Microsoft Excel
Blank columns break sorting, filtering, and PivotTables. Remove them with Go To Special, a COUNTA helper row, or Power Query's Column quality view.
Copilot in PowerPoint now has two skills with nearly identical names that do very different jobs: Explain this presentation and Review this presentation. One helps you understand a deck someone else made. The other helps you improve a deck you made yourself. If you train people on Copilot, expect questions
Microsoft PowerPoint
Use the Visualize this slide skill in Copilot for PowerPoint to turn text-heavy slides into visual layouts. Three examples: bullets, a six-step process, and a timeline.
𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗖𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀. 𝗙𝗮𝗿 𝗳𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟴 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁-𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱, 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗸. Join me live on October 20, 2026, at Noon Eastern as I demonstrate each Copilot Skill and show practical ways to use them in your presentations. PDF of the 8 Copilot Skills in Pow
Microsoft PowerPoint
Compare two slides from the same PowerPoint presentation side by side in Normal view. Use New Window and Arrange All on the View tab instead of clicking back and forth.
Microsoft PowerPoint
The Sharpen slide titles skill in PowerPoint Copilot rewrites vague, one-word slide titles as clear takeaways. Find the skill, use the @ mention shortcut, and review the before-and-after summary.
Microsoft Excel
Excel can now hold a list of items in one cell. Create lists with Ctrl+J, filter by a single name, and summarize them with FLATTEN, UNIQUE, SORT, and COUNTIF.
Chrome can show two tabs side by side in one window. Right-click a tab, choose Add tab to new split view, and pick the second tab. Here is how to start it, exit it, and swap sides.
Microsoft Copilot
Copilot can create images from a prompt. Start from Apps and more > Create or from a new chat, open the result in the image editor, and refine it with a follow-up prompt.
Microsoft 365, Copilot, Excel, and Teams tips and training from Microsoft MVP Chris Menard.
Already built a PowerPoint presentation without your organization's template? Attach the template to Copilot, prompt it to apply the template to the existing deck, then review the slides for layout and content accuracy.
Join Chris Menard live on October 20 at noon ET for a hands-on look at six new Copilot Skills in PowerPoint. No registration required.
A full day of hands-on Excel with the UGA Terry College Executive MBA class, from essential skills to break-even analysis and the three financial statements.
Copilot Chat can see your screen and hear you at the same time. Start a voice chat, share your Excel window, and ask for highest, lowest, totals, averages and rankings out loud — no typing, no formulas.
Working with a large data set? Turn on Defer Layout Update in the PivotTable Fields pane, arrange every field you need, and apply all the changes at once with a single click on Update.
Microsoft Copilot and Excel Advanced sessions - Gaylord Opryland Resort
It was a pleasure presenting my Microsoft 365 Copilot training sessions at APC 2026 at Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to the two Copilot sessions that I ran, we also ran two advanced Excel sessions. More than 300 people attended each of my two Copilot sessions on September
Chris Menard's Session on Monday, September 14, 2026
The COPILOT function retires on September 14, 2026. I ran three real data tasks — sentiment ratings, ZIP code extraction, and address cleanup — through both the function and the Copilot Dynamic Action Button (DAB) in Excel to see what you actually lose.
The Create interactive slides skill in PowerPoint Copilot turns a table, an Excel workbook, or plain slide content into a clickable slide with filters, live totals, and swapping visuals — and it all works in normal editing view.
Copilot in Excel has two features that let you customize how it behaves: Personalization and Workbook Rules. Both are great on their own, but if you use both, an obvious question comes up — what happens when they conflict? Which one does Copilot actually listen to? I ran four hands-on
Microsoft is rolling out a small but genuinely useful update to Excel: when you create a new Table, you can now name it right in the Create Table dialog box — instead of accepting the default "Table1" and renaming it later (or, more likely, never renaming it at all)
