remove them. If you skipped adding Data Labels earlier, you can skip this step as well.

14. Control-click the chart, click Format Data Labels, uncheck the Value box, then click OK.

Format the Chart Colors

Let’s make the colors of the chart match the colors I already selected for my data.

15. Control-click a Data Series to open the menu, then click Format Data Series.

16. In the Fill section, select a color that matches the color of the same type of run in the table.

17. Click OK and repeat for each series.

Combine the Easy Runs

I’d rather not see two easy runs each week separated in two chunks. I would like to see them together, because that is the overall time I’m going to be spending running at an easy pace.

18. Control-click the chart and click Format Data Series.

19. Click the Order section in the left navigation, and rearrange ‘Easy Run’ and ‘Easy Run 2’ to be next to each other. Click OK.

20. Finally, click the Legend on the chart, click to select the ‘Easy Run 2’ label, then press Delete.

Our final results have the data with a graph that visually represents how much am I going to run each week and how much of each type of run I am going to do.

This is all for today, but stay tuned to find out how you can use this same data to create an exercise log!

–Marta for the Excel for Mac Team

As long as you have Microsoft AutoUpdate set to check for software updates automatically, you’ll be notified when this update is available.

Microsoft AutoUpdate can keep your copy of Office for Mac updated by prompting you when the next update is available. To check your AutoUpdate settings, open any Office for Mac program, click Help from the menu bar, then select Check for Updates. You can choose to update Manually or Automatically on the schedule of your choice.

Alright, we’re going back to work on even more great features! Please continue to let us know how we are doing via the blog. As always, we’re listening.

Sincerely,

The Office for Mac Product Team

Thanks for your help and patience!

Many of you want to use both portrait (shown here as image 1) and landscape (image 2) slide orientation in the same presentation. It makes sense, and presentations with both orientations look great.

And while we don’t like to deliver news that you might not want to hear, a single PowerPoint presentation can’t contain both. It has to be one or the other. Hopefully, we saved you some time by just coming out and saying that.

Now for the good news – there’s a workaround that you can use to make it look like one presentation contains both landscape and portrait orientation. And even better, your audience will never know the difference. We know it’s not an ideal solution, but hopefully it’ll help. Here’s how it works:

By default, PowerPoint for Mac presentations are set up in landscape orientation. But you can link two presentations (one in landscape, and the other in portrait) to display both portrait and landscape slides in what appears to be one presentation.
Link two presentations in PowerPoint for Mac

Note: Place both presentations in the same folder before you create links. That way, if the folder is copied to a CD or moved, the presentations will still link correctly. To change all the slides in your presentation to portrait orientation, on the Themes tab, in the Page Setup group, expand the Slide Size button menu, click Page Setup, and then click Orientation: Portrait.

 First, create a link from the first presentation to the second presentation:

1. In the first presentation, select the text or object that you want to click to link to the second presentation.
2. On the Slide Show tab, in the Set Up group, click Action Settings.
3. In the Action Settings dialog box, click Hyperlink to, and then select Other PowerPoint Presentation from the list.
   
4. Locate and click the second presentation, and then click OK. The Hyperlink to Slidedialog box appears.
5. In the Hyperlink to Slide dialog box, under Slide title, click the slide that you want to link to, and then click OK.
   
6. Click OK in the Action Settings dialog box.

Second, create a link from the second presentation back to the first presentation:

1. In the second presentation, select the text or object that you want to click to link to the first presentation.
2. On the Slide Show tab, in the Set Up group, click Action Settings.
3. In the Action Settings dialog box, click Hyperlink to, and then select Other PowerPoint Presentationfrom the list.
4. Locate and click the first presentation, and then click OK. The Hyperlink to Slidedialog box appears.
5. In the Hyperlink to Slide dialog box, under Slide title, click the slide that you want to link to, and then click OK.
6. Click OK in the Action Settings dialog box.

Now you can click through your presentation seamlessly, even though you’re switching between two different presentations with different slide orientations!

Many of us need to create charts that compare different types of data. To quickly and clearly display data of different types, it’s helpful to plot varying data sets with either different chart types or on different axes.

Suppose I own a sign company, and I’d like to analyze the number of signs I’ve sold over the last few months and the total revenue generated. I’m hoping to identify trouble spots, such as high sign sales that result in low revenue, which may in turn indicate that the signs are being sold too cheaply.

I could make two different charts – one plotting signs sold per month, and another plotting total transaction revenue by month. However, comparing two charts won’t help me analyze very quickly. I’d rather create a single chart that incorporates both data sets such as the one shown below.

