Best of all, it is free to use, although you would need to upgrade to the paid plan to unlock more features. Price: Freemium. Platform: Online, mobile, and desktop (Windows and Mac) Get Evernote. If you’re like most bloggers, you spend a good part of your day just reading other people’s blog posts. The Best Proofreading Software Compared There are dozens of different proofreading tools currently on the market. Each serves respective writing needs and have a variety of features to help elevate your work. Ulysses is the best writing app for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. For writers — from bloggers to authors to journalists and more — Ulysses offers the perfect combination of power and simplicity, combining feature-rich writing and research tools amidst a focused, distraction-free writing environment. Which proofreading software is the best for you For many, having a quick comparison table is what they look for, so, before reviewing each one of the most popular proofreading tools and services, here is a comparison of Grammarly Vs Ginger Vs WhiteSmoke, the top 3 tools. Serenity Software is an editing and proofreading tool that assist writers in identifying 20000+ common mistakes under various categories. With this software, the users have the advantage of a friendly user interface making the entire proofreading task simpler and more fun.
Best Writing Enhancement Software 2019 - Editing, Proofreading
The best writing enhancement software is more than a simple spelling or grammar checker – it should include resources to help you improve as a writer, as well. After 60 hours of tests and research on the best writing enhancement software products, we recommend WhiteSmoke as the overall best option for most people. It works anywhere you type, so you can use it to check your documents, emails and social media posts to make sure your words represent your best writing. We also recommend Grammarly Premium for writers and Writer’s Workbench for students.
Looking for a good proofreading software that works? Then take a look at this amazing tool I tested and Use for years. I recommend it for bloggers, journalists, and professional writers who want to correct proofreading mistakes on Mac, Windows, or online while they write.
Best Overall
WhiteSmoke
WhiteSmoke is the best overall writing enhancement software because of its simplicity. Its wealth of features can be used in real time wherever you use a text box.
Best Value for Writers
Grammarly Premium
Grammarly Premium offers the best value for writers of all skill levels because of its excellent spelling and grammar checker, active online community and Personal Writing Handbook.
Best Educational Software
Writer’s Workbench
Writer’s Workbench is the best option for in-depth writing analysis. Its comprehensive features for writing improvement and learning make it our recommendation as the best software for educational purposes.
Best Overall
WhiteSmoke
Performs checks in real time
Doesn’t check for plagiarism
Does not correct passive voice
We recommend WhiteSmoke as the overall best writing enhancement software because it is so easy to use for everything you type. Once the software is installed, it pops up as an icon whenever you type, whether that is in a word processor document or text box.
Other products can require a lot of copying and pasting, but WhiteSmoke integrates itself easily into your workflow, allowing you to check yourself at any time with just a click. Aside from the standard underlining of errors in red or green, WhiteSmoke does an excellent job of catching contextual missteps such as commonly misused words. After it completes its spelling and grammar check, WhiteSmoke generates a writing review report and overall text rating based on six categories, including sentence length, structure, voice, formality, word choice and redundancy. These ratings are color-coded so you know at a glance which are good to go and which areas need more work. It also offers suggested changes with explanations why things are marked wrong. Another standout feature for the WhiteSmoke writing enhancement software is its translation tool. It offers fairly accurate computer-generated translation into 11 languages. Its other reference tools, including dictionary, thesaurus and template library, are extremely helpful as well.
Best Value for Writers
Grammarly Premium
Grammarly Premium Annual
$11.66
Grammarly Premium Monthly
$29.95
Excellent grammar and spelling check
Online community and forums
Microsoft Office integration not available on Mac platforms
No included translation tool
Grammarly Premium offers an exceptional array of tools catered toward writers of all skill levels, making it our recommendation as the best value writing enhancement software for writers. It was a top performer in our grammar and spelling check test, and it provides a flash card for every grammatical error it finds, which provides an explanation and examples of improvements for the sentence.
