7 Microsoft 365 Tips That Save Time Every Day (2026 Update)

Most people use a small slice of Microsoft 365: Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams, in the same way they did years ago. Meanwhile the apps have picked up small features that save a few minutes, many times a day.

Here are seven worth showing your team. We’ve checked each one against the current apps, and dropped a tip from our original 2022 list that no longer works (more on that at the end).

1. Press Alt+Q to find any command

You know Word can change the margins or add a page break, but which tab is it on? Instead of hunting through the ribbon, press Alt+Q (or click the search box at the top of the window) and type what you want, such as “margins” or “landscape”. Search offers the command itself, so you can use it straight from the results.

The same box finds help articles and colleagues by name, and works across Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on Windows.

2. Use the built-in stock images and icons

Need a picture for a presentation or a newsletter? Don’t grab one from a web search, where you can’t tell whether you have the right to use it.

In Word, PowerPoint, Excel or Outlook, go to Insert > Pictures > Stock Images. You’ll find thousands of royalty-free photos, icons, illustrations and cutout people, plus videos in PowerPoint. Microsoft allows business customers to use them in documents and presentations made in Microsoft 365 apps or SharePoint, including ones you share with clients.

3. Share a link instead of an attachment

Emailing a document as an attachment creates copies. Someone edits the wrong one, and you can’t take it back if it goes to the wrong person.

Save the file in OneDrive or SharePoint and select Share instead. You choose who the link works for (for example, only specific people), whether they can edit or only view, and on many links an expiry date. Everyone works on the same file, and you can stop sharing at any time.

For client documents this is a security improvement as well as a time saver. If your business sends a lot of files to clients, it’s worth agreeing a standard way of doing it. Our cyber security page covers the wider picture.

4. Run quick surveys with Microsoft Forms

Collecting availability for a team event, feedback after a training session, or answers to a short client questionnaire? Microsoft Forms is included with Microsoft 365 business plans. Build a form, send a link or QR code, and answers arrive in one place, ready to open in Excel.

We cover it in more depth in Microsoft Forms: one of the handiest freebies in Microsoft 365, and in using Microsoft Forms to collect data under UK GDPR if you’re collecting personal information.

5. Rehearse presentations with Speaker Coach

PowerPoint’s Speaker Coach (previously called Presenter Coach) listens while you practise and gives feedback on your pace, filler words such as “um”, overly wordy phrases and whether you’re simply reading your slides out. At the end you get a short report.

Open the presentation in PowerPoint, go to Slide Show > Rehearse with Coach and select Get started. It’s a private rehearsal, so nobody else sees the results.

6. Save text you type again and again

Directions to your office, your bank details for invoices, the standard paragraph about how to send documents securely: if you type it more than once a week, save it.

• Classic Outlook: select the text in an email, then go to Insert > Quick Parts > Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery. Next time, insert it from the same menu.
• New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web: in a new message, go to Insert > Apps > My Templates, then add your text. For whole emails (subject, body and attachments), use Mail Templates instead.

7. Paste without the formatting

Copy text from a website or another document into Word and it usually brings its fonts, colours and links with it. In current versions of Word, Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac) pastes the text only, so it picks up the formatting of the document you’re pasting into. It also works in Outlook and OneNote.

Two things to know:

• In Excel and PowerPoint, Ctrl+Shift+V doesn’t paste plain text. Use Alt, H, V, T instead.
• If you relied on Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V to copy formatting in Word, those moved to Ctrl+Alt+C and Ctrl+Alt+V.

A tip we’ve dropped

Our original version of this post suggested Excel’s data types for pulling in facts about foods, places and so on. Microsoft ended its Wolfram partnership in June 2023, so most of those data types no longer update. The Stocks and Geography data types still work, but the time-saving trick we described has largely gone.

Getting more from your licences

Microsoft 365 business plans include far more than most people use day to day. Showing your team a handful of features like these is one of the cheapest ways to get more from what you already pay for.

If you’d like your team to have someone to ask when Microsoft 365 isn’t doing what they need, that’s part of our managed IT support. For more ideas, see the features list in our guide to Microsoft 365 for small businesses.