Chart Showing Both Signs Sold and Total Transactions

And the best news is, you’ll be able to create a chart like this by the end of this blog! I’ll walk you through the two major steps — combining different chart types and adding a secondary axis. Then I’ll show you how to add finishing touches to make your chart look polished and professional.

Combining Different Chart Types

Create a Data Set

To ensure you can follow along, we’ve created a simple data set, as well as a sample workbook that you can use to walk through the steps yourself:

Sample Data Showing Signs Sold and Total Transactions

Select Your Data Set

Now I’ll create just one chart. For this scenario, I want a chart with columns and lines, but I’ll start with a regular column chart. (Note: It actually doesn’t matter which chart type you start with, but if you’re working with a multiple data sets, I’d pick the chart type which applies to the majority of your data – it’ll mean less work for you later).

1. Select the data that you would like to use for your chart.

2. Click the Charts tab, then click the Column button. For this scenario, select one of the 2-D column types.

Now we have a column chart with two data sets (Signs Sold and Total Transactions), both charted using the same chart type.

Chart Tracking Two Different Data Sets

Changing One of the Data Sets to a Line Chart

The next big step is to change the chart type for the Total Transactions data set into a line chart.

1. Click the Total Transactions data column in the chart. Don’t click on the legend text “Total Transactions.” Rather, single-click one of the red bars in the chart. You should now see the data set highlighted as follows:

Selecting a Data Set on a Chart

2. Once you have selected the Total Transactions column in the chart, return to the Chart tab, and click the Line chart button. For this scenario, click the 2-D Line chart.

Voila, you’ve created a chart with two chart types (column and line)!

In fact, you can combine far more than two chart types by repeating the above process with additional data sets, and selecting a different chart for each data series.

Chart Plotting Two Data Sets with Bar and Line Chart

Add a Secondary Axis to Make Charts Easier to Read

While quite cool, our chart is still difficult to analyze because the scale of the Total Transactions is much larger than the scale of the Signs Sold, and so we can’t gain much insight from the virtually indistinguishable columns. To make the chart easier to read, the Total Transactions should be converted to a secondary axis, thus allowing for the data sets to be scaled differently. Here’s how you convert a data set to a secondary axis.

1. Click the Total Transactions line chart (do this exactly as described in the “Changing One of the Data Sets to a Line Chart” step above).

2. Navigate to the Chart Layout tab on the ribbon.

3. In the Current Selection section on the far left, make sure the dropdown selection reads “Series Total Transactions.”

4. Click Format Selection (see the image below) to display the Format Data Series dialog box.

Formatting options on the Chart Layout tab

5. Select Secondary Axis in the Axis section, and then click OK.

Format Data Series Dialog

You’ve now successfully added a secondary axis to your chart! Your chart should look like this:

Finishing Touches

You have now created a chart that displays your data in way that allows for easy analysis. Now you can do fit-and-finish work to make your combined chart look more professional.

Make Your Chart Legend More Visible

If you move the chart legend to the bottom of your combined chart, it will separate it from the Total Transactions axis and so better highlight it.

1. Click the Chart Layout tab, and then click Legend.

2. Choose Legend at Bottom.

Formatting Options for Chart Legend

Legend Appearing at the Bottom of the Chart

Change the Secondary Axis Label

We want the Total Transactions axis to display dollar signs since this is the value we are tracking.

1. Ctrl+click the Total Transactions axis label (on the right) and select Format Axis.

2. Click the Number tab at the left-hand side of the of the Format Axis dialog box.

3. Uncheck Linked to Source, and then click Currency from the Category list.

4. If you don’t like a decimal place and subsequent zeros, remove the two right-most zeros and the decimal place using the currency format options.

4. Click OK.

Format Axis Menu

Add Axes Titles

To know precisely what you’re tracking, you can add axes titles (labels) to the chart.

1. Go to the Chart Layout tab, and choose Axis Titles.

2. On the list that appears, choose Primary Vertical Axis Title.

3. Then choose whichever option you’d like- in this case, I’ll choose Rotated Title

4. Type in the title you’d like. For this scenario, use the title “Signs Sold.”

5. Do the same for the Secondary Vertical Axis Title (“Total Transactions”).

Adding an Axis Title

Add a Chart Title

Finally, we want to add a descriptive title so it’s clear to everyone what the chart is depicting.

1. Go to the Chart Layout tab, and click the Chart Title button.

2. Select a location for the chart title.

Chart Title Creation

And that’s all there is to it! Now you have professional looking chart that clearly displays data for both chart types

A Completed Chart with Two Chart Types

By repeating the steps outlined in this post with additional data sets, you can create even more complex (yet readable) charts.

