A year of innovation- and feedback-driven features in Microsoft Word

Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders and Microsoft Word fans! As we look back one year after our 40^th anniversary (happy 41st birthday, Word!), we continue to deepen and expand on the experiences that power your document needs. Try many of these features here.

 

A year of innovation- and feedback-driven features in Microsoft Word

 

Last year, we celebrated Microsoft Word turning 40. We took a look back at its amazing journey over the decades, and shared a peek into our future investments. Today, we wanted to continue sharing our journey as our story evolves.

 

Shepherding in the age of AI:  Microsoft Word is a powerful destination to organize and express your ideas, a place to create with confidence, read to learn, and evolve your writing with others. This year’s recent breakthroughs in Large Language Models (LLMs) and the advent of Copilot have provided a fundamental shift for productivity tools across the industry. We have embraced this shift to grow Microsoft Word into the most intelligent writing and reading experience in the world. Working closely with you, our customers, we will continue to incorporate your feedback and learn as we craft new capabilities and experiences to improve your productivity. This is just the beginning but here are a few examples of the new Copilot powered capabilities you can try today in Word:

 

• Summarize longer Word documents using Copilot
• Revamp and refine selected text using Draft with Copilot in Word
• Automatically summarize Word documents with Copilot
• Improve your content using Coaching with Copilot in Word for the web

 

Use Draft with Copilot to write a prompt to change a list into a text paragraph

 

 

Make your words shine with Word for the web: Beyond AI, we have continued to invest  in Word for the web to make it an even greater creation and consumption tool. To further empower your creativity, we have introduced more advanced formatting and styling tools that enable you to create professional-grade documents with ease. These enhancements ensure that your documents are not only informative but also visually appealing. Here is a look at some of the new capabilities available in the browser:

 

• Preview links in Word for the web
• Checklists now available in Word for the web
• New formatting options in Word for the web
• Edit tables with ease in Word for the web
• File menu improvements in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for the web

 

Preview of a linked webpage within the document

 

 

Write better together: We understand that collaboration is at the heart of modern workflows. Seamless collaboration not only boosts productivity but also ensures that the final output is a true collective effort, reflecting the best ideas from everyone involved. We’re committed to providing a consistent experience to efficiently create, edit, and review content, no matter where you are, who you are working with, or what device you’re using. Here are some of the key features we’ve shipped for greater collaboration:

 

• Filter comments in Word for the web
• Create inclusive content with the Accessibility Assistant in Word
• Create accessible PDFs with Microsoft 365 apps
• Turn PDFs into editable documents in Word for iOS
• Introducing dynamic watermarking For Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

 

Accessibility Assistant in Word

 

 

Extensibility as a customization driver: We are committed to giving Word developers the tools and capabilities they need to build amazing experiences and support custom workflows.

 

• Word JavaScript API 1.7 requirement set now available

• Word JavaScript API 1.8 requirement set now available 

• Explore the new Word JavaScript requirement set

 

Customized canvas card

 

 

And, of course, we couldn’t forget to mention the most celebrated blog in the past year, a feature delivered in direct response to your feedback to improve the ways you can paste content into Word: Updated default paste option in Word for Windows 

 

 

Your feedback makes us better

 

There is so much more but we hope that these improvements have inspired you to take advantage of these new capabilities with your writing. We value your ongoing support and insightful feedback as it inspires us to continually innovate and enhance our products as an essential tool for millions around the globe. Every suggestion and comment you share plays a pivotal role in our journey towards excellence. Please keep them coming and help us make Word the best product it can be for YOU using any of these methods!

 

Thank you for being a part of our amazing history and for helping us craft the future of writing, reading, and working together.

---

 

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!