Welcome back!

3 things we’re covering in XelPlus Weekly today:

• Export PDFs from Excel properly 🖨️
• Microsoft’s new AI design tool 🤖
• The silliest Teams feature ever 😂

How to Properly Convert Excel Reports to PDF

Search Google (or Bing) for “convert Excel file to PDF”, and literally hundreds of Excel-to-PDF converters will pop up.

But you don’t need them!

Excel already has an in-built feature for creating PDFs.

In my latest video I lay out the 3 methods for exporting to PDF natively in Excel, as well as several tips for getting the right outcome.

And if you’re feeling old-school, I have another video full of tips for creating paper print-outs of your Excel reports:

🤓 Geeky News

🎨 Microsoft Designer - Create Amazing AI Graphics​
Microsoft has been gradually tweaking their Designer app. Using AI, you can now simply describe the design you want, and get 1-click design suggestions!

I particularly like that you can upload your own images, and have the AI create cool ideas based on them.

It gives some strange suggestions - but at least you get lots of options 😜

You can even create your own brand kit:

⛅ Cloud Storage - Introducing Cloud.Microsoft
Don’t be surprised if the URL of your Microsoft 365 online apps changes in the next few days / weeks. Microsoft is spring cleaning, and moving all user-facing apps and services to a single, consistent domain: cloud.microsoft.

That includes Excel, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and more. No more messy domain names!

👥 Teams - Spatial Audio for Realistic Meetings
Teams has a new audio feature that lets you spatialize the voices of attendees across the visual meeting stage (in Gallery view).
​
The ideas is that conversations will feel more natural, because it’ll feel like voices are coming from different directions. It'll also be easier to follow when multiple people are speaking together.

🎗️Windows - Accessibility Ribbon in Outlook + PowerPoint​
You can now find all the tools you need to make presentations and other messages accessible under the Accessibility Ribbon - in both Outlook and PowerPoint. It’s a contextual feature, and appears at the same time as the Accessibility Checker pane.

💚 My Favorite Things

😆 Contextual Emojis for Microsoft Teams​
This is silly but fun - Teams is introducing “Together Emojis”: if you reply to someone’s high-five emoji with another high-five emoji, the two will now “interact”. This hasn’t fully rolled out yet, but I saw it in action on my mobile!

💹 New eBook - Financial Modelling in Power BI
Exciting news - we’ve just added a new eBook (with supporting files) to the XelPlus site! It’s the much-requested Financial Modelling in Power BI, written by my friend and MVP colleague Liam Bastick.​

Liam has 30+ years of experience in this field. This is his definitive guide to integrated financial models, financial statements theory, control accounts, and everything else you need to become a PowerBI finance whizz.

🚀 Power Stories

Speaking of finance… Congratulations to Eric for completing his Fundamentals of Financial Analysis course with us at XelPlus!

And thank you for sharing your amazing feedback 💚

Got a success story about using your XelPlus skills? I’d love to hear it! Hit reply to share the details, and inspire other students 😇

See you next week,

Leila

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