20 obscure Windows features every student should know about

Chris Hoffman / IDG

Chris Hoffman / IDG

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Windows 11 has a feature called Live Captions that listens to audio and automatically generates readable captions on the fly.

It works when you’re watching a video, but it also works with audio captured by your microphone. So, whether you’re sitting in class during a lecture or watching a recorded video, Live Captions can use speech-to-text technology to transcribe what you hear into readable text.

To get started, just search for “live captions” in the Start menu and launch the Live Captions app. This app is available on all Windows 11 PCs and requires an internet connection to work.

Clipboard history

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Whenever you copy and paste, you might think you’ve overwritten the previous thing you copied — but that’s not true. Windows 11’s Clipboard History feature keeps track of all the text and images you copy.

Normally, when you paste, you just paste the last thing you copied. But you can choose from previously copied items by using the Windows key + V shortcut (rather than the usual Ctrl + V shortcut). You’ll be prompted to enable the Clipboard History feature if you haven’t already done so.

Clipboard History even allows you to “pin” items so that they’re always available and conveniently accessible for easy pasting in the future. It’s one of the many useful productivity features on Windows.

Handwriting to text input

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Some Windows laptops ship with support for capacitive pens. These pen-enabled PCs are a great choice for college students because they make it way easier to write handwritten notes, mathematical equations, diagrams, and more in excellent note-taking apps like OneNote.

But with Windows 11, pen input works in any app thanks to handwriting recognition. You can write directly on any text field with your pen and Windows will instantly convert it to text.

Dictation