One of Grammarly Premium’s unique features is that it can filter its analyses by genre, providing a level of contextual analysis that is unmatched in other products. Other tools that are helpful for writers include the plagiarism check and vocabulary enhancement tool, which helps to elevate your writing by offering suggestions for stronger word choices. Grammarly Premium’s Personal Writing Handbook is also an extremely useful tool for writers, as it keeps tabs on everything you put into Grammarly so you can see your progress and improvement. This tracks things like writing habits, personal strengths and weaknesses. Grammarly is available to use in a web browser or as a Microsoft Office add-on for Windows platforms. The Office integration is not available for Apple, which is unfortunate because the two use options make Grammarly an intuitive and flexible presence. The browser version of Grammarly functions as a word processor, as well, so you can use Grammarly without Microsoft Office.
Best Educational Software
Writer’s Workbench
Writer's Workbench
In-depth text analysis
Excellent help and support
Dated interface
Writer’s Workbench is our recommendation as the best educational writing enhancement software because of its in-depth writing analysis. This software does have a bit of a learning curve and is a little too demanding for casual use, but it is a great learning tool if you want to invest your time and effort into improving your writing.
Best Proofreading Software For Mac
It is also important to note that this product only works with Microsoft Word. The scope of Writer’s Workbench’s grammar check tool is extensive. When you run text through its check, Writer’s Workbench creates a report with more than 20 categories. It offers detailed explanations for every tool and suggestion it offers, and it does not autocorrect anything so you can choose to change or keep everything that gets flagged, which forces you to think critically about your grammar and sentence structure. You can also run text through any of 25 different analysis settings. This is a great tool for teachers, as these analyses can provide insights into specific areas or concepts where a student is struggling. Writer’s Workbench provided the best help and support. It offers an in-depth user manual to explain all the software’s features, which is helpful since it is a somewhat difficult interface to master. There are also tutorial resources for beginning writers.
Best for Everyday Use
Microsoft Word
Office 365 Personal
$69.99
Office 365 Home
$99.99
Office 365 Business Premium
$12.50
Customizable autocorrect options
After years of dominating the market, Microsoft Word continues to be the most ubiquitous word processing software available.
When we put it to the test and compared it with other writing enhancing software, we weren’t really surprised to find that it held its own. There are only a few programs that had more of the features we looked for. Microsoft Word underlines errors in different colors to indicate the root of the problem. You can also set it to autocorrect as you work and even customize the list to fix certain mistakes. This software isn’t quite hands off; it’s not quite smart enough to detect some more complex syntax and grammar errors. When composing with Microsoft Word, you want to make sure to read through its changes and suggestions before publishing or submitting them. There are some connectivity options that let you share documents through Microsoft Office’s online hub. Microsoft is such a common program, and it's powerful enough to help you, even if you compose documents every day.
Best budgeting software for mac. 13 rows We spent over 60 hours testing 20 personal finance apps and programs to find the best budgeting and money management tools. Our choice for the best personal finance software is Quicken Premier. It combines the best budgeting tools with easy-to-use tax reporting.
Best for Teachers
Editor 3.8
Outdated interface
Editor 3.8’s reporting options make it a good choice for teachers who are interested in their students’ composition progress.
When you load a document, you get comprehensive, printable feedback about your project. The reports can be tricky to read the first time around, and some of the information is repeated several times in the report. We liked the usage section because it provides insightful feedback, though it’s occasionally inaccurate – a not-uncommon problem with writing enhancement programs. The interface is very dated and can be tricky to navigate. Also, the program’s standard features, like spell check, are counterintuitive compared to those in other software we tested. To match its reporting features, it needs a cleaner interface with more intuitive controls. However, if you need a tool to keep track of students’ writing abilities, Editor 3.8 might be the right choice.
Why Trust Us?
We are a group of research, writing and product testing experts who love words and grammar. Even so, we have colleagues who edit everything for us before we publish our words online. We know that not everyone has that luxury. While maybe not as amazing as our editor friends, writing enhancement software can help you clean up your spelling and tighten up your grammar so that you can present your best-written self in papers, emails, memos and even tweets.
Our unique knowledge base and expertise puts us in the fortunate position of being able to help you find the best writing enhancement software to fit your needs, writing style and budget. Extensive thought, research and testing went into our product recommendations. We present only the most important information about only the best products, so you can make an informed decision and have confidence in whichever software you choose.
How Much Does Writing Enhancement Software Cost?
