Snipping Tool will soon let you draw on the screen before taking a screenshot

Earlier this week, along with two new Windows 11 builds, Microsoft released a new Snipping Tool update with window mode screen recording. This feature makes it easier to record just one app instead of the entire screen. That, however, is not everything that Microsoft has in store for the Snipping Tool app.

@phantomofearth on X discovered that Microsoft is working on the so-called Live Annotation feature. This feature makes it easier to write or draw something on your screenshot. In its current form, annotations are only available after you have taken a screenshot. With Live Annotation, Microsoft wants to reverse that, letting you highlight something on the screen before taking a screenshot.

You will be able to launch Live Annotation by pressing a corresponding button on Snipping Tool's flyout when you press Win + Shift + S. In addition to drawing something, the app will let you search the highlighted area with Bing or ask Copilot about it. However, at this point, we are talking work in progress, so most of those features do not work just yet. Therefore, you will have to wait a little for Microsoft to announce and start rolling out Live Annotation.

Here's the feature in action:

Over the last few years, Snipping Tool has received a lot of useful features and upgrades. Some of the recent additions include the ability to save screen recordings as GIFs, the so-called "Perfect screenshot" feature, improved data table handling, and more. Microsoft improved the app so much that Neowin's senior editor, Usama Jawad, considers it a reason to leave Windows 10 behind, which never received any of those upgrades.