(Originally published on July 8, 2024 by Rolly Seth)
Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Rolly Seth, a Product Manager on the Microsoft Designer team. I’m excited to show you how easy it is to make unique and personalized invitations with Microsoft Designer. Get ready to wow your guests with one-of-a-kind invitations that perfectly capture the spirit of your event.
Create personalized invitations with Microsoft Designer
Invitations is a fun and intuitive feature in Microsoft Designer that transforms your text description of an event into a gorgeous, personalized invitation in seconds. Simply provide the occasion, date, time, location, and any other relevant details, and Invitations will generate a custom vertical design that's perfect for sharing on mobile devices. Event details are overlaid on top of AI-generated artwork as editable text, creating a cohesive look that’s easy to fine tune and make your own.
You can use Invitations to create invitations for a wide range of events, such as birthdays, anniversary parties, baby showers, graduation parties, holiday gatherings, and more. It’s also great for creating invitations for less traditional events like team lunches, happy hours, talent shows, sports tournaments, and virtual meetups. With Invitations, you can add a special touch to any occasion, making it feel more memorable and significant.
How it works
- Open Microsoft Designer and navigate to Invitations.
- Sign into your Microsoft account or create one for free.
- The Explore ideas tab has a variety of invitation designs to get you started. If you see an invitation you like, select it to customize the same prompt with your own event details.
Custom invitation options
- If you’d rather write your own description from scratch, select the Description box and add your prompt. Be sure to include the following information:
- The occasion (Priya’s 16th birthday, Susan and Malik's 10-year anniversary celebration, etc.)
- The event’s date, time, and location or address (and if you forget to add something, you’ll see placeholder information that you can customize later)
- Optional: Provide additional info like the event’s dress code or how to RSVP
- Optional: The theme and/or style of the invitation (underwater, art deco, 80’s, etc.)
Description text
- Select the Generate button and Designer will make a few personalized invitations featuring the information you’ve provided. The generated designs are saved automatically in the My invitations tab in case you want to revisit them later.
Invitation suggestions
- Select your favorite design, and then select the Download button if you’re happy with the results, or select the Edit button to adjust the invitation’s wording or update the style of the text (font, color, size, and layout). Photos, graphics, and stickers are also easy to add.
Custom invitation
When you’re ready, download your invitation as a mobile-friendly PNG, a lightweight JPEG, or a PDF for easy printing. You can also copy the invitation directly from the download screen and paste it into email, post it on social, or share it in a message on your phone.
Invitation ideas
Since these AI-generated invitations are so fast and easy to make, they’re perfect for adding a personal touch to events that don’t usually get custom invites. If you usually send a quick Outlook meeting invitation to get the word out about team welcome lunches or happy hours, you can make it more special with Invitations (just paste your invitation right into the calendar event or drop it in a team chat!).
Invitations can also make memories more magical for kids. If your daughter is performing in a talent show, make her feel like a star with a formal invitation to Grandma. For a big game, email fun invitations to get the whole team pumped. Planning a family outing or adventure? You know what to do.
These invitations also work great for more traditional events like:
- Personal celebrations (birthdays, wedding save-the-dates, anniversary parties, baby showers, and other special occasions)
- Holiday parties and family get-togethers
- School functions (proms, fundraisers, graduations, end-of-year parties)
- Garage sales and local events
- Virtual events (book club meetings or other virtual meetups)
- Sports tournaments, game nights, or fitness challenges
- Themed parties (custom parties, movie nights, decade-themed events)
Tips and tricks
- The generated invitation’s text is a breeze to update, move, and customize. So, if you create a design you love but you’re not crazy about the font, you can still pick that invitation and update the font. Be more discerning about the invitation’s generated artwork, which is harder to change (though still doable in many cases—especially if you’re adding elements).
- As you look through the example invites in the Explore ideas tab, focus on each example invitation’s style and not its intended use. The prompt template is customizable, so you can easily change a birthday invitation to a graduation invite if you like the birthday invitation’s style.
- Be choosy about which information you include—focus on essentials like name, date, location, and RSVP. Generally, keeping text to a minimum will help make your design cleaner and easier to edit.
Known limitations
- Occasionally, we do get misspelled words and distorted graphics within the generated images due to some of the limitations of Dall-E. While this issue is less pronounced with Invitations because the text isn’t typically part of the generated artwork (it’s added on top), stay on the lookout for oddities. You can always regenerate!
- While Invitations seems to handle non-English prompts and outputs well, we’ve only fully tested it with English, with other languages coming soon.
Availability
The Invitations feature is available to on the web to all Microsoft Designer users with a Microsoft account in English.
Feedback
Your feedback helps us improve, and your designs inspire us. Share your designs and feedback with us @MSFT365Designer on X or @msft365designer on Instagram using the hashtag #MicrosoftDesigner. We can’t wait to see the fabulous invitations you create and the unforgettable events you dream up!
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