You can now automatically summarize Word documents with Copilot

Hello, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I'm Stéphanie Visser, a Product Manager on the Word team. I'm happy to announce an exciting new feature that helps you quickly grasp the essence of a Word document right after opening it.

Automatically summarize Word documents with Copilot​

We live in a world of content abundance, so we’re constantly looking for more efficient ways to process information. Microsoft Copilot can help alleviate this situation by providing an automatic summary at the top of your Word documents.

Synthesizing the most important information into a digestible format, the Copilot summary allows you to quickly comprehend key points and ideas without having to read through the entire document.

How it works​

1. Open an existing Word document. Notice the automatic summary that appears between the ribbon and your document.
   
   
   
   
   The Copilot automatic summary appears above your Word document
2. To expand the summary, select the View morebutton.
   
   
   
   
   The Copilot automatic summary can be fully expanded
3. To collapse the summary, select the
   
   icon at the top right corner of the dialog box.

Tips and tricks​

• If you authored the document, or if your document is stored locally, the automatic summary opens fully collapsed. Feel free to expand it and review the text to see how the document will come across to your audience.
• If the automatic summary was collapsed when you last closed the document, it will still be collapsed the next time you open it. Similarly, if the automatic summary was expanded when you last closed the document, it will be in a semi-expanded state when you reopen it (as seen in the first image above).
• After you make a change to the document, the Check for new summary button will appear. Select this button to have Copilot check whether the changes warrant generating a new summary.

Availability​

We are slowly rolling out this feature to select users with a Copilot license on Word for the web, Word for Windows (running Version 16.0.17928.20114 or later) and Word for Mac (running Version 16.88 (Build 24081116) or later).

Don’t have it yet? It’s probably us, not you.

Features are released over some time to ensure things are working smoothly. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Sometimes we remove elements to further improve them based on your feedback. Though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product, even if you, as an Insider, have had the opportunity to try it.

Feedback​

We want to hear from you! Please submit your comments and feedback by selecting Help > Feedback.