Windows Phone 8 Tips and Tricks

To put your phone in flight mode, or offline mode, go to Start – Applications list – Settings. Then press Flight mode.

If you want to add or change languages on your phone, then go to Settings – Language+region.

Here you can choose languages and download / install if necessary. You can then jump between languages easily from this menu.

To make a sound when you receive emails, go to Settings – Ringtones & sounds. Then choose a sound for email

If you are looking at your photos you need to be zoomed out before you can swipe left or right to go to the next photo. If you are zoomed in, swiping left or right will simply pan around the photo

To turn your phone into a WiFi hotspot, then follow these instructions:

First, go to your Start screen and swipe left and go to Settings.

Then select Internet sharing and turn Sharing on.

From here you can name your connection by selecting Setup – Broadcast name and entering a name.

You can also secure your WiFi hotspot but adding a password for the connection.

Next, go to another device and find your phone’s WiFi hotspot service.

Note: This will use your data plan, so use wisely!

If you would like to join your email inboxes so that all messages appear in the same space, then you can Link them.

First go to one email account you want to link and press the symbol that looks like three full stops. Then select Link inboxes and choose two inboxes you want to link together.

To get directions to a location, you need to begin from the home screen. Then go to Apps – Maps and select Directions.

Then enter an address or place of interest, like a shop or restaurant and press Go.

Then choose either Walking or Driving. The phone will then calculate a route.

To show real-time traffic information select the More button and select Show Traffic.

If you are browsing a website and read something that you want to find out more about, simply highly the text. Then press the Search / Hardware button. The phone will then search for that highlighted word on Bing. This is much quicker than having to open a new browser Tab and searching manually.

Press and hold on various keyboard keys and you will find hidden options. A couple of examples are the Period (full stop) key which will present you with other punctuation marks. Or the open bracket ( which will also give you the <, { and [ symbols.

A handy feature is to automatically backup your photos to Skydrive. To enable this feature, go to Settings – Pictures & camera. Change Auto Upload to On