With Windows 11, Microsoft isn’t just giving the OS a visible upgrade, and it’s also updating most of its core first-party apps to match the new design language. Nowhere is that this is more evident than within the venerable Microsoft Paint app, which has stayed an equivalent for nearly a decade. The refreshed version for Windows 11 is finally available to Windows Insiders for testing, alongside a much-needed new upgrade to an old feature.
Microsoft just says there’s a replacement text tool available but doesn’t enter details. However, the resulting image looks cleaner and hopefully makes it easier to include text contained in graphics. For years, Microsoft Paint has had sub-par text handling that made it too easy for even software fans to ignore its existence altogether.
The Windows 11 version of Paint almost gets a visible overhaul, trading out square colour swatches for round ones. The icons have also been refreshed consistently with Microsoft’s new design language so that they won’t look out of place on a Windows 11 machine. Not all changes were warmly welcomed, though, with some complaining about the wasted vertical space because the menus and quick action buttons now reside on their row.
Microsoft Paint naturally gets a replacement design that matches the remainder of Windows 11, like rounded corners and Mica material. The latter refers to the new ability of Windows 11 to research the user’s current wallpaper and theme and apply matching colours to the remainder of the apps’ windows. That ought to apply to dark themes also, but Insiders won’t see that yet.
Microsoft says that this is often just the beginning, and more features are coming in future updates. That has the all-important dark theme support and an update to file and settings dialogue windows, which will finally not look terrible. If anything, this new Microsoft Paint will a minimum of check out the home on Windows 11, finally catching up to Microsoft’s standards.
