As technology continues to advance, so does the landscape of design tools. Microsoft has been a company at the forefront of business apps. Microsoft 365 began with about seven apps. It now offers new users access to over 20. One of the newest ones added is Microsoft Designer. This quick-and-easy design tool has caught the attention of designers and professionals alike. You can use it whether you’re a graphic pro, marketer, or small business owner. Or someone that simply wants to make a funny meme.

Microsoft Designer offers a range of features to streamline your design process. If you haven’t used it yet, you may want to check it out. With AI features and an easy interface, it can elevate your design game. Not to mention saving time and money creating business graphics.

Let’s explore the key features.

Intuitive and User-Friendly Interface

Microsoft Designer boasts an intuitive and user-friendly interface. This makes it accessible to both beginners and experienced designers. The tool provides a clean and organized workspace. It allows you to focus on your design without distractions.

Its user-friendly features include things like:

• Drag-and-drop functionality
• Contextual menus
• Easy navigation
• Text prompts to start your design

The first prompt it asks is “Describe the design you’d like to create.” This makes it simple for someone with no design experience to use it. Based on your prompt, the system can leverage AI to generate graphics. You can also upload your own.

Comprehensive Design Templates and Assets

Microsoft Designer has several stand-out features. One of them is its extensive collection of templates and assets. It has a wide range of professionally crafted templates. These enable you to kickstart your design projects quickly.

Whether you need a business card, flyer, or social media post, this app has you covered. Additionally, the tool offers a vast library of assets. These include:

• High-quality images
• Icons
• Fonts
• Color palettes

You can use these to create visually stunning designs. Ones that align with your brand identity. The abundance of design assets gives you creative freedom and flexibility. You can have fun bringing your vision to life.

Smart Layout Suggestions and Design Recommendations

Microsoft Designer goes beyond being a mere design tool. It’s a knowledgeable design assistant. The tool employs artificial intelligence. It can analyze your design and provide smart layout suggestions and recommendations. So even if making images isn’t “your thing,” you can make something decent.

The AI help is useful for those who may be new to design or seeking inspiration. Your “design assistant” can offer optimal font pairings, appropriate image placements, and more.

Microsoft Designer helps you make informed design choices. This elevates the visual impact of your creations. It also keeps you from spending hours on one design.

Seamless Collaboration and Integration

Collaboration is essential in today’s digital workspace. Microsoft Designer understands this need. The tool offers seamless collaboration capabilities. It allows several users to work on the same design project simultaneously.

You can easily share your designs with team members or clients. As well as get real-time feedback and edits. Furthermore, Microsoft Designer integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft Office applications. Such as PowerPoint and Word. This creates a cohesive workflow across different design and documentation tasks. The ability to collaborate ensures efficient teamwork. The integration with other tools enhances productivity.

Accessibility and Cross-Platform Support

Microsoft Designer recognizes the importance of accessibility and cross-platform compatibility. The tool is available both as a web application and as a desktop application. You can use it on Windows and Mac.

Use it working on your desktop computer or from a mobile device. The tool also adheres to accessibility standards. This means it’s inclusive and usable for individuals with diverse needs.

What Does It Autogenerate?

Just for fun, let’s see what we get with the AI-generated option. We’ll describe our design as, “a sales ad for orange juice with palm trees.”

In just a few seconds, this is what Microsoft Designer generated as options.

While some images might not be relevant, it gives many options that are. If you’re not getting what you want the first time, rephrase your prompt.

If you’re seeking a user-friendly design tool, Microsoft Designer is worth exploring. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or a beginner, it can save you time and money.

Learn More About Our Microsoft 365 Support

Microsoft 365 is a vast universe of apps. Ones that can lower costs and boost your productivity. From the Office suite to Intune for endpoint management, it’s a valuable asset.

Are you a Fresno or Visalia area business needing help with Microsoft 365? Looking for setup and security support? Firewell Technology Solutions can help. Give us a call today to schedule a chat about our Microsoft support services.

 

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Featured Image Credit

This Article, adapted, has been Republished with Permission from The Technology Press.

 

Microsoft OneDrive is more than a file-sharing platform. It allows you to streamline your work in ways you never thought were possible. Learn how it can help boost workplace productivity. 

We’ll be frank: Firewell Technology Solutions strongly believes that organizing your business is crucial to its success!

