The idea of writing an article about What is Microsoft Designer and how to use it on Linux when its author is in the middle from a series of articles on how to replace online tools, doesn't speak much for my consistency. In my defense, I'm more of the Tim O'Reilly line than the Stallman line.
O'Reilly, founder of one of the most important technology publishers in the world, maintains thatThere is another freedom to take into account beyond that of the code and that is to be able to get the most out of our computer. doing things that we couldn't do without him.
The software modality as a service is opening us up to non-Linu programming usersx possibilities that were only available if you had many hours to Google, decipher the often incomprehensible manuals, and time to write hundreds of lines of code.
Of course, using these tools comes at a price and hence my decision to replace them with open source applications. It is good that there are alternatives, and that with our eyes open we know their advantages and disadvantages.
This is why, before delving fully into the features of the application, we are going to put into context the reason for its existence.
Microsoft's change
At the end of Bill Clinton's second term, Microsoft was about to split into an operating systems company and a free software company. Concern about losing the antitrust trial led the company to propose a settlement. The timely arrival of the Republicans to power prevented them from having to do so.
They won the battle and lost the war. In their comfortable leadership at the desk, Microsoft executives failed to see the future of the mobile market or the paradigm shift that was coming.
When they realized, Apple and Google were comfortably leading in devices, Internet Explorer was rapidly losing popularity and Google Docs was taking the place previously held by Microsoft Office.
That's when they did something smart, they named probably the only Microsoft executive who had experience in competitive markets, Satya Nadella, as president. As head of cloud services, Nadella was used to running from behind in an industry dominated by Linux.
What is Microsoft Designer and how to use it on Linux
Among Nadella's measures was to decouple applications from the operating system and Take advantage of the enormous infrastructure for the cloud by creating useful services for the home user that can be used from the browser. We already talked in Ubunlog from Clipchamp video creator.
In the case of Microsoft Designer is an image and graphics creator for social networks powered by artificial intelligence tools. Bet (It is still in the testing phase) to compete with Canva. Its great advantage is that Microsoft invests directly in OpenAi so you will have faster and more complete access to these tools.
Among the things we can do with Microsoft Designer's Artificial Intelligence are:
- Create images: We only have to give a description of the image we want to generate.
- Create content for social media: Here we need to provide an image, either stock or generated on the fly, and a description of what we want you to design from it.
- Delete part of an image: You just have to select it and the program will make it look like it was never there.
- Delete the background of an image: I guess I don't need to describe this.
- Create brand image: This includes logos, fonts and colors.
- Edit and apply effects in pictures.
- Create stickers for social networks and messaging clients.
- Create photo albums personalized with collages and animations.
- Expand size of the images.
The branding builder can only be accessed from the layout builder and the photobook and expansion tools are, as of this writing, not yet available
In the next article we will analyze the different tools in more depth.