Exercise (optional) - Draft, improve, and share your document
Exercise
Imagine you're a project manager tasked with creating a comprehensive project report for your company's new Mystic Spice Premium Chai Tea. In this exercise, you use Microsoft Word to draft the report, (optionally) import notes from OneNote, and share the draft with your team via Microsoft Teams or Microsoft Outlook for feedback and collaboration.
Note
While this exercise illustrates how information can flow from one Microsoft 365 app to another, you aren't required to do so. Each of these steps can be completed using Copilot in Word directly. Alternate steps are provided as necessary.
Download sample file
Throughout this exercise, we'll craft prompts for Microsoft 365 Copilot that reference this file. Download and save the following file to your OneDrive folder before you continue.
Market Analysis Report for Mystic Spice Premium Chai Tea.docx
Import notes (optional)
Open Microsoft Word and create a new document.
Activate Copilot by selecting the Copilot button in the Home tab.
Note
If you don't have notes you want to import, proceed to Draft your content.
Enter the prompt Draft a project report update based on the notes about Mystic Spice Premium Chai Tea in OneNote. in the Copilot pane. Copilot pulls the requested information from OneNote and drafts the start of the report in the Copilot pane.
Select the Insert option to copy this text into the Word document.
While this is a good start, presenting information based on notes isn't going to work. Let's see how Copilot in Word can help you create a report to share with your stakeholders.
Draft your content
Let's create a project report using the Market Analysis you've already gathered. Then, we can edit this file to get the content we need for our report.
Open a new Word document from your browser by navigating to the Online Word app.
Select the on-canvas Copilot experience at the top of the blank document.
Enter the following prompt:
Create a project report that includes an executive summary, introduction, product description, project objectives, and discussion. Use the linked document as a content resource.
Add the document reference to your prompt by manually entering a forward slash followed by the document name: /Promotion Plan for Chai Tea in Latin America.docx. Alternately, you can select Add content and the file from the dropdown list once it's available in OneDrive.
Select the right arrow to submit your prompt and Generate the response.
Review the drafted content and select Keep it.
As you're reviewing the content of your document, you may find that some text needs to be edited or rewritten. The Product Description section seems to be fairly short, and technical. Let's edit the text so it's more engaging for our readers.
Highlight the paragraph, select the Copilot icon that appears to the left of the text.
Select Auto Rewrite from the menu. Copilot generates several options. Review each, and select to:
- Replace the current text with the one you prefer.
- Insert below the text to keep both.
- Regenerate the suggestions if you don't like any of the suggestions, you can select to regenerate them, and Copilot provides you three more options from which to choose.
- Enter text describing the update you're looking for in the What do you want Copilot to change? field.
Let's enter a specific prompt to get the results we want. In the What do you want Copilot to Change field, enter:
Rewrite this paragraph to add more detail about the product. The tone of this paragraph should be professional and engaging.
Review the rewritten options, choose the one you most prefer, and select Replace.
Convert text to a table
While the content in your document may be accurate, consider its readability. Would a section work better if it was presented as a table? Copilot can easily convert text into a table using a prompt.
Let's see this transformation in action.
Place your cursor at the end of the document.
Ask Copilot to Add a list of project milestones and their deadlines using the on-canvas Copilot option. Select Generate.
Select Keep it to add the section to your Project Plan.
Highlight the list.
Select the on-canvas Copilot icon to the left of the text.
Select Visualize as a table from the menu. The result looks great, overall, but let's make sure there's a column for when the task is successfully completed.
Type Add a third column, Task Completed, to the table. in the Copilot dialog.
Select Keep it to insert the table into your document.
Review the table format and make any necessary adjustments. You can then delete the bulleted list from the Project Milestones and Deadlines section.
Summarize your document
As you complete your document, you want to ensure that your key points are presented clearly. A good way to do this is to see a summary of the document. Likewise, should you receive a large Word document that you don't have time to read in its entirety, the summary feature is key. Let's create a summary at the end of our document.
Open the Copilot pane and enter the following prompt:
Summarize this document. Highlight the top three points made.
Review the generated summary, and select Add to doc (the plus sign) if you want to include the entire summary in your document. You can also highlight any portion of the text, then copy and paste it into your document.
Important
The text Copilot generates is inserted at your cursor's location in the document. Make sure you have navigated to the end of the document before you select to insert the content.
You can manually make adjustments to the text, or highlight the summary content and use Copilot to Auto Rewrite as needed. You can also use this summary as the starting point to a Teams or Outlook message when you share your project report with your stakeholders.
Save your document for future reference. You're ready to share for review, or you can use this document as the starting point for a PowerPoint presentation.