Microsoft unveils wave of new Windows 11 features in Paint and Notepad — with better Markdown support and a new AI Color Book mode coming soon

Microsoft Paint icon in Windows Search
(Image credit: Windows Search)

Microsoft has unveiled a handful of new features coming soon to the Notepad and Paint apps on Windows 11 that are designed to enhance the experience for people who frequent the app.

First up, Notepad is gaining new Markdown capabilities. Specifically, it's gaining additional syntax features such as strikethrough formatting and nested lists. Markdown shortcuts will work as you expect, but you can also use the formatting toolbar at the top to achieve your desired formatting effects.

New Welcome Screen in Notepad detailing recent updates

The new welcome screen in Notepad (Image credit: Windows Central)

Lastly, Microsoft says the ability to generate text in Notepad should appear faster thanks to "streaming" text, which will type out the generated response live so that results being appearing faster.

For Paint, Microsoft is introducing a new Coloring Book feature that uses the on-board NPU on Copilot+ PCs to generate drawing outlines that are designed to be colored in. "To get started, open Paint and select the Coloring book option from the Copilot menu. Once the side panel is open, type in a description of the coloring book you want to create, and hit the Generate button. Paint will then generate a set of unique coloring book pages based on your prompt."

Color Book mode in Paint, showing an outline of a cat generated with the description "A cute fluffy cat on a donut"

The new Color Book mode in Paint, exclusive to Copilot+ PCs. (Image credit: Microsoft)

Paint is also gaining a new fill tolerance function, which lets the user adjust how strongly the fill tool actually fills a section of the canvas. You can adjust the strength, lowering it so that the fill tool doesn't fill as much of the space you've selected.

These new features are rolling out now for Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channel, and will be made available to all Windows 11 users in the coming weeks.


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Zac Bowden
Senior Editor

Zac Bowden is a Senior Editor at Windows Central and has been with the site since 2016. Bringing you exclusive coverage into the world of Windows, Surface, and hardware. He's also an avid collector of rare Microsoft prototype devices! Keep in touch on Twitter and Threads

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