The truth is that dealing with messy files and folders is of no help to you, to your colleagues, nor to your clients. Instead, it keeps you unproductive and negatively impacts your business in a variety of ways.

Fortunately, Microsoft OneDrive can be a significant help in this area—especially when it comes to improving workflow in a business. This suite of apps has tons of features that can help the whole team be more effective at handling their workload.

For example, you can organize your folders on a cloud platform starting with 1TB (1024 gigabytes!) worth of space, do file backups, share files, etc. You can also share your PDFs, audio, photos, slides, and important work files in one place.

Overall, you can maximize your productivity on Microsoft OneDrive by tapping into several handy features. This article lists 7 of them.

The 7 Features

Feature #1: Sharing Files While Controlling Access

Microsoft OneDrive has robust sharing capabilities that allow for work collaboration. All you need to do is click on a file or folder you wish to share and create a shareable link or invite others to access that file.

What’s more, every file and folder on this platform has its own sharing link that’s highly customizable. You can also determine user permissions for each item – whether the person with access can only view or can edit or comment.

Additionally, you can add a time limit for file or folder access.

Feature #2: Publishing Files to the Internet

Microsoft OneDrive is among the best platforms out there for publishing files online. You and your team can access the uploads from anywhere in the world so long as you have an internet connection.

A great thing about published files is that they sync to all devices that use the OneDrive app. This means the files you uploaded to your computer will be visible on your phone app and vice versa. All it takes to access those files is signing into your Microsoft OneDrive account.

Feature #3: Voice Typing

If you need to upload a written file on OneDrive, you can use Microsoft Word and dictate the text instead of typing. This will save you a lot of time when working with both short and longer files.

You can use words such as “period” and “next line” to let the recorder know how to organize your speech. Once you’re done recording, proofread your text to finish.

Feature #4: Assigning Tasks to Employees With Comments

Microsoft OneDrive makes it easy to tag a person and assign them a task for a specific file section. Whether they need to revise, proofread, manage sources, or rearrange their work, you can easily let them know what they need to do by adding comments.

Here’s how you can do this:

1. Open the file that needs task assigning on Microsoft Word.
2. Use your mouse to highlight the part that needs reworking and right-click on it.
3. Select “Comment” for the Comment section to appear to the right of the highlighted text.
4. Type “+” or “@” then a person’s name to tag them in that comment. You can also tag people by entering their email addresses.

The tagged person will then receive a notification about this action and be invited to open the file.

Feature #5: Using Templates

Microsoft OneDrive supports free templates for a variety of Microsoft Apps. You can use Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, all loaded with hundreds of templates for different project types.

To choose or look for templates, open the app you want to use, create a new document, and choose one of the templates available; you can browse for more templates by clicking the “more templates” option.

Feature #6: Sorting Your Files by Size 

Microsoft OneDrive sorts your uploaded files and folders alphanumerically by default, although you can sort by date modified. This is useful because it gives you quick access to files you work with often.

But if you want to free up some OneDrive storage space, you may want to sort the files according to their size and delete the ones you don’t use often that take too much space.

Microsoft guarantees 93 days of file retention in the case that a file was accidentally deleted. Firewell Technology Solutions also implements backup systems that will retain infinite versions of your OneDrive files for a year or more.

Feature #7: Doing Advanced Search

Maybe you’re searching for a document with specific keywords appearing in multiple files. In this case, you can use the advanced search on OneDrive. The platform allows you to filter your results by location, file type, owner, shared with, date modified, and more.

All you need to do is click on the “Search Options” icon at the far right of the search bar.

Get the Most Out of Microsoft OneDrive

Organizing your files is crucial to making you and your employees more productive in running your business. And Microsoft OneDrive more than proves its worth in this aspect.

OneDrive is a great tool that comes with numerous features to help you organize your files and folders, share them with the world, assign tasks, exchange valuable information, and more.

The seven features mentioned above will help you streamline your work processes and make file creation, sharing, and search more straightforward.

If you’d like to learn more about how Firewell Technology Solutions and Microsoft OneDrive (and, by extension, Microsoft SharePoint) can help you improve your business, I’d be happy to tell you about it. Get in touch with us today to have a 10-15-minute chat on this topic.

 

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Featured Image Credit

This Article, adapted, has been Republished with Permission from The Technology Press.