Using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word

Copilot for Word Will Help Many Authors Create Better Text

As folks might know, I write quite a few articles about technical topics. Recently, I’ve had the assistance of Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word. Not because I felt the need for any help but rather in the spirit of discovering if Copilot lives up to its billing of ushering in “a new era of writing, leveraging the power of AI. It can help you go from a blank page to a finished document in a fraction of the time it would take to compose text on your own.”

Good technical articles tell a story. They start by introducing a topic and explaining why it’s of interest before progressing to a deeper discussion covering interesting facets of the topic. The final step is to reach a conclusion. Copilot for Word aims to help by assisting authors to structure their text, write concise sentences, and start drafting based on a prompt submitted by the author.

Starting Off with Copilot for Word

Writing the first few sentences can be the hardest part of an article. To help, Copilot for Word can generate text by responding to a user prompt. A prompt is how to tell Copilot what to do. It can be up to 2,000 characters.

Crafting good prompts is a skill, just like it is to build good keyword searches of the type used to find information with Google or another search engine. Figure 1 shows my first attempt at a prompt for this article.

I wasn’t happy with the content generated by Copilot because it read like the text of a marketing brochure. This isn’t altogether surprising given two facts. First, my prompt wasn’t precise enough. Second, generative AI tools like Copilot can only create text based on previous content. The response obviously originated from Microsoft marketing content that lauded the powers of Copilot.

A second attempt was more concise and precise (Figure 2) and produced more acceptable text (Figure 3).

Although better, I would never use the text generated by Copilot. It has value (especially the last three points), but it’s just not my style. The point to remember is that Copilot supports refinement of its output through further prompts. The text shown in Figure 3 is the result of asking Copilot to “make the text more concise.”

Using Reference Documents

A prompt can include links (references) for up to three documents, which must be stored in a Microsoft 365 repository. Copilot uses references to “ground” the prompt with additional context to allow it to respond to prompts better. When starting to write about a new topic, you might not have a usable reference, but in many business situations there should be something that helps, such as a document relating to a project or customer. The prompt shown in Figure 4 asks Copilot to write an article about the January 2024 update for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook and includes a reference document (an article about the December 2023 update).

The generated text (Figure 5) follows the structure of the reference document and I no complaints about the opening paragraph. Copilot even figured out that the January update is #103. The problems mount swiftly thereafter as Copilot’s generated text promises a new chapter on Microsoft Viva and an updated chapter on Copilot for Microsoft 365, neither of which exist. I also don’t know what the integration between Teams and Syntex refers to, and the new Teams Pro license is a predecessor of Teams Premium. Later, we’re told that Microsoft Lists will launch in February 2024. These are Copilot hallucinations.

This experience underlines the necessity to check everything generated by Copilot. You have no idea where Copilot might source information and whether that data is obsolete or simply just wrong. Tenants can limit Copilot’s range by preventing it from searching internet sources for information, but even the best corporate information stored in SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business can contain errors (and often does).

Rewrites with Copilot for Word

Apart from generating text, Copilot for Word can rewrite text. Figure 6 shows a rewrite of the second paragraph from this article. The version generated by Copilot uses the “professional” style (the other styles are “neutral”, “casual”, “concise,” and “imaginative.”

The two versions are reasonably close. I prefer mine because it’s written in my style, but the alternative is acceptable.

Rewrite is useful when reviewing someone else’s text. I often edit articles submitted to Practical365.com for publication. Because authors come from many countries, their level of English technical writing varies greatly. Being able to have CoPilot rewrite text often helps me understand the true intent of an author.

The Usefulness of Copilot for Word

I’ve tried many different text proofing tools in Word, from the built-in ones like Microsoft Editor to external ones like Grammarly. They all have their pros and cons, and their own quirks. Copilot for Word is more user-friendly and intuitive than any existing tool. If they remember to check the generated text carefully, Copilot will help many people write better. The downside is the $30/user/month cost for Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses (currently, you can’t buy a Copilot license just for Word).

Microsoft 365 Copilot obviously covers much more than generating better text with Word. That being said, it’s nice that the integration of AI into one of the more venerable parts of Microsoft 365 works so well.

Summarizing Copilot for Word

It seems apt to close with the summary generated by Copilot for this article (Figure 7). Copilot summarizes documents by scanning the text to find the main ideas. What’s surprising in this text is the inclusion of ideas that are not in document, such as “What Copilot for Word cannot do.” Copilot cites paragraphs five and six as the source, but neither paragraph mentions anything about weather or visuals, or that Copilot for Word is limited to outputting text in bullet points or paragraphs. This information must have come from the foundational LLMs used by Copilot.

I’m sure Copilot included the information to be helpful but it’s jarring to find the AI introducing new ideas in summaries. Oh well, this kind of stuff gives people like me stuff to write about…

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