OpenAI is consistently including new options to ChatGPT to make it extra useful for on a regular basis wants and important in our workflows. The latest of those updates is a new canvas feature — unveiled at first of the month — that has left me past impressed.
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Should you use ChatGPT as a co-editor in any capability, you’ll by no means once more use ChatGPT with out this characteristic. Canvas is a brand new interface that makes collaborating in your writing and coding tasks simpler with ChatGPT. The idea is finest understood visually, so follow me. Here is how Canvas works.
The interface
If you’re a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you’ll be able to select the “GPT-4o with canvas” beta from the mannequin selector dropdown within the ChatGPT interface. Upon choice, your web page might look the identical, however when you enter your venture, you will note the magic occur.
For my instance walk-through, I will use an essay I printed as an undergrad since I do not use any AI instruments to edit or write my ZDNET articles in any capability. I copied and pasted the essay textual content into the textbox with the immediate: “Are you able to assist me edit this piece?”
As you’ll be able to see beneath, it mechanically opened a brand new interface. My edited venture was positioned on the proper facet of the display, whereas my preliminary immediate was on the left, with a textbox obtainable to ask extra questions. With this interface, irrespective of what number of questions you ask or what number of edits are made, your venture will at all times stay in the identical spot on the proper, supplying you with simple visibility as to what it appears to be like like after every edit and the way it fares subsequent to the unique.
What makes the Canvas interface a game-changer? Sometimes, if you ask ChatGPT to revise the textual content, the AI outputs the brand new model as the subsequent message, making it tough to match the unique and edited piece side-by-side and maintain observe of the modifications.
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For instance, with the common interface, should you ask one thing like “Are you able to revise this cowl letter?’ after which observe up by asking to revise one particular paragraph, it might simply output the brand new paragraph, forcing you to return and piece each generations collectively. That is inconvenient, particularly should you shuttle loads and there’s numerous dialogue in between.
Though ChatGPT has superior writing abilities, it is nonetheless AI and is susceptible to hallucinations, so it is helpful to double-check edits. Retaining observe of the edits can also be helpful as a result of it helps you study from the modifications and presumably implement them subsequent time. It additionally prevents you from having to scroll up and down constantly by means of your dialog to search out the strategies and edits.
The shortcuts
One other game-changing aspect of this characteristic is the brand new shortcuts obtainable. On the proper web page the place your venture lives, a button within the backside within the decrease proper nook — represented by a pencil — contains 4 one-click shortcuts that may remodel your venture with a click on.
The writing shortcuts assist customers alter lengths, change studying ranges, add emojis, and “add last polish,” which checks for grammar, readability, and consistency. The coding shortcuts can assessment code, add logs, add feedback, repair bugs, and port to a language. The buttons are a fast and environment friendly technique to implement the change you need with out utilizing textual content prompts.
Here is one other handy software (and my private favourite): you’ll be able to spotlight parts of your venture for particular modifications, and if you spotlight strains of your textual content or code, one other set of shortcuts will seem. This time, Canvas allows you to change the formatting with choices similar to daring, italicize, or change textual content sort and ask ChatGPT immediately for assist with that particular part.
As soon as the edit on that particular part is full, it is going to be mirrored within the bigger venture, conserving the remainder of the venture intact and solely altering what the person requested — which helps you keep organized. It’s so satisfying to see only one portion of your dwelling venture change. This may be particularly helpful for resumes, cowl letters, or different job utility supplies.
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What in regards to the high quality of the edits? As a result of Canvas makes use of GPT-4o — OpenAI’s most superior, well-rounded mannequin — the edits made are useful and enhance the general high quality of the textual content. Should you ask for a basic edit, it is not going to solely search for issues like grammar and spelling (as Grammarly does) however will test for syntax.
The fee
Sadly, all the wonders described above will come at a price. To entry the characteristic proper now, you should be a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, which prices $20 monthly. If you’re a ChatGPT energy person, the price could also be justified because it comes with different perks, such because the new Voice Mode and limitless image generation.
Enterprise and Edu customers will get entry to Canvas this week, in response to OpenAI, and ChatGPT free customers will achieve entry sooner or later as soon as the software is out of beta.
