TO ASK A QUESTION: If you have a question or need help with Office, please feel free to use the 'Click to Contact' link at the bottom of this page. You'll get a form that you can use to email a question to me. (I had been getting a ton of spam when accepting direct emails, so only emails that use this form will get through to me.)
Please be sure to mention the version of Office you are using when you send your question.
I answer all e-mails that I receive via this form, as long as they are polite :)
Since disabling comments on this site, I'm actually hearing from more of you with questions ... so, as it seems people prefer to email rather than comment, I'm going to leave comments disabled. As always, you can ask me any Office-related questions you have. If the question is outside of my expertise, I'll try to direct you to where you can get an answer.
Don't pay for free stuff! Do you know how much Office-related help content is freely available?
Hi, everyone! It was brought to my attention today that unfortunately someone is charging people for access to links that reach free Office-related help content. Well, you may know of more than one, but I've only seen one and it made me mad enough to want to alert people ...
The site I learned about has unauthorized links (that you have to pay to access) to some of my content that's freely available. I'm told by the unauthorized site that the content of mine they link to is being taken down immediately and I hope it's true (thanks much to the person who made me aware of that site!)
But, the point of this post is really to say ... PLEASE ... no matter who is the author of the content in question ... don't let anyone (no matter what their credentials!) charge you for access to free resources. It infuriates me that anyone would take advantage of other people that way.
If you need help on a topic and can't find it ... send me an email asking if it's available, post a question asking for what you need on the blogs of other MVPs and other Office experts, or post a question in the Microsoft discussion groups asking if anyone knows of the resources you're looking for. There is SO MUCH great content out there and many people volunteering their time to answer questions and\or create content to help Office users ...
There may be times when you need more in-depth information that isn't free ... like books, training courses, addins, or professional consulting ... but why would you pay to find out about the stuff that IS free? We all have search engines - we can all find the same content online! And there are plenty of people who may know of more resources than you do who are happy to tell you about those resources without charging you for the information!
Anyone who charges you for access to freely available information is doing something that is unethical. If the content is authored by someone else and the person charging you doesn't have permission from the copyright holder, what they are doing is also illegal ... so just stay away and ask for recommended resources from experts who don't think you should have to pay them just to learn where to find help.
Want some free resources? Here they are ... If you've not already checked out my genius resources and links pages ... please check them out for a wide range of Office-related links ranging from favorite MVP sites to favorite Office team blogs to fantastic Office Online and MSDN content. Also check out my webcasts, articles, and online training courses - they're FREE as are the links to get to them. And, if you're looking for resources on an Office-related topic that you don't find there ... shoot me an email (use the click to contact link at the bottom of this page) and I'll be happy to send you links or ... if I don't know ... I'll always do my best to point you in the right direction. Regardless, the most it will cost you to learn about recommended resources from me is a thank you (well, the thank you isn't required, but it always makes my day :)
Meanwhile - HAPPY TUESDAY everybody!!
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