Notepad, one of the iconic features of Windows, might seem like just about the most basic software there is. You type, the letters appear in plain text, and that’s it. No formatting, no links, no other word processing features — but that is about to change. Microsoft has began testing an AI feature for Notepad which summarizes portions of your text documents.
The new feature is part of Notepad version 11.2501.29.0, which is now rolling out to Windows Insiders — users who have signed up to Microsoft’s early access program. The way it works is simple: you highlight a block of text, right click on it, and select Summarize. Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl + M. That will bring up an AI-generated summary of the text, and you can adjust the length of the summary to suit your needs.
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If you’d rather avoid the feature, you can turn it off in app settings.
However, like other Windows 11 AI features, you’ll need to be signed in with your Microsoft personal account to use the summary generator.
This feature complements the Rewrite feature which was announced for Notepad last year, in which a sentence or chunk of text can be modified for a different length, tone, or format. Between Summarize and Rewrite it should be easy for users to take text files they have written and make them more or less in depth as required, and to tweak the output to make it match a tone or style they are aiming for with their writing.
As well as Summarize, this update for Notepad also includes the addition of a Recent Files option to the File menu, making it faster and easier to pull up recently used or closed documents so you can pick up writing where you left off before. Once again, this feature can be disabled for users who prefer not to have a list of recently viewed files visible — this is disabled in app settings as well.
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