There are a few ways to get your hands-on writing enhancement software, including one-time downloads and monthly subscriptions. A few programs even come on CD-ROMs. The benefit of a monthly subscription, such as Grammarly, is the software continuously updates as it becomes smarter. A few subscription programs even offer a free trial to give you the opportunity to check out their features. We recommend spending between $10 and $20 on a monthly subscription and less than $100 for a one-time download or CD-ROM.
How We Evaluated
We started our search for the best writing enhancement software by seeing what was available. We compiled our list of products and started narrowing down the search by researching their specs, features, and reported performance on developer websites and based on user reviews. We were specifically looking for software that enhanced writing generally, not programs created for specific uses, like resume writing, creative writing or screenwriting. Once we had narrowed down the list to the top 15 products, we acquired each in order to do some hands-on testing.
We evaluated these writing enhancement software products based on their editing tools, performance, reference tools, and help and support, and we expand upon each of these categories in each product’s review. To test each program’s tools and performance, we learned the software to assess its ease of use and limitations, and then ran a test paragraph through each one. The paragraph had some obvious and some subtle errors throughout, and we rated the products based on how they responded to these errors.
In every test performed, we strived to mimic typical consumer use as closely as possible so our results would be representative of your own experience. After testing, we combined our research and our test results to pick the top 10 products so that you can find the best writing enhancement software for you, whether your needs are more general or more educational.
Some writing enhancement software is available to use over the internet, which offers more flexibility than products that only work in conjunction with a word processor.
What to Look for in Writing Enhancement Software
Editing Tools A basic grammar and spelling check is necessary for writing enhancement software. The best products, in addition to offering these features, have the capacity to catch more complicated discrepancies, including mistakes in context, commonly confused words, numbers and capitalization. Writing enhancement software should also explain why it marks things as incorrect and offer helpful suggestions to make your writing better. The best products work both online and in a word processor.
Performance Performance is gauged on how well the included editing tools react to errors. It doesn’t matter if a writing enhancement program has a vast array of features if these features do not perform well. The basic grammar and spell-check functions are the best place to start when assessing the value of any writing enhancement software. A product that fails to catch typos or sentence fragments makes you wonder about the accuracy or efficacy of the product’s other features.
Reference Tools You definitely want to choose writing enhancement software with a dictionary and thesaurus that are regularly updated to include new words and new uses of words. A template library for help with common formats such as resumes and letters is also useful. The best writing enhancement software also included a translator and access to additional resources such as forums and writing tutorials.
Help & Support Should anything go awry while you use your writing enhancement software, it should be easy for you to find out how to fix it. All products we reviewed provided a customer support email address, but the best products provided multiple ways to get in touch with someone to answer your questions, including phone and live chat options. Written literature such as FAQs, manuals and online forums are also helpful.
Get Extra Help from Vocabulary Software
So many online tools are designed to help you craft the best possible piece of writing and then polish it before you send it off. And while writing enhancement software goes a long way to help yo, by fixing grammar and spelling errors, there is another aspect of your writing that is easy to overlook: vocabulary.
The language you choose to use says a lot about you. And your story deserves to be as beautifully crafted as it is interesting; vocabulary software can help you expand your personal dictionary and make your writing more robust. It’s even a helpful tool for English students, and those preparing to take SAT or GRE exams.
Vocabulary software is designed to help you learn new words, experience them in a variety of contexts, and practice using them. The best vocabulary applications are easy and even fun to use. Any writer worth their mettle can use it in tandem with writing enhancement software. Taking the time to expand your vocabulary means that your writing can potentially become stronger, more precise and more impactful.
Best Proofreading Software For Mac
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The best writing enhancement software should check your grammar, spelling and syntax and make helpful suggestions to make your writing better. Moreover, the best application should make these suggestions and corrections in real time, without the need to cut and paste chunks of text between programs. WhiteSmoke does all these things – all with the touch of a button. Wherever you enter text on your computer, WhiteSmoke will make sure your spelling and grammar are correct, which is why it earns our Top Ten Reviews Gold Award.
