Get to know the ribbon

When Microsoft unveiled the new ribbon interface to Office 2007, it was quite a shock to users, and was the end to the familiar toolbars used in the previous versions. We were pretty surprised ourselves, as we often used custom toolbars to help users with lists of type styles and any programmed buttons we needed [...]

Don’t upset the client!

We often get to redo templates that haven’t worked out so well. These are mostly from design agencies, done internally for their client, but unfinished or poorly set up. It makes us feel we have a skill afterall.
In most cases, it makes more sense to do them from scratch, as Word does have a very [...]

New templates for National Trust

We very recently developed a range of Word templates to be used across the organisation along with Wolff Olins, the much regarded design agency. With over 300 historic houses and gardens and 49 industrial monuments and mills, the templates are to be used for general communication, as well as posters and information systems around each [...]

Strutt and Parker proposals

Strutt and Parker, one of the leading private and commercial estate agents, needed help in formulating their proposals for commercial and land management work. The proposals would need to contain about 80% of the final content, with the agent updating or filling in the remaining parts. All of the design work was completed by Columns [...]

Microsoft stopped from selling Word

In a US court case over infringement of a 1998 patent, Microsoft have been ordered to stop selling the Word processing software in the United States. A similar ruling is likely to be the same for the Mac version too. Microsoft have appealed against the ruling.
Judge bans Microsoft Word sales