Who would you like to contact?
The Internet is a lot busier than it was when this site began. It is obviously important to you that your message doesn't get lost in the "noise". Believe it or not, it's important to us too... The sad fact is that if you send your message to the wrong place, it will simply be ignored. In most cases, no human being will ever see it. You don't want that, and neither do we. This page provides a range of contact options to help avoid that.
Contacting Microsoft
Microsoft loves feedback. To provide some, click here. Note: There is an "automated assistant" at the top of this page. It works best if you type a whole sentence saying what you want to do. And check the spelling!
Your feedback message will pass through a series of electronic filters which discard messages that contain viruses, spam, and abusive language; and also delete messages that do not say clearly what they are about. If you want a human to see it, keep it clean, friendly, concise, and specific!
Getting Help with Word
You can get free help with Microsoft Word from us, the volunteers who made this site; or you can pay for help directly from Microsoft.
Free Help
To get help from us read on. To avoid disappointment, you may wish to keep the following in mind:
- None of the people answering here work for Microsoft. That's a Microsoft policy. We don't have to be here, we're not paid to do this (by anyone!) and we don't have to help anyone. Many of us choose to simply skip messages that are angry or abusive.
- The forums are not the place to post your opinion about Microsoft, its policies, or its products; no employee from Microsoft is ever likely to see such opinions: they don't read the forums. See "Contacting Microsoft", above, if you want to give them your opinion on something. That will get it to the people in Microsoft who do want to hear it. Most of the people giving help have heard almost every imaginable variation of opinions about Microsoft and its products. To us, it's just noise that interferes with people getting help.
- "Help" means we will help you learn how to do what you are trying to do. We will give you "information". If you want someone to do the job for you, see the instructions for engaging a paid consultant, see below.
- The volunteers support about 20 different versions of Word, on nearly as many different operating systems. If you forget to say which operating system and Word version your question is about, it is likely that the helpers will have to ask for that information before they can answer at all. To get fast answers, always state your version.
- Try to get your question into the correct slot:
people on the PC side usually can't answer questions about the Macintosh
version, and vice-versa!
Help with Word on the PC
Click here to ask questions about Word on the PC, and look in the bottom right corner of the overview page. Warning: be careful of the Search box at the top of the page -- it often deposits you in the wrong group, where your question will just sit because nobody in there knows the answer.
For
languages other than English, look here.
Help with Word on the Macintosh
Click here to ask questions about Macintosh Word.
Getting Help with other Microsoft applications
Use this
link, and be even more careful to say which version you are using, and
on what operating system!
Microsoft Help
You may have to pay. Generally, Microsoft will provide free help to "install" the product. But once you have installed it, they will normally charge for further help. To get started, click here..
Comments about this website
Yes, we love to hear what we are doing right (or wrong!). You can click here to email the webmaster directly.
Some quick answers that may save you time:
- Please don't try to use that address to ask for help on Word. Comments about the website only, please. I just don't have time to answer anything else, so I simply delete them.
- Please send in Plain Text format (no formatting). If you send in HTML format, my spam filter will probably dump the message.
- Why don't you write an article on....? The most common reason is that we haven't had time. Please feel free to write it yourself and send it in: we will be delighted to publish it.
- Why don't you fix all the pages on the site? Well, this is a big site and there's only one of me. In between having a life and working at a day job, I get to these things when I can. The last person who upset the previous webmaster ended up getting sent a username and a password... Ummm... that was me {grin!}
- Why doesn't the site work with xyz browser? As far as I know, it does. But I test only with Internet Explorer. If it works in IE, it's fine by me (we're Microsoft MVPs after all).
Contacting the Authors
You can contact many of the authors directly. Most would welcome feedback on their articles.
To contact the Authors, you can click their name in the by-line of their article: that will take you to their "About" page. Those that accept contact publish an email address or a web address. Note that the email address you are using is usually their "business" email, so please don't use it instead of posting to the forums!
Bear in mind that most authors are busy industry professionals with day jobs, so it may be a week or two before they can make the time to provide you with extra information on their article. In most cases, if they had more information to give you, they would have put it in the article when they wrote it! If you are having difficulty with an article: you will get a faster answer, and one that is more focussed on your exact circumstances, if you post a question to the forums, as described above under "Getting Help with Word".
Engaging a Paid Consultant
Most of the authors on this website accept consulting commissions -- for some, that's their primary business. To engage them, click on their name in the article, then follow the link they provide on their bio page.
Given the authors of the articles on this website tend to be amongst the top experts in the world in their field, you should be aware that their professional fees are often also at the top end of the scale. Just as a guide to the ball-park: few of them would readily accept a job worth less than $500.
If in doubt, post your request into the appropriate group as explained above under "Getting Help with Word". If you give an idea of the budget you have in mind and include a working email address, people who can take on the work will contact you.