WhiteSmoke will improve your writing by catching common grammatical, spelling and syntax errors. WhiteSmoke does an excellent job in its contextual analysis of your text, rather than just performing a word-by-word series of corrections. The result is elevated writing that conveys a command of the English language. Simplicity is WhiteSmoke's other main selling point. A single keystroke is all that's needed to analyze any document. The interface is similar to many spelling and grammar checkers on the market. Plus, this writing enhancement software tries to improve your writing – it offers writing tutorials and commonly used templates to ensure that you're on the right track.
WhiteSmoke has compiled a quality database of suggestions that consist of millions of grammar and spelling corrections, as well as other ways to enrich your writing. This writing enhancement software will also point out complex errors, such as subject-verb inconsistency, commonly confused words and homonyms.
Best Grammar Checker Software For Mac
Once it completes the grammar check, the software will generate a writing review report, which includes an overall rating of your text. It also rates the text in six separate categories including sentence length, sentence structure, redundancy, voice, informal expressions and word choice. The ratings are color-coded to let you know which categories are excellent, which ones are good, which ones are fair and which ones need work. The software also produces an activity report that gives you a summary of the errors it finds. It lists the number of sentences analyzed and the number of grammar corrections, spelling corrections and style suggestions.
Best Free Proofreading Software For Mac
Once you've installed WhiteSmoke on your computer, this writing enhancement software will be ever present, offering to check almost any text that you enter. When you start typing in Microsoft Word, for example, a little WhiteSmoke icon will appear in the corner of your screen that you can click at any time. This icon also appears when you use a text box online, such as in a blog post or on Facebook. The omnipresence of this application will help your writing stay strong, no matter what setting you're in. You can also open WhiteSmoke and paste text directly into the application window.
Overall, we are impressed with how many mistakes WhiteSmoke caught and highlighted. Much like Microsoft Word, WhiteSmoke underlines spelling errors in red and grammar errors in green.
WhiteSmoke puts suggested changes above certain mistakes, and if you right-click on the suggestions, you will see an explanation as to why it was marked incorrect. Next, you can choose to accept or ignore the suggestion.
Nevertheless, the application is not perfect. It caught some mistakes without a problem, but it ignored other glaring errors. It was also hit and miss with capitalization. It caught some proper nouns, but it failed to notice when we capitalized words that shouldn't be capitalized. The application marked our excessive adjective use, but it only noted that we repeated some words. WhiteSmoke also corrected us when we should have used a question mark and when we used excessive punctuation, but it missed our incorrect use of a semi-colon.
We are disappointed with the fact that WhiteSmoke didn't try to correct our use of passive voice, and that it missed our use of double negatives. However, it did catch a number of commonly confused words, such as their/there/they're. Even after using this excellent writing enhancement software, we still recommend running your writing by a human editor if it needs to be perfect.
In addition to an up-to-date dictionary and thesaurus, WhiteSmoke comes with a translator tool that can change your text into one of 11 languages. Although its computer-based translator tool is very accurate, the software includes a link called Human Translation that will take you to OneHourTranslation, an online translation service with which the company collaborates. OneHourTranslation charges seven cents per word.
The software also comes with a large variety of templates for commonly used documents for business offices, school and personal use. It includes resume and cover letter templates, business letter templates, personal greetings and literary submission cover letters.
WhiteSmoke provides a number of ways to contact a support or customer service representative including telephone, email and online chat. The service staff responded to our emails within 24 hours. Additionally, the company's website includes answers to FAQs. This writing enhancement software also comes with an online user manual that you can access by clicking the Help button on the application's interface.
Best Proofreading Software For Writers
Under the Blog tab on the company's website, you can find helpful articles about grammar, spelling and punctuation issues, written by writing experts. Some software packages include writing tutorials within the software itself as well as exercises to help improve your writing abilities. However, we like how WhiteSmoke has set up its blog as a less intrusive side reference for you to peruse at your own pace and according to your needs. The information on the blog is available to everyone, regardless of whether or not you have purchased WhiteSmoke.
WhiteSmoke is quality writing enhancement software that is competitive in the marketplace. It includes excellent features with an up-to-date dictionary and a helpful translator function. We like that you can use this application in conjunction with a word processor and when you post online. While it didn't correct every grammatical error in our test paragraph, it caught more mistakes than some of the other grammar software we reviewed. No writing enhancement software is as effective as a human editor, but WhiteSmoke is a quick and efficient way to double-check your work.