Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all have built-in pen and drawing tools, but they can be a bit lackluster, especially if you’re accustomed to OneNote or real digital art software. Thankfully, Microsoft is starting to test a few much-needed improvements.
Microsoft rolled out fountain pen and brush pens in OneNote on Windows back in October 2024, and now the same tools are coming to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The company said in a blog post, “We know that many of you loved the Fountain pen and Brush pen introduced in OneNote on Windows a year ago, and we’re excited to bring them to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint! Now, you can unleash your expressiveness and creativity with the Brush pen when adding ink and annotations in PowerPoint or Excel, or write your notes in Word with a bit more flourish using the Fountain pen.”
All those pen options can make the Draw tab seem a bit crowded, so Microsoft is also adding the ability to add, remove, and reorder your drawing tools. If you only need the basic pen and the highlighter, for example, you can just hide the rest. However, a few tools are locked in place: the select, lasso select, and eraser. You can also click the Add button to create additional copies of tools with different settings.
The updated drawing tools in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint still don’t come close to dedicated digital art software, but it should cover most common use cases. You can quickly add a signature to a Word document, circle or highlight elements in a PowerPoint presentation, or select cells in Excel with a stylus.
It’s also worth noting (heh) that support is about to end for OneNote for Windows 10, which is different from the regular desktop OneNote application available from the Microsoft Store, Apple App Store, and various Microsoft 365 packages. The Windows 10 app was the modernized offshoot that didn’t get much attention after the release of Windows 10, and Microsoft gradually ported its new features back to the original desktop OneNote app, which now has the same pen tools as the other Office apps.
These updates are now available in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows running Version 2508 (Build 19127.20000) or later. Microsoft didn’t mention the Mac, mobile, or web versions of those apps, but some of this functionality is already on other platforms. For example, you can right-click pens in Word for Mac (or two-finger click with the touchpad) to move them left or right in the toolbar.
Source: Microsoft Tech Community