Are you getting the most from your office suite? Mike Plant explains how to find and install brilliant extras that will revolutionise Microsoft Office and LibreOffice
Adding useful features (also known as add-ons) to web browsers – such as ad blockers, search bars and password managers – has changed the way we use the internet. But, despite the likes of Microsoft Office and LibreOffice offering their own extra tools, few of us do likewise with our office software. Here, we’ll reveal where you can find these handy extras (which Microsoft in their wisdom calls add-ins) for your office software. We’ll also explain how to install (and remove) add-ins, and tell you about those we simply can’t do without.
Microsoft Office add-ins
The first step is to visit Office’s online store (www.snipca.com/23124). Some add-ins cost money but those we recommend here are free. Use the Product and Category options on the left to target the available add-ins for specific Office software (such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc) or browse them by function. Alternatively, use the URLs we provide in this feature to access our favourite add-ins directly.
Once you click an add-in you’ll be taken to its web page where you’ll see information on what it does. It’s worth paying attention to the Details section here because this tells you which versions of Office the add-in is compatible with. Also check out the ‘Customer reviews’ section towards the bottom of the page to see if other users found the add-in useful.
To install an add-in, click the green Add button, then choose a Microsoft (MS) product from the list. For example, click the ‘Open in Word’ option. A pop-up window will appear prompting you to confirm you want to open the file – click Yes and the relevant program (Word in our example) will open. Click the Enable Editing button in the yellow bar at the top, and click the ‘Trust this app’ button in the column that appears on the right. You will be prompted to sign into your MS account in Office if you aren’t already logged in (if you don’t have a MS account, you can sign up for one here: signup.live.com).
Most add-ins are compatible with Office 2013 and newer, but if you have Office 2013 and some add-ins won’t install it could be because you haven’t updated Office 2013 to Service Pack 1. Go to www.snipca.com/23160 and click the Download button. Once the download has completed, double-click the file and follow the instructions. Once installed you will be prompted to reboot your PC, so make sure you save any documents. Once your PC reboots, open Office and the add-ins will now work.
Manage and remove Office add-ins
To view the add-ins you’ve installed, open an Office program and click Insert, then the ‘Apps for Office’ button and See All. Double-click an add-in to open its side-panel in the Office program of your choice.
To remove an add-in you no longer need, click ‘Apps for Office’, See All, then Manage My Apps (at the top right). This opens Microsoft’s Office Store in your browser (you might be prompted to sign into your Microsoft account at this point). To remove an add-in, click Hide next to its listing. Now return to Office, click the ‘Apps for Office’ button, then See All, and you’ll notice the add-in has disappeared – if it hasn’t, click Refresh at the top right. To restore an add-in you’ve removed, click Manage My Apps, then Hidden (at the top right) followed by Retrieve to the right of the app in the list.
Our favourite MS Office add-ins Microsoft Translator
www.snipca.com/23105
You can convert a single word or an entire novel from one language to another with this brilliant add-in. Highlight the relevant word or passage of text, rightclick it and click Translate. A panel will appear to the right of your document. Choose the original language using the From dropdown menu (this will often be detected automatically) and then choose the language you want to translate it into using the To dropdown menu. You’ll see a preview of the translation at the bottom of the side panel. Click Insert (below the preview text) to replace the original text with the translation. Alternatively, click the arrow to the right of Insert and choose Copy to copy the translation to your clipboard.
Symbols and Characters
www.snipca.com/23110
Say goodbye to Office’s cumbersome Symbols tool and use this nifty little add-in instead. Its best feature lets you search for specific punctuation marks (such as the copyright symbol). It also handily groups similar symbols together, so you can browse all available mathematical marks or currency symbols, for example.
Wikipedia
www.snipca.com/23113
Wikipedia has become the online fact-checker of choice for many of us, so it’s handy to have instant access to it when working on an Office document. The Wikipedia add-in lets you search for and insert entire entries from the online encyclopedia without moving away from your document.
Pickit Free Images
www.snipca.com/23125
Pickit puts thousands of free images at your fingertips – even if it does make you click ‘No thanks, not right now’ to dismiss the annoying advert that launches with the add-in. Once you’ve done that, enter a search term in the search bar to find an image, or scroll through the Collections, which include everything from cityscapes to religion.
Add and remove LibreOffice extensions
LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org) has its own selection of add-ins (which it calls extensions). To browse these, click Tools, Extension Manager, then ‘Get more extensions online’. This opens LibreOffice’s extensions website. Click Extensions at the top of the page to search for one or browse by category.
To add an extension to LibreOffice, click it to open its webpage and scroll down until you see the Current Release section. Click the download link (usually next to a large green arrow) to download it to your PC. Go back to the Extension Manager in LibreOffice and click the Add button, then locate the file you’ve just downloaded (it will be in your Downloads folder by default) and double-click it. Choose whether to install it ‘For all users’ or ‘Only for me’. The extension will now install, though you may have to close and re-open LibreOffice to see it. To delete an extension click Tools, then Extension Manager, right-click the relevant extension in the list, then click Delete.
Essential LibreOffice extensions MultiFormatSave
www.snipca.com/23107
LibreOffice users will know how annoying it can be to email a document to a friend, only for them to tell you Microsoft Word can’t open it. MultiFormatSave fixes this by letting you save a LibreOffice document so that it’s compatible with practically any word processor or PDF viewer. Just click the extension’s icon, choose the formats you want and click Save.
AltSearch
www.snipca.com/23118
Click the green binoculars icon (or click Tools, Add-Ons and Alternative Searching) to open this advanced search-and-replace tool. It searches even deeper than LibreOffice’s default tool and will find and replace words in footnotes, endnotes, tables and text frames.
Pepito Cleaner
www.snipca.com/23144
Getting someone to proof-read your document isn’t always easy, but with Pepito Cleaner you can have your work scanned for errors. Don’t confuse this with a spell-checker however. Instead Pepito looks for inconsistences in the document’s layout, such as double spaces and missing full stops. Installing it is slightly different than normal as the download isn’t on LibreOffice’s site. Instead use the URL above and click the PepitoCleaner.oxt link (in blue) at the top of the page. To scan a document, click Tools, Add-Ons, then Pepito Cleaner.
USE MICROSOFT’S ADD-INS …EVEN IF YOU DON’T OWN OFFICE
If you’re interested in using any of the Microsoft Office add-ins we’ve covered, but you don’t own Office, then try Office Online (www.office.com), which is a free online-only version of Office available to anyone with a Microsoft account. Just go to the website, sign in and click any of the Office programs listed. Then open a document and click Insert, then Office Add-ins. Scroll through them and click Add next to any you’re interested in. Even if you have Office, you may still find this option useful if an add-in isn’t compatible with your particular version.