Hello everyone, my name is Maddy Dahl, and I’m excited to share with you a little bit about Copilot and its capabilities within Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Today, we’ll talk about how, in Copilot for Word, you can create drafts and add content such as files and other materials. You can create a summary from a document, and you can even create presentations. For Copilot within PowerPoint, we’ll look at creating presentations, preparing and organizing them, and generating summaries for your presentations as well. For Copilot in Excel, we’ll look at identifying insights, highlighting, sorting, and filtering your data, and generating formula columns using Copilot.
Before we talk about the capabilities of Copilot specifically within Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, I wanted to give an overview of Copilot across all of Microsoft 365 in case you haven’t had the chance to experience it. Copilot is readily available in Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Excel, and more! In Microsoft Word, Copilot can create text, propose ideas, format your document, and evaluate your writing quality. In Outlook, it can craft subject lines, greetings, signatures, and responses, as well as help you schedule meetings, attach files, and follow up on tasks. Within PowerPoint, Copilot has the capability to generate slides, modify layouts, add images and videos, and compose speaker notes. In Microsoft Teams, we can see how Copilot can draft messages, comments, polls, and announcements, along with sharing files, joining meetings, and managing projects. In OneNote, Copilot assists by creating outlines, summaries, and reminders, and helps in searching, categorizing, and synchronizing your notes. In Excel, Copilot improves data management and analysis by providing formula assistance, data visualization, and text insights. Anyone ever heard of Viva? I’ve been trying to spread the word about this awesome and under-rated tool to the masses. Viva Copilot enhances employee engagement and productivity by delivering personalized guidance, aligning organizational objectives, and offering actionable insights.
Copilot for Microsoft Word
As mentioned, today we will explore three of these eight, starting with Word. Copilot for Word enables you to initiate the writing process by enhancing efficiency and creativity. My first recommendation for using Copilot in Microsoft Word is to create an initial draft by referring to up to three other documents. When initiating your Copilot prompt, specify the three files you will be referencing, and Copilot can assist you in producing that draft. This approach is particularly useful for summarizing information from various documents you have received. However, a feature I frequently use is rewriting sections or entire documents to alter the tone or improve an existing document. Simply highlight a paragraph and request Copilot to rewrite it or to suggest revisions by offering changes. It can help make the text longer, shorter, more professional, or more casual. One of my preferred tips is to visualize a paragraph as a table to break up lengthy documents.
The features I have mentioned so far pertain to the capabilities of Copilot within an actual Word document. However, there is another Copilot integrated into Microsoft Word, found within the ribbon. By clicking the Copilot button, you gain additional functionalities such as summarizing the document or extracting information from it. You can inquire about the content, check for calls to action, or dive into any specific details.
Another notable feature is the ability to create presentations. With a simple click on the Copilot icon in the ribbon, you can transform your written reports into comprehensive presentations. After selecting this option, the prompt to create a presentation from a file will appear, allowing you to choose the relevant Word document. For instance, you might convert a contract document into a follow-up presentation for a particular client.
Moreover, Copilot supports multilingual writing, making it an invaluable tool for multilingual writers by saving time and boosting productivity. When working on longer documents, consider breaking them down if they become too cumbersome. You can either split the document into multiple parts or use Copilot to summarize sections of it methodically. Alternatively, copy and paste sections into separate documents, and let Copilot summarize each part individually for more accurate and relevant outcomes.
My favorite Copilot in Word Prompts:
- Summarize this document and make it easy to understand.
- Visualize this text as a table
- Make this highlighted paragraph longer and more formal
- Help me organize this paragraph into bullet points
- hi copilot, can you act as my editor for this drafted blog post? (may have used this one recently 😉 )
Copilot for PowerPoint
Copilot for PowerPoint helps you get started on creating presentations easily. Initially, its features were limited to suggested prompts, but now it offers more interaction and capabilities. You can ask Copilot to “create a presentation about a cooking class,” and it will generate slides with an agenda, sections, a theme, and speaker notes. It also works with company-branded documents, reading and interacting with the content when you open a template and provide input. Additionally, the Copilot button in the ribbon can summarize your presentation and suggest key slides or calls to action.
Copilot’s design suggestions in PowerPoint are a fantastic way to enhance the visual appeal and effectiveness of your presentations. Copilot can analyze the content of your slides and suggest design ideas that improve the overall look and feel, including layout adjustments, color schemes, and font choices. Based on your content, it can recommend themes and templates that best suit your presentation’s purpose and audience. Additionally, Copilot can suggest relevant images, icons, and other visual elements to make your slides more engaging, allowing you to choose from stock images or upload your own.
To make your presentation more dynamic, Copilot can recommend and apply animations and transitions between slides. It also ensures that your presentation maintains a consistent design throughout, aligning fonts, colors, and layouts across all slides. While Copilot provides automated suggestions, you can always customize and tweak the designs to better fit your vision and style. These features help you create professional and visually appealing presentations with ease. Have you tried using any of these design suggestions in your presentations yet?
My favorite Copilot in PowerPoint prompts:
- What is a readable font size for a PowerPoint presentation?
- What are the dates and deadlines mentioned in this presentation?
- Organize this presentation into sections
- Create a presentation about [a cooking class] (In case you haven’t noticed, I love to cook!)
- Add an agenda slide.
Copilot for Excel
Copilot for Excel helps make sense of text data with tools for summarization, categorization, keyword extraction, and trend analysis. It offers concise overviews of long entries, categorizes data like feedback into themes, highlights key phrases, and detects patterns in your data. Additionally, Copilot suggests formulas, explains them, or creates custom ones based on your description, and even corrects errors in your formulas. As a novice, I’ve found these features transformative in maximizing my Excel usage.
While no tool is perfect, Copilot’s keyword extraction is designed to be highly reliable and effective for various applications, leveraging advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques to identify and analyze key terms within your data. You can fine-tune the keyword extraction settings by specifying the data range, setting keyword criteria, using filters, adjusting sensitivity, enabling contextual analysis, and providing feedback for iterative improvements. These adjustments help tailor the keyword extraction process to better meet your specific needs, ensuring precise and relevant results.
My favorite Copilot in Excel prompts:
- Generate a formula column suggestion
- Bold the top 10 values in the [Revenue column]
- Suggest a column
- Add a column to compare [FY24 sales] to [FY 23 sales]
- Are there any trends in my data?
After all this, I hope you’ll see that the versatility and advanced functionalities of Copilot across Microsoft Office applications—Word, PowerPoint, and Excel—illustrate its profound impact on productivity and creativity. Whether you are summarizing complex documents, creating visually compelling presentations, or performing sophisticated data analysis, Copilot caters to diverse needs with effortless precision. This robust tool empowers users to enhance their work, streamline processes, and achieve professional excellence. By leveraging Copilot’s capabilities, users can navigate their tasks with increased efficiency and confidence, making it an indispensable ally in the modern workspace.