Microsoft Paint is also known as MS Paint. It is a basic graphics drawing program that has been an indispensable part of all versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. MSP provides easy ways for creating different types of graphics with different tools. The tools include brushes, shape generators, pens, and erasers. Many users of Windows might also be unaware of its presence, considering the popularity of web-based graphics creation tools. So, you need to know exactly from where to access MS Paint.

The simplicity of MS Paint is the foremost reason for its popularity among users for graphic editing. Let us take note of the different tools that you can get with MS Paint for creating and editing graphics. The foremost instrument which you can note in MS Paint refers to the drawing tools. The different icons in the “Tool Box” indicate the different artistic tools such as brushes, erasers, and freehand drawing. You can also find other tools in the “Tool Box” for creating shapes such as squares, rectangles, and circles.

Interestingly, the “Fill with Color” tool can help you color a particular section of a graphic in a particular color. As a result, you don’t have to take the trouble of coloring the section manually. You can also use the “Tool Box” for adding text to images on MS Paint. Users could also find tools for zooming in and out of a particular image alongside tools for modifying the whole image. For example, you have the “Flip and Rotate” option for turning the image in the desired direction. Most important of all, MS Paint provides the flexibility of sharing an open file through email.

When we got the first computer on our hands, as a kid, we were intrigued with MS paint. It was the one application that made us aware that digitally we could unleash our creativity. All of us, especially the 90s kids were a bit disheartened when we learned that Microsoft will stop supporting MS paint very soon, in order to promote Paint 3D, that comes with windows 10. Although Paint is still available in Windows, eventually Microsoft plans to remove it permanently and only keep it as a Windows store product for users who still wants to use MS Paint.

Try Out the Next Best Thing

Those of us who still want to make MS Paint a part of their life, the next best thing is in store. Behold MS Paint online. It is an easy to use web-based application, the look and feel of which is exactly like MS Paint. Not only that, the user interface of MS Paint online resembles the version of MS Paint used in older versions of windows. With the color pallet located at the bottom and classical sidebar icons, the app promises you the old Windows Classic experience. I personally checked out the tool and found it working properly in all major browsers without any cross-browser compatibility issues.

Specifications of MS Paint Online

Let’s take a look at the features of MS Paint online and how it succeeds to revive the MS Paint experience of old Windows.

The web-based application works perfectly in all devices, operating systems as well as all major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer.

In the old MS Paint, the user was given only 3 chances to undo or redo his action. In MS Paint online, you have unlimited redos and undoing.

If you allow storage in your local system, your work will be autosaved.

In Stretch/Skew, it allows you to stretch the image by more than 500% at one try.

Let’s suppose you and some of your friends are planning to work together on a project. You can start a new multi-user session and share the link with your friends. However, this is not seamless. Actions performed by your friends can interrupt your current work. Also, these sessions are not private and anytime, you can lose your work.

Since browsers support SVG, you can use this app to open and edit SVG files.

You can easily rotate the images by using Ctrl + < and Ctrl + >. What’s more special, instead of rotating images by only 90 degrees, you can rotate them by any angle of your choice.

Cropping images doesn’t require you to use the crop tool. You can hold the Ctrl key and select any portion of the image to crop it.

What is New in MS Paint online?

Now that we have discussed how MS Paint online enhances the old features of MS Paint, let’s see what extra features are added.

First of all, you can edit and create transparent images. Navigate to Image => Attributes to access the transparency tool. If any image has transparent pixels, by default they will open in transparent mode.

For accessing the extra features, navigate to view => Extras. You will find loads of features which were not there in MS paint.

The app gives you multiple themes. Go to the Extras menu and choose any theme according to your preference.

You can create animated GIFs using this app. You can access the tool either from Extras or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+G. However, while creating a GIF, check the image size since GIFs tend to have a larger size.

Apart from the set of preset colors, you can also add new color formats by going to the Get Colors option.

Just click or tap on the selected color and you can switch between background and foreground colors.

The best feature is, the app even works in mobile.

Limitations of the App

Such a huge app with so many features is bound to have some limitations.