Helping Zoom clean up room
Q: I broke down yesterday and downloaded Zoom and installed it. When I clicked on virtual background it said my computer does not meet requirements to use this feature. I don’t know what the requirements are that this program needs, but surely they would have written it so older computers could use it.
A: Virtual backgrounds are all the rage with Zoom video meetings. They can be used humorously or they can be used to hide the fact that your office is not quite ready to be viewed by the public.
Unfortunately, the technology requires a little bit of horsepower to function. This includes an up-to-date operating system, a multicore processor and robust video hardware. Technically, the application does function on older hardware, it’s just that you need newer and more powerful hardware to take full advantage of the higher end features.
In my experience, it tends to be laptops that struggle the most as they just aren’t as powerful as most desktops.
Zoom publishes the system requirements at tinyurl.com/helplinevirtual.
Q: Ever since I updated my Mac operating system to Catalina, Excel spreadsheets initially open upside down. After I scroll up and down a bit and click a box in the spreadsheet, the image turns right side up. Any ideas how to fix this?
A: While current versions of Microsoft Office for the Mac are compatible with Catalina, they may exhibit strange behavior if they are not fully updated with the latest patches from Microsoft.
To update Microsoft Office, open up one of the apps like Excel or Word and click on Help and then Check For Updates.
Follow the prompts to update your various Microsoft Office applications.
Note that you will have to close them for the update to complete. Once the update is complete, Excel should start behaving itself.
If you run into problems running the update, you can download the latest Microsoft Update application from tinyurl.com/helplineofficeupdate.