Microsoft is rolling out a version 0.62 update for PowerToys on Windows. This latest release is bringing three new tools to the popular Windows utility that aims to help improve your productivity. The list includes Screen Ruler, Quick Accent, and Text Extractor.

As the names of these new PowerToys tools suggest, there pretty basic, yet, for some people, add much-needed productivity boosters in Windows. Screen Ruler, for example, can help measure pixels on your screen with an easy keyboard shortcut. Then, with Quick Accent, you can write letters that have accents by just holding down the associated key and space bar. This should be much helpful for Windows users who type in a secondary language, saving the need to remember a much longer keyboard shortcut that typically triggers accented letters. It's a feature that has been around in macOS for a while.

The more interesting tool, though, is Text Extractor. This utility works a lot like the snipping tool in Windows, but with a key benefit. When triggered, it will copy the text out of whatever you're snipping out from the selected region and paste it to your keyboard. This was added to PowerToys by the developer Joe Finney, who is behind the Text Grab app in the Windows Store that does the same thing. You'll be able to save time copying notes from images or PDFs this way.

If you've updated to PowerToys 0.62, you can find these new features under the settings app. You'll have to enable or disable them as you see fit. By default, to trigger Screen Ruler, you can use Windows Key +  Shift + M. Quick Accent, meanwhile, works by pressing the Spacebar first, in addition to the letter you want an accent for, showing a toolbar at the top of the screen. Finally, you can get to the Text Extractor with Windows Key + Shift + T on your keyboard.

If you haven't already tried out PowerToys, you can download it from the Microsoft Store, or from GitHub. The app is completely free. Just keep in mind that there might be some known issues, though, as this is the first release from the 0.62 cycle. Generally, the issues do not impact the day-to-day use of the app, and you can read more about it in the link below.

Source: GitHub