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About this lesson
Use Copilot to rewrite and edit paragraphs in a document.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
4.02 rewrite-and-edit-documents - Exercise.docx5.2 MB 4.02 rewrite-and-edit-documents - Exercise solution.docx
5.3 MB 04-02-Rewrite and Edit Documents-Start.docx
23.8 KB 04-02-Rewrite and Edit Documents-Finish.docx
24.7 KB 4-02-Word Exercise-Start.docx
22 KB 4-02-Word Exercise-Finish.docx
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Quick reference
Rewrite and Edit Documents
Rewrite, visualize information, and edit documents using Copilot.
When to use
We use Copilot to make changes to documents whenever we need a quick way to summarize information, convert text to tables, and reword paragraphs.
Instructions
Visualize as Table
We can select any text in the document and quickly convert it to a Word table.
- Select the bulleted text.
- Click the Copilot tag.
- Choose Visualize as table.
Copilot will convert the paragraphs to a table. We can use the Table Design ribbon to apply formatting.
Rewrite with Copilot
We can rewrite any paragraph using Copilot.
- Select the paragraph.
- Click the Copilot tag.
- Choose Rewrite with Copilot.
We can regenerate, refine, delete, change the tone, or make a change to the rewrite.
- Change the tone to Imaginative.
- Click Regenerate.
Once we are happy with the rewrite we can insert the new text below the selected paragraph or replace it.
- Click Replace.
Make a Change
We can make further changes to our document using the Copilot pane.
- From the Home tab, click the Copilot button.
- Type the prompt: 'Change the title of the document to bold font'.
If Copilot is unable to make the change, instruction text will show in the Copilot pane.
Copilot Lab
The Copilot Lab contains preset templates for use in our documents. We can look for recipes, write an introduction, write a marketing plan, and much more.
- Choose the Take notes in a class prompt.
Copilot will create a mini-template that we can copy and paste into a document.
Hints & tips
- When we visualize text as a table, the original text will not be deleted by default.
- To save a template in the Copilot Lab, click the bookmark icon in the corner. Templates can be retrieved from the Saved prompts area.
- 00:04 So, we're still working on the document that we created in the last lesson,
- 00:08 and we're going to see some other edits that Copilot can make to our document.
- 00:13 And this is a really good illustration of the things that Copilot can do versus
- 00:16 the things that it can't do.
- 00:18 Now, if I take a look at this document,
- 00:20 you can see that I have some bullet points in that second paragraph.
- 00:24 So what we're going to do here is we're going to select all of the bullet points
- 00:29 and click the little Copilot tag at the side and
- 00:32 notice we have a little option there that says, visualize as a table.
- 00:36 So if I click this, it's basically going to take those bullet points that and
- 00:40 put them into a structured word table.
- 00:42 And tables in general can sometimes be a lot better when it comes to readability.
- 00:47 And you can see here it goes, it's picked up that we have two columns and
- 00:51 then we have all of those points in a separate row.
- 00:54 And once we have our information in a table,
- 00:57 we can then use all of our table design utilities.
- 01:00 Now one thing you will notice is that it doesn't actually delete out the bullet
- 01:04 points, so let's click keep it and
- 01:05 then we're just going to select the bullet points above.
- 01:08 We're just going to delete those out because we now have all of our information
- 01:12 in a table.
- 01:12 And I'm going to put it on a separate page by pressing Ctrl + Enter.
- 01:16 I can drag the columns and I can use all of the table tools on the layout ribbon.
- 01:21 So let's go in and just quickly change the table design to make it
- 01:25 look a little bit more interesting.
- 01:27 So I'm going to choose this one just here.
- 01:30 And in a fraction of the time, we have a really nice looking table illustrating
- 01:35 those bullet points more clearly.
- 01:37 Now, something else we can do is we can get Copilot to rewrite paragraphs.
- 01:41 So if I select the first paragraph and click on the little tag,
- 01:45 we have a Rewrite with Copilot option.
- 01:47 And you can see it's drafting rewrites for me.
- 01:51 And it's only going to rewrite the paragraph that I've selected.
- 01:53 So now you can see that we have a few different versions.
- 01:56 So it doesn't just give me one rewrite, it gives me a few to choose from.
- 02:00 So I can go in here,
- 02:01 I can read through and then I can choose the one that I like the best.
- 02:05 And I can choose to replace the current highlighted text, I can insert below.
- 02:10 I can regenerate and I can even adjust the tone.
- 02:13 So let's change it to imaginative, and there we go.
- 02:16 We now have a new version.
- 02:18 I'm going to click on Replace and our paragraph has been rewritten.
- 02:22 So some really cool edits we can make just here.
- 02:24 Now if we click on the Copilot icon to open up the pane,
- 02:28 we can of course do more things from here.
- 02:30 So let's click on Change, one of those suggested prompts, and
- 02:35 I'm going to try and get Copilot to change the title of the document to bold.
- 02:40 Now, when I send this through, you can see that Copilot is giving me
- 02:44 instructions as opposed to actually executing the bold.
- 02:47 So it basically can't do this, and
- 02:49 it's telling me where I need to click in order to apply bold.
- 02:53 So one of the suggestions is to use Ctrl B.
- 02:55 So let's just do that.
- 02:57 We'll select the title and Ctrl B to make that bold.
- 03:00 So there are still some limitations with Copilot when it's performing
- 03:05 seemingly basic tasks.
- 03:07 I've added another prompt here, changed the font color of the title.
- 03:10 Now this is formatting again, and you can see here it can't do it.
- 03:15 But it is giving me a little Show Me button, so if I click on Show Me,
- 03:19 it is going to highlight where I need to go on the ribbon.
- 03:22 So it's like a helpful assistant.
- 03:24 Now don't forget that if we click on the little icon underneath to view prompts,
- 03:29 this is what we call our Copilot lab.
- 03:31 And this will allow us to create different styles of document really, really quickly.
- 03:36 So for example, say we've been in the meeting and
- 03:38 we want to to add some meeting notes into a document.
- 03:41 We can use Copilot Lab to generate that for us.
- 03:44 Now you can see we have lots of options in here, and
- 03:47 if you do find a prompt that you like, you can click on the little Save button and
- 03:51 it will then be saved underneath that Save Prompts heading.
- 03:54 So that's a quick way of getting to templates you use frequently.
- 03:56 Now we're going to scroll down until we get to Take Notes in a class.
- 04:01 So this is going to be a draft template that we can use for
- 04:05 class that includes things like sections and notes areas.
- 04:08 So let's send that prompt through and it's basically going to generate some text that
- 04:13 I can copy and paste into a Word document, which will effectively create me a little
- 04:17 template that can be used for class notes or maybe meeting notes.
- 04:21 And you can see here we have it, if we scroll up and take a look at it,
- 04:25 you can see we have the basic structure listed out just there.
- 04:28 So all we need to do is copy this information.
- 04:32 We can then open up a new blank document and paste it in.
- 04:36 So we're going to do a Ctrl V to paste that in and
- 04:39 we could save this as a template and reuse it over and over again.
- 04:44 So those are some of the cool ways that you can use Copilot in
- 04:48 Microsoft Word to edit and make changes to documents.
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