Posey's Tips & Tricks
Working With Prompt Templates in Microsoft Designer
Trust me, they are more than what you think they are.
Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a new feature called Prompt Templates into Designer. Although I initially ignored this feature for no other reason than that its name sounded boring, I eventually discovered that Prompt Templates inspire creativity in a way that very few other features do. Better still, Prompt Templates are useful whether you work alone or are working in a collaborative environment. In this article, I want to show you what Prompt Templates are, how to use them and why they are so helpful.
In the 1999 move The Matrix, Morpheus famously said, "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself". I tend to think of Prompt Templates in the same way. If I were to try to describe them to you, my description probably wouldn't make a lot of sense. That being the case, let me show you what these templates are and how they work.
As you probably know, Microsoft Designer allows you to type a detailed description of something and then uses AI to create a picture that is based on your description. As handy as that may be, you don't necessarily have to start from scratch. When you open Designer, the main page displays several images that Designer has already created, as shown in Figure 1. You can use these images as-is, or you can use them as a starting point -- and that's what prompt templates are all about.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1. Designer displays several images that it has already created.
If you hover over one of these prebuilt images, Designer displays the text query that was used to create the image. If you look at Figure 2, for example, you can see that the description is "a macro photo of a terrarium with exotic plants on a hanging shelf." The lush greenery are glowing and illuminate a miniature waterfall inside".
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 2. Hovering over an image in Designer reveals the prompt that was used to create the image.
There are a couple of reasons why Microsoft lets you hover over an image to see the prompt that was used to create it. First, having access to the prompts can give you a better feel for how to use Designer and what types of things you should include in a prompt in order to get the results you want. Second, you can use the existing prompt to produce alternative images of your own that match the style of the source image. This is where the concept of a prompt template comes into play.
If you take a look back at the figure above, you will notice that some of the words in the prompt are displayed in blue and are surrounded by brackets. You will also notice that there is an Edit This Prompt link that appears beneath the prompt. If you click on this link, you will be taken to a page similar to the one shown in Figure 3.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 3. You can edit the prompt template to meet your needs.
As you can see in the figure, the parts of the prompt that were displayed in blue can be edited. You can edit all or some of the fields within the prompt template. If necessary, you can also edit the entire prompt, though that kind of defeats the purpose of having a prompt template.
Prompt templates let you be really creative with an image, while also maintaining the important part of the prompt. To show you what I mean, take a look at the image in Figure 4. It's the original image associated with the prompt shown in the previous figure.
Now, I am going to edit the portion of the template that says "a terrarium with exotic plants" to make it say "a terrarium with exotic lizards and prehistoric plants." I will leave everything else alone within the prompt template. You can see the results in Figure 5. As usual, Designer gives you a few different images to choose from. I just picked one of the best to use in the figure.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 4. This was the original image.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 5. This was the image that Designer produced after I modified the prompt template.
The cool thing about prompt templates is that you don't necessarily have to start with one of the sample images. You can enter a prompt of your own, turn that prompt into a template and share it with the people that you work with.
To show you how this works, I entered a prompt that said, "a cute tabby cat that is drawn in steam punk style." When I was done typing, I put brackets around cute, tabby and steam punk, and then clicked the Share icon, shown in Figure 6.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 6. This is how you create a prompt template from scratch.
As you can see in Figure 7, Designer creates a link to your template. The template allows you to edit any of the words or phrases that were enclosed in brackets. You can copy the link and send it to those with whom you are collaborating. They can help you to refine the prompt to get just the right image.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 7. This is what the custom prompt template looks like.
About the Author
Brien Posey is a 22-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience. As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Prior to going freelance, Posey was a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and health care facilities. He has also served as a network administrator for some of the country's largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox. In addition to his continued work in IT, Posey has spent the last several years actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in preparation to fly on a mission to study polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight training on his Web site.