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It's almost April Fools' Day - finally, the one day that it's completely acceptable to do awful things to the people you care about and get away with it because of some bizarre medieval tradition.

Remember that doing any of the following pranks after midday on 1st April is against the rules (although, let's face it, who cares) and if you're not sure a colleague will see the funny side, it's probably best not to bother.

But if you're looking to have a laugh at someone else's expense, you could do worse than to try these effective and inventive pranks.

Just don't blame us if you lose your job/spouse/get kicked out of the house.

If you need more inspiration for April 1st, check out our round-up of April Fools' Day prank ideas to play on your family or in the office.

1. The toothpaste treat trick

Buy Oreos for the office. Then laugh at their bewildered and disappointed faces as they realise you've filled their biccies with toothpaste. You MONSTER.

2. A-mayonnaise-ing prank

Try to soothe your angry colleagues with some nice fresh doughnuts after the Oreo toothpaste incident.

But replace the custard filling with mayonnaise. Maybe hide in the toilet for the rest of the day.

3. Or don't hide in the toilet, but pretend to instead

(Image: Bored Panda)

4. Pure evil

Maybe attach an air horn to the toilet wall while you're hiding to give unsuspecting people - and everyone else in the toilets - a shock when they open the door.

Obviously DON'T do this to anybody with a heart condition.

5. Make them think their screen is cracked

Find and download a reasonably high-resolution image of a cracked screen. Searching on Google images should give you lots of options, or you could just use the one here.

Set the image as a screensaver on their computer, making sure it is set to activate after a short amount of time (30 seconds or so).

If you colleague uses a desktop computer rather than a laptop, you could make the prank more convincing by unplugging their keyboard and mouse.

6. In an English keyboard garden

(Image: wetwebwork) (Image: wetwebwork)

Oh no he didn't! Maybe grab an old keyboard for this one

7. Hide a dictaphone playing a repetitive sound somewhere in the office

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This one is fairly self-explanatory. Make a long recording of some kind of repetitive sound played on a loop on your computer. Clicking, beeping, whirring and whistling all work great.

Set the dictaphone playing and then hide it at the back of a drawer, behind a filing cabinet or somewhere else tricky to find.

Watch your colleagues slowly lose their minds as they struggle to locate the source of the noise.

8. Or... "Drink, feck, girls"

Change a friend's text alert to a 10 second long clip of Father Jack from Father Ted.

Then text them every 10 seconds for around a minute or two when you know they are in a public place.

9. Light crawler

You can order these online or simply make your own (out of something non-flammable, naturally).

(Image: Claire/Say yes)

10. Automatically replace words in documents with hilarious substitutions

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This works in either Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

If you're using Google Docs:

Go to tools → preferences. Replace some of your colleague's commonly used words with some 'interesting' substitutions.

In Microsoft Word:

Go to tools → AutoCorrect options. Do exactly the same thing.

Watch your colleague tear their hair out trying to type the words they actually want and avoid any bloopers.

11. (Temporarily) render their mouse unworkable

(Image: Instructables)

This one is deviously simple.

Just stick a little bit of tape over the laser on the bottom of the mouse and it will stop working. Most people won't think to turn it upside down and look for a good long while.

12. Put their stapler inside a jelly

Well, it was funny when it happened in The Office...

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13. Phone cruelty

Take a screen shot on their phone of their homepage, then remove all of the apps from their homepage and set the screenshot as the background.

They'll be trying to click on their messages icon or their Facebook icon in order to open the apps, without realising that it's actually just a picture.

14. This cruel prank from readers Daz and Ali

In their words:

This is a joint effort from me (Daz) and Ali that we played on Liam one of our best mates.

We both worked together years ago and came up with the idea of printing out a letter to Liam, from the CSA, stating that a girl had applied for a child maintenance case against him, and that up to that point, he owed arrears of £3,500.

It's also my birthday on the 1st April, so I had the day off work and took the letter with me the day before and posted it into Liam's house on the 1st April so the letter would be there for him when he got back from work.

As it was my birthday, me and the lads were due to be in the pub, all of them aware of what we'd done. An hour or so after Liam should've been there he wasn't. Turns out he was sat at home worried about this letter and completely missed the bottom part where we signed it off "Denzel Washington".

After we'd told him what we'd done, he joined us in the pub, annoyed by the fact we'd fooled him and that the whole pub knew about it. Happy days!

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15. Introducing our new favourite - "Brown Es"

Hide some actual brownies somewhere in the work kitchen, then send an email round saying "I cooked brownies!", but place cut out Es on brown paper in sight.

Then when your colleagues get into the kitchen they'll be able to smell brownies, but all they'll be able to see is a rather disappointing collection of brown Es.

16. Peanut cruelty

Film yourself sucking the chocolate off from chocolate-covered peanuts. Give your mates a bowl of peanuts (they don't have to be the same ones).

Next show them the video when they're finished for instant horror.

Run.

17. Stock scrub

Do you have a detachable showerhead? Screw it off, pop in a stock cube and leave it for your flatmate or long-suffering partner.

18. Finally... Simple yet effective