New Drawing Feature in Excel and PowerPoint for Perfect Shapes

Image: Clovis_Cheminot

Recently, OneNote enhanced its functionality with an exciting feature that allows users on touch-enabled PCs to create flawless lines and shapes using a specific gesture known as Draw and Hold. This capability, which was later introduced to Word, enables users to sketch freeform shapes and then stabilize them by simply holding the stylus in place, prompting OneNote to automatically refine the drawing. Now, this innovative feature is being extended to additional Office applications, including Excel and PowerPoint.

While drawing with a stylus might not be the first thought when considering Excel, the application offers robust tools dedicated to shapes and lines. Consequently, Microsoft is introducing the Draw and Hold gesture to enhance the clarity of spreadsheets. This update is particularly beneficial for PowerPoint users, where creating drawings and shapes is an integral part of presentations.

Microsoft elaborates on the new feature as follows:

Launch a new or previously saved Excel worksheet or PowerPoint slide.

With a single stroke, sketch out a line, arrow, or shape on the canvas, then maintain pressure on your stylus for a brief moment.

Observe as the initially drawn stroke transforms into a cleaner rendition of the shape you intended to create.

The Draw and Hold gesture recognizes various shapes, including circles, ellipses, triangles, squares, rectangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, pentagons, and hexagons. Once a shape is refined, users in Excel and PowerPoint can effortlessly move, resize, rotate, or choose to keep it unchanged.

According to Microsoft, this new gesture is currently being rolled out to Beta Channel users operating on Office Version 2410 (Build 18108.20000) or later. As with most updates, the rollout will occur steadily to ensure stability and minimize potential issues, meaning the availability of the Draw and Hold feature may take several days.

In other news from the Office suite, Microsoft acknowledged a comical bug in Word that causes it to delete files rather than saving them locally. Caution is advised, and more details along with potential fixes can be found here.

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