There are a couple of items we’d like to call to your attention:

• Make sure you have Office for Mac’s AutoUpdate enabled – some updates will be needed to make the most of the upgrade to Mountain Lion. Initiate AutoUpdate in any Office for Mac application by going to your toolbar, then selecting “Help” and then “Check for Updates.”

• Mountain Lion ships with a new feature called Gatekeeper. Gatekeeper helps protect users by allowing you to choose to only download and install software from known developers, like Microsoft. Please note that due to the Gatekeeper architecture, updates will not run when you download and initiate them on your desktop; instead please use Microsoft AutoUpdate to keep your copies of Office for Mac current.

*Office for Office 2008 for Mac is also supported on Mountain Lion.

We sincerely hope you enjoy the new operating system and our Office productivity experience.

If you read blogs or use social networks (or, well, anything online), you’re used to connecting to external websites via hyperlinks, and you can add the same type of hyperlinks to any Word document. Plus, you can use hyperlinks to direct readers to email addresses and specific documents, as well as to specific points within documents.

Highlight the word(s) you want to hyperlink (try to keep it short). Then click the Insert menu and select Hyperlink (at the end of the list).

That opens another window where you enter the website destination — in the Link to field. (If you cannot see the Link to field, make sure the Web Page tab is selected in the Insert Hyperlink window.) The Display field shows the words you’ve chosen to be tied to the hyperlink.

Here’s an example of it in action: This will lead you back to the Office for Mac blog. And if you want to see the most recent blog post, here it is.

Sometimes you may want to embed an email address in your document, to make it easy for direct contact from readers.

That’s easy to do, too.

Again, highlight text for the hyperlink. Then follow the instructions above but choose the E-mail Address tab. Fill in the email address in the To field and the Subject for the messages of these emails.

Once you’ve done that, anyone who clicks on that hyperlink will launch their default email application and a new message to that email. (You can then change the subject to one of your choosing.)

For example: If you have questions, please email Word for Mac. (This isn’t a real email address, by the way.)

Finally, you can link to specific documents and points within documents. This helps when you’d like to site a specific item in another document, but you don’t want the readers to scroll through or read another document.

You link to specific points using the Anchor field, which gives options based on the contents of your document. For instance, if I were to hyperlink to the beginning of this document, I would follow the initial instructions to hyperlink > choose the Document tab > hit Select to choose my document > and then choose an option in the Anchor field.

Depending on the contents of the documents, your choices could be: Top of the Document, Headings and Bookmarks. You can designate different points in a document as bookmarks by going to Insert > Bookmark and highlighting a word and giving it a name.

If you’ve got a table of contents, it can be even more involved, with each of the headings showing up as a separate anchor that can be hyperlinked.

But when you do that, just remember to make sure the documents you’re linking to exist and are saved in the same folder/location as on the computer you created the hyperlinks from.

We hope hyperlinking helps streamline your documents, even as it adds information to your documents – but try not to go overboard. All the time your readers are spending clicking on those links, they’re spending away from your document! So, use sparingly and you might find it is an effective way to add more depth without increasing volume in your document.

– Athima

Junk emails – also called spam — can plague your inbox, waste your time, and be a general annoyance:

• Ads about real-estate agents not in your area

• “Vacations” you supposedly won

• Medical instruments you don’t need

When your inbox is full of junk emails, it’s hard to find the important messages you need. With Junk Email Protection features in Outlook, you can decide what you want and don’t want in your Inbox.

Ugh! Junk…

If you see a junk message, select the message and on the Home tab, click the Junk button, then click Mark as Junk. The message is moved to the Junk Email folder and assigned to the Junk category.

In Outlook, you can also classify specific senders and domains as spam by adding them to your Blocked Senders list, which is on the Home tab -> Junk -> Junk E-mail Protection. For example, if you add “alpineskihouse.com” to this list, a message from a person with an email address that contains “@alpineskihouse.com” is always categorized as Junk and future messages from this sender/domain are blocked or filtered automatically.

Wait! That’s not junk…

If you see a message in your Junk Email folder that isn’t spam, select the message, and then on the Home tab -> Junk, click Mark as Not Junk.

In Outlook, the junk email protection filters are set to low by default, where only the most obvious junk emails are filtered. To further customize the filters, on the Home tab -> Junk -> Junk E-mail Protection -> Level, specify the level of junk protection you like.

Read more about how to keep important messages from landing in your Junk Email folder in the Outlook Help topic: About junk e-mail protection.

After all, it’s you who decides what is and is not spam. Take matters into your own hands and use the handy email filters to ferret out the junk.

-Radhika