Readers’ Tips
TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT
40
Why I stopped using...
Tell us why you stopped using a website, app
or program: [email protected]27 April – 10 May 2022 • Issue 630Play background music in Skype calls
sometimes play a game of ‘guess the
composer’ or ‘guess the album’.
To enable this setting, open Skype, then
click the three dots to the right of your
name and select Settings – you can also
press Ctrl+, (comma) to get there. NowBack in Issue 607’s How To on
improving how you sound in video
calls, you suggested switching on
Skype’s ‘Low’ option to minimise
background noise without
distorting your voice. It was good
advice, and instantly improved my
regular video calls.
One thing you may not have realised
is that Microsoft recommends the
Low setting to allow the other person
hear music you’re playing in the
background as you speak. I do this
when talking to friends, because weclick ‘Audio & Video’ on the left,
then look for the ‘Noise
cancellation’ heading (^1 in our
screenshot) – you may have to
scroll down on a small laptop
screen. There’s a dropdown
menu on the right that’s set to
Auto by default. Change this to
Low^2 and you’re done. By the way, I
found these instructions useful: http://www.
snipca.com/41458. Microsoft in
no-jargon, plain-English
advice shocker!
Sam WalwyniPHONE
Add your email address so it’s
automatically suggested
I’m just getting to grips with my
first ever iPhone. One thing I’ve
finally worked out how to do, afterseveral weeks trying, is add my email
address so it’s suggested by auto-complete
when I start typing.
You have to open Contacts, then tap
your name at the top. It was at the next
stage that I kept failing, because I didn’t
realise you had to tap Edit at the top right
(see screenshot left). Once you’ve done
that, just scroll down, tap the green plus
sign next to ‘add email’, then type your
email address. To complete the process,
tap Done top right.
Dawn JudgeOFFICE
Find Excel terms that contain
question marks
Your tip on using a question mark
to perform a wildcard search in
Excel (Issue 629, page 47) was a good one,
but what if the term you’re looking for
actually has a question mark? Thatcomplicates things, so you need to tell
Excel that you’re not performing a
wildcard search – and you do that by
typing the tilde symbol (~).
I’ve sent you an example of days of the
week, with question marks after some of
them. Searching by typing? doesn’t work- you have to type ~? in the Find box (see
screenshot above). You can then click
Find All or Find Next as you need.
Frank Archer
Times New Roman
This was always my favourite
font, and was my main choice for
writing in Word. But my optician
friend, when discussing with me my
deteriorating eyesight, said that I
should switch to a sans-serif font.And what I use instead...
I respect my friend’s expertise, so I’ve
now switched to Arial, which is thefont he recommended. It’s been a
revelation! The letters seem so much
cleaner and more precise.
I admit that Arial lacks some of the
historical character of Times New
Roman. In fact, Arial is bland. But it’s
meant to be bland, so it doesn’t trouble
the eye. I can see why websites generally
prefer sans-serif fonts. To make it even
more legible, I increase the font size to
26 (^1 in our screenshot) and change theSam wins a copy of our 2020 Back Issue CD Buy it on Amazon http://www.snipca.com/381641 2
2
1
line spacing to 1.5x^2.
William Jackson