Office 365 gets new ink features to make the pen mightier still

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Following the unveiling of the new Surface Pro complete with revamped Surface Pen yesterday, Microsoft has detailed how it will improve inking features in Office 365, with fresh capabilities designed to benefit the new stylus and Windows devices with touchscreens (like the Surface range).

As you may have seen at the Shanghai event yesterday, the new Surface Pen quadruples the level of sensitivity compared to its predecessor, with 4,096 pressure points.

And the new tilt feature for the stylus means your sketching is adjusted for texture and thickness depending on the angle of the pen, plus much reduced latency means more responsive inking all-round in Office 365 apps.

Microsoft has also implemented new pencil texture and ink effects, including the likes of ‘lava’, ‘ocean’, ‘rainbow’ and so on, all of which will arrive in Word, Excel and PowerPoint next month.

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Whiteboard wonderment

On top of that, Office 365 users can also benefit from Microsoft’s Whiteboard app, which is currently in preview on the Surface Hub, but will be coming to more devices later in 2017 – including the Surface Studio all-in-one and the new Surface Pro.

Whiteboard’s nifty capabilities include a collaborative whiteboard experience, meaning you can ink away alongside colleagues wherever their location, and features such as automatic table shading and geometry recognition.

Finally, in June, Office 365 users will get a new customisable pens gallery, which will allow you to store your favourite pens and pencils in one handy hub, and this will be synced and can be accessed across all apps and devices. Neat.

Microsoft’s new Surface Pro complete with revamped stylus hits the shelves on June 15, when most of these improvements will be arriving.

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