Microsoft has already managed to integrate Copilot into one of its classic programs: Notepad, in Windows 11. Just when rumors began to circulate that Notepad was going to be retired, we now see that thanks to Artificial Intelligence it can have a new life. We tell you everything about this combination Notepad and Copilot.
Microsoft Copilot, which we have already talked about on this blog on other occasions, is a great AI language model that offers numerous applications in various fields. Now, its functions can also be explored in Notepad.
As everyone knows, Notepad is a very basic text writing and editing program that comes pre-installed in all versions of Windows operating systems since 1985. The truth is that in all these years its structure and functions have hardly evolved. Until today.
Traditionally, Notepad could only be used to deal with plain texts, supporting only a few very simple tools. Instead, thanks to the introduction of Copilot, the user will be able to enjoy a more complete experience. It seems that this is the testing ground from which Microsoft is going to consider introducing this tool into the rest of the programs in the Microsoft 365 office suite.
In other words, all the improvements and implementations that we will see in Notepad will be developed more thoroughly in the Office applications, which will be paid in the near future.
Explain with Copilot
Now, the Notepad application is going to receive an update through which it will be introduced an artificial intelligence feature called Explain with Copilot (Explain with Copilot)Microsoft has decided to take this process step by step and, for the moment, will only test this one feature. If the experiment yields the expected positive results, we may see new features in Notepad in the medium term.
Copilot uses a language model developed for some specific tasks such as generation of text and creative content. But it also integrates a tool to answer questions in an informative way, very easy to use and totally free. This conjunction between Notepad and Copilot had been announced in February of this year and is now a reality, after the recent update of Windows 11, the last before the arrival of Windows 12.
The purpose of Explain with Copilot AI in Notepad is to help the user to better understand the content of the text. To use it, you just have to Select any content in the text file and ask Copilot to explain it to usThe selected content is sent to the Copilot service, which analyzes it and sends back an explanation. Here are the steps to follow:
- First we open the Notepad application.
- After We select the text or text fragment that we want to analyze with the mouse.
- Next we right-click and choose the option «Explain with Copilot».*
- At this point a message appears «Send to chat», so that we authorize by pressing the button "Send".
By doing this, Copilot's AI will explain to us the content we have selected. If we have asked a question, it will collect information from the web and answer it for us. The results it presents to us will also include the sources from which the data has been obtained.
(P) The “Explain with Copilot” feature can also be accessed via the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + E. In case the first method does not work.
Other cool features of Notepad + Copilot
In addition to the practical help provided by the “Explain with Copilot” function, the introduction of AI in Notepad through Copilot means the incorporation of other equally useful functions, such as the ability to grammar and style review.
Beyond this, it should be noted that "Explain with Copilot" can also be used to learn more about PowerShell scripts. How to do it? Very easy: just copy and paste the PowerShell script into Notepad and analyze it following the same steps we explained in the previous section. In this way, Copilot's AI will examine the code and provide us with an explanation about it (as shown in the image above).
Conclusions
“Explain with Copilot” in Windows 11 Notepad is a great feature that can help us better understand the content of log files, code segments, or any selected text directly from the Notepad. This is just one example of how to use Copilot to explain the content of the file. All the things we can do with Copilot, Microsoft's AI that will be increasingly present in Windows and has arrived to improve the user experience.