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About this lesson
Learn how to use Copilot to draft a document in Word.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
Draft Documents with Copilot5.2 MB Draft Documents with Copilot - Solution
5.8 MB 04-01-Draft Documents with Copilot-Start.docx
19.2 KB 04-01-Draft Documents with Copilot-Finish.docx
23.8 KB 4-01-Word Exercise-Start.docx
12.9 KB 4-01-Word Exercise-Finish.docx
15.7 KB
Quick reference
Draft Documents with Copilot
Use Copilot to draft formatted Word documents based on a prompt.
When to use
We can use Copilot to help us draft documents to save time and make us more efficient. Copilot can pull information from many sources to quickly create a fully formatted document.
Instructions
Let's use Copilot to help us draft a document about Microsoft Teams.
- Create a blank Word document.
Notice the Copilot tag on the page.
- Click the tag or press ALT+I to open the Draft with Copilot box.
- Type the prompt: 'Draft a document that outlines the benefits of Microsoft Teams for effective collaboration and communication'.
- Click Generate.
Copilot will generate a draft document and format it accordingly with Word styles.
We can choose to keep the draft, regenerate it, delete it, or make a change.
- Click Regenerate to see another version of the draft.
Each time we regenerate, another version is created. We can choose which version we want to keep using the scroll arrows.
Let's change the tone.
- Click the arrow to regenerate the draft.
- Click Keep it.
The Copilot Pane
We can also further refine our document using the Copilot pane.
- From the Home tab, click the Copilot button.
We can easily summarize long documents and extract the key points.
- Type the prompt: 'Summarize this doc'.
- Type the prompt: 'Make the summary shorter'.
We can then copy and paste the summary into the document, an email, or a Teams channel.
Hints & tips
- Use the keyboard shortcut ALT+I to open the Draft with Copilot box.
- 00:04 We can use Copilot in Word to help us draft and edit documents.
- 00:08 And all of the same rules apply, our document must be saved to OneDrive, and
- 00:13 we must have autosave toggled on.
- 00:14 Now, the first thing you'll notice when you open up a Word document is that we now
- 00:18 have this little tag that says Draft with Copilot.
- 00:20 Notice the keyboard shortcut of Alt+I.
- 00:23 If we open this, it's going to open up a little window that's going to help us
- 00:27 draft a document from scratch.
- 00:29 So this is where we type our prompt in.
- 00:32 So I'm going to get Copilot to draft a document that outlines the benefits of
- 00:36 Microsoft Teams for effective collaboration and communication.
- 00:40 Notice we have a reference or file button just here, so
- 00:42 if you do have a file that you want to include you can select it from here.
- 00:46 Now, we're not going to do that in this case.
- 00:48 We're just going to check the Generate button and see what Copilot comes up with.
- 00:53 And off it goes.
- 00:54 And one of the things that I really like about this is that it will add in
- 00:58 formatting.
- 00:58 So you can see we have the title formatted and all of the headings and
- 01:02 bullet points are also formatted.
- 01:04 Once it's finished adding the information into your document, notice we still have
- 01:09 that draft a document window at the bottom where we can make further changes.
- 01:12 Now, notice this is showing version 1.
- 01:15 We could choose to discard it, we can regenerate.
- 01:18 So let's give that button a go.
- 01:19 We would generally regenerate if we aren't keen on the wording that Copilot
- 01:24 has used for the first version.
- 01:26 So now it's going through and it's regenerating that text.
- 01:29 And now notice in the little window at the bottom, it's saying version 2 of 2.
- 01:34 So this is cool because if we want to go back to the previous version,
- 01:38 we can do that and then we can choose to keep it.
- 01:40 Now, something else we can do is we can choose the tone from here as well.
- 01:44 For example, if I want this document to sound more professional,
- 01:48 I can just say make it professional.
- 01:50 I could type in make it casual, make it formal,
- 01:53 there's many things we could type into that.
- 01:56 So once again, Copilot is going to take that information, that instruction, and
- 02:00 it's going to regenerate the document.
- 02:02 And you can carry on working through this process until your document sounds the way
- 02:06 you want it to sound.
- 02:07 So I'm happy with that, I'm going to click on Keep it.
- 02:10 Now, aside from that little window that pops up,
- 02:13 we can also open up Copilot by clicking on the button on the Home ribbon.
- 02:17 And this pane is very similar to the panes that we've been using in
- 02:20 the other Microsoft applications.
- 02:22 Notice we have our suggested prompts underneath, so
- 02:25 I'm going to choose Summarize this document.
- 02:28 Now, this type of prompt is great,
- 02:29 particularly if you have a long document in front of you.
- 02:32 Imagine a document with hundreds of pages.
- 02:35 If we just want to very quickly summarize the main points, we can select
- 02:39 that prompt or simply type in, summarize this document into the prompt area.
- 02:43 And what it will do is it will cherry-pick out of that document those key points,
- 02:48 list them out like it has done just here.
- 02:50 And then we can copy those into an email or
- 02:53 even copy them into the document as a kind of summary section at the bottom.
- 02:58 Now, I want to make my summary a bit shorter.
- 03:00 So I'm going to use that suggested prompt, make the summary shorter.
- 03:04 So we're going to get something similar.
- 03:06 Those summary points, they're just going to be a little bit more concise.
- 03:10 And there we go.
- 03:11 I'm happy with that, so I'm going to click on the Copy button, I'm going to go to
- 03:15 the bottom of my document and I'm just going to paste those in.
- 03:18 And just to separate this off from the main document,
- 03:20 I'm going to add a quick heading, I'm just going to call it Summary.
- 03:24 So that's how you can use Copilot to draft a new document and
- 03:30 refine the results until you get exactly what you want.
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