As of yesterday, Microsoft has begun rolling out a new update to Windows 11 Insiders on the Dev and Canary Channels. This update brings new AI features to Notepad, Paint, and the Snipping Tool. Notepad now has the ability to write text from scratch using generative AI, which is meant to aid you by quickly producing drafts based on your prompts and instructions. To use AI text generation, simply right-click anywhere in the document and select Write. Type in your instructions, then either click Keep Text or Discard on the results.

It's been one future that sci-fi has promised since Star Trek. Microsoft now says that that future is arriving, at least within a small corner of Windows 11. Microsoft is promising that you'll be able to use natural language to change aspects of your Windows 11 Settings menu, and Windows will go out and make those changes for you using "agents," or small bits of AI that will work on your behalf -- at least if you own a Copilot PC with an AI-accelerating NPU onboard. Microsoft has begun to use its Surface devices as a showcase for its latest software, and the new 13-inch Surface Laptop and 12-inch Surface Pro are no exception. They'll serve as launch vehicles for Windows Recall, semantic search, and Click-to-Do, but also brand new features like agentic AI and relighting features for Photos, object editing and sticker generation for Paint, and more.

According to yesterday's Windows Insider blog post, Microsoft is currently testing a new version of the Snipping Tool in Windows 11, which is now available to Windows Insiders on both Canary and Dev Channels. This new version (11.2503.27.0) is getting built-in Text Extraction. Text Extraction is a feature that uses OCR to "extract" text from an image and convert it into, well, text. Instead of typing up entire paragraphs or pages by hand, you can simply let the Snipping Tool handle it--and it's much faster than doing it by hand. The Snipping Tool has actually had Text Extraction for a while now, but you had to first snap a screenshot and then open the screenshot for editing within the Snipping Tool before you could access the Text Extraction feature.

There are all kinds of reasons why you might want to extract text out of images. Maybe you've taken photos of restaurant bills and you want to make a record of what you've eaten; or perhaps you've got a bunch of screenshots that you need to get product names out of; or you could have scanned in some important documents that need sorting. Whatever the reason, Windows comes with built-in tools for picking out text from image files (technically known as OCR, or Optical Character Recognition)--in fact, there are several different ways, so you can pick the one that suits you best. Here's how to get started, assuming you already have your images saved somewhere. The Snipping Tool is the easiest way to extract text from images on Windows.

Windows 11's 2023 Update is here, bringing with it a number of new features to explore. But which ones are worth trying? We've listed our favorites, below. Windows 11's 2023 Update is (eventually) being pushed to your PC as a free, cumulative update, which means that it encompasses features and applications that may have already arrived on your PC. Windows 11 users will receive most of the 2023 Update features by Nov. 14, though it may take longer for some systems.

Microsoft is injecting a ton of generative AI-powered features into Windows 11, but it's not all about the Copilot assistant. The company has started to update a string of apps with new AI functions, including Paint, Clipchamp, Snipping Tool and Photos. Microsoft released an update for Windows 11 2023, known as 23H2, on October 31. That update expanded access to Copilot and other AI features. Microsoft is rolling out the AI updates gradually, so you may not have access to everything just yet.

Some people may care that the "Apps" section now separates some Windows apps, now labeled as "System components," into a separate page. Settings now leans a bit too much toward subscriptions -- most people probably don't need a constant reminder of their OneDrive quota and Game Pass subscription, but it's understandable. Microsoft has also provided an updated audio mixer for Windows 11, which is a step forward. You'll need the click the volume controls in the Taskbar, than navigate through to the small "wires" icon to the right of the volume bar to make any adjustments.

Well now this will be useful! Microsoft is adding a text recognition function (OCR) to the Windows 11 Snipping Tool. The new feature will let you to copy text from screenshots and paste it into word processing programs, for example. Currently, only Windows Insider testers from the Canary and Dev channels can try the new text copying feature in the Snipping Tool, though if all goes well you can expect to see it hit all Windows 11 machines at some point in the future. The new function, called "Text Actions," is available in Snipping Tool version 11.2308.33.0.

The AI craze is in full swing in the technology industry, and Microsoft is no exception. After debuting the "Copilot" system in Windows 11 preview builds and Bing's AI-powered search and chat tools, recent rumors indicate that artificial intelligence may be integrated into more fundamental Windows programs. A recent report says that the company's software division is hard at work adding AI features to long-standing default apps like Paint, Photos, the Snipping Tool, and the Camera application. According to an unconfirmed report from Windows Central, internal builds of these programs are starting to emerge with new capabilities, some of which require specialized hardware. A lot of them are playing catch-up to what's already available on some other platforms.

Microsoft's Windows is ditching a classic feature of PC keyboards that dates back around two decades – and users are not happy about it. Print Screen is a button on PC keyboards that takes a screenshot and automatically copies it so users can paste it into another application, such as Paint. Now, an upcoming update for Windows 11, called KB5025310, will change this so the Print Screen button opens up Microsoft's Snipping Tool instead. The controversial new update comes nearly two years after Windows 11 was originally launched – although luckily it can be fixed. Microsoft explained it in a blog post along with other new features set to roll out for members of its Insider programme, which allows testing before a general rollout.