Microsoft is giving Paint and Notepad Apps New AI capabilities on Windows for editing text and creating digital images. The updates are currently being rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Windows 11 Canary and Dev channels, and include features that seem oddly specific or advanced for such simplistic apps, like AI text correction in Notepad and the ability to instantly generate coloring book pages in Paint.
The latter feature is appropriately called “Color Book”, and it lets you create a blank color template in version 11.2512.191.0 of Paint based on a text prompt. Users can access this feature by selecting the Coloring Book option from the CoPilot menu in Paint and then describing what the design should be, such as “a cute fluffy cat on a donut.” Paint will then generate four results that Paint users can click to add to their canvas. From there, you can potentially use paint to color the image yourself, or print it out using traditional art materials.
It’s such a strangely specific device that I wonder if it’s something that makes book consumers (parents and stressed-out millennials) actually colorist. Use Paint for. The Coloring Book feature is exclusively only available on CoPilot Plus PCs, so it’s more likely that Microsoft is looking for new ways to make its AI-infused Windows 11 devices more marketable. Paint is also getting a Fill Tolerance slider (which isn’t limited to CoPilot hardware only) that offers more control over how the Fill tool applies color.
The Notepad 11.2512.10.0 update adds the ability to stream AI-generated results to the write, rewrite, and summary features, allowing previews of text results to be displayed immediately without waiting for a full response. Notepad also has a new welcome experience that provides a quick overview of what’s available in the app, and now supports additional Markdown syntax features including strikethrough formatting and nested lists.
