Chris Menard is a Microsoft MVP. He is certified in Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. His YouTube videos have over 25 million views.
Microsoft
The Windows system tray (notification area) sits in the bottom-right corner of your taskbar, and most people never customize it. By default, many useful icons are hidden behind the caret (^) arrow, making them harder to access. With a few quick changes, you can keep your most-used apps visible
Microsoft Excel
If you've clicked the Copilot icon in Excel and gotten a task pane that doesn't look quite right, you're not alone. The default pane opens a general chat window, but the real productivity gains come from switching to App Skills — the workbook-aware Copilot
Microsoft
Microsoft 365 has been rolling out changes across the board. In this post, I cover three announcements worth paying attention to: a LiveStream event on Copilot features, refreshed app icons across the Microsoft 365 suite, and new Copilot integration directly inside File Explorer. YouTube Video New Microsoft 365 App Icons
Microsoft Excel
If you've been using VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP to pull data between Excel worksheets, there's a more efficient approach. Excel's Data Model lets you create relationships between tables so you can build PivotTables that pull from multiple sources — without duplicating data or writing complex formulas.
Microsoft Excel
Most people use XLOOKUP or VLOOKUP to combine data from two Excel tables. But there's a smarter approach: Excel's built-in Data Model and table relationships. This method links tables like a database — no formulas, no duplicate columns, and no maintenance when data changes. In this
Microsoft Excel
Need fictitious customer data, order records, or test datasets for training, presentations, or projects? You can generate all of it using free Copilot Chat — no paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license required. In this guide, I walk through how to use Copilot Chat to create realistic sample data, structure it into
Microsoft Excel
The WRAPCOLS and WRAPROWS Functions let you reshape a single column of data into a multi-column or multi-row layout. They are useful for transforming long lists into structured grids — and they update automatically when your source data changes. YouTube Video WRAPCOLS: Split a Column into Multiple Columns The
Microsoft
If you've spent time customizing your Quick Access Toolbar in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, you should back it up. Microsoft Office updates can occasionally reset your toolbar, and without a backup you'll have to rebuild it from scratch. The export/import feature lets you save your
Microsoft Excel
Every time you create a PivotTable in Excel, you get the same default layout: compact form, subtotals at the top, grand totals on, and columns that auto-resize. If you always change these settings manually, you're wasting time. Excel lets you change the default PivotTable layout so every
Microsoft Word
Microsoft 365 Copilot can convert Word documents into spoken audio summaries — what Microsoft calls Audio Overviews. Instead of reading a long employee handbook, report, or proposal, you can listen to it while commuting, walking, or preparing for a meeting. The audio output can be saved as an MP3 to your
Microsoft Excel
The TAKE function in Excel lets you extract a specific number of rows or columns from a range or array. It's especially powerful when combined with other functions like SUM and AVERAGE to create dynamic calculations. In this tutorial, Chris Menard demonstrates how to use TAKE with practical
Microsoft Teams
How to use the newly returned feature that lets you save Chat and Channel Messages in Teams so you can keep important conversations at your fingertips.