Edge, Microsoft’s default web browser in Windows 11, is getting new text editing capabilities, including Copilot-assisted rewriting, improved clipboard functionality, and support for handwritten text in forms and web pages via a stylus.
Windows Copilot is the AI assistant that Microsoft has been busy integrating into Windows 11 and various other products, including Microsoft Edge. It was presented as eventually being able to help you with any task on your device, and while it still looks like there’s a way to go before Copilot lives up to that lofty ambition, it is getting there.
The new feature, AI Compose, will make rewrite suggestions for text selected by users in editable parts of a web page and can assist writers with possible phrasing improvements and pointers on sentence structure. It’ll also allow users to change the text suggestions’ tone, format, or length.
MSPowerUser compares the new functionality to the popular AI-powered writing assistance tool Grammarly. Apparently, this update will make Copilot more competitive with Google’s large language model and AI assistant project, Gemini, which is rumored to bring similar features to Google’s rival Chrome web browser.
Adding support in for digital pens and more
Edge will also get support for digital pen writing that will let users write in web pages’ input fields directly, turning their handwriting into text. Microsoft also describes in a blog post that users will be able to make use of Windows Ink support in Edge to do the following with digital pens:
- Enter text by writing with a pen in or near an input field
- Delete text by scribbling over words to delete them
- Add or remove spaces by drawing vertical lines in the text
- Add line breaks by drawing horizontal lines
Other text-related updates that are coming to Edge include a new EditContext API tool for web developers that’s intended to simplify the process of creating custom text editors, an enhanced copy-and-paste function that allows users to copy and paste formatted rich HTML content more reliably, and more control for web developers over Edge’s text prediction function.
I think this certainly has the potential to be a very helpful addition to Edge, because as Microsoft itself points out, a lot of the web’s success in general is due to its form submission and text editing capabilities. Microsoft has also stated that it would like feedback to improve the feature if needed, and this is a feature where it could take the initiative and actively encourage users to try the feature.