Excel and PowerPoint get new feature that will help you draw perfect shapes

Last year, OneNote received a neat feature (it later came to Word) that allowed PC users with touch-enabled computers that support styluses to draw perfect lines and shapes with the Draw and Hold gesture. In a nutshell, it lets you draw a freeform shape and then hold the pen for OneNote to recognize the shape and straighten it in. Now, the gesture is coming to more Office apps, such as Excel and PowerPoint.

While Excel may not be the first app to come to mind when you hear about drawing with a stylus, it still has extensive tools for working with shapes and lines. Therefore, Microsoft will soon let you use the Draw and Hold gesture for tidier spreadsheets. Also, it is a welcome addition to PowerPoint, where drawings and shapes are more common.

Here is how Microsoft describes the feature:

1. Open a new or existing Excel worksheet or PowerPoint presentation.
2. Using a single stroke, sketch a line, arrow, or shape on the canvas, and then hold your pen in place for a few milliseconds.
3. Watch as the shape is converted to a neater version of the stroke you drew.

Draw and Hold supports the following shapes: circle, ellipse, triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, pentagon, and hexagon. After straightening a shape, Excel and PowerPoint can also let you move it, resize, rotate, or leave it as is.

Microsoft says the new gesture is now rolling out to Beta Channel users with Office Version 2410 (Build 18108.20000) or later. As usual, new stuff is rolling out gradually to ensure stability and avoid bugs, so getting the Draw and Hold gesture might take a few days.

In other Office news, Microsoft recently confirmed a hilarious bug in Word. It deletes files instead of saving them locally, so beware. More information about it and possible workarounds are available here.

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