Hi! I’m a bilingual writer and, while I write mostly in English, I’m not a native English speaker/Writer. I am looking for a software that could help me with : my grammar, formulation, syntax, etc. My manuscripts are often long (100K+ words) - yes, I have multiple bigs stories, I’m just stuck with the editing part.
People suggested me ProWritingAid, Antidote, Harper, Grammarly, Language tools… That’s a lot of software and I don’t know which one will : work the best, be worth my money, worth my time.
All suggestions and advices are very welcome, thank you in advance!
I’ve used ProWritingAid for a long time (I bought the lifetime licence) and it is good but can be overwhelming if you turn all options on. Also, it sometimes suggests changes to changes it suggested earlier. One thing I’m not too keen about is that they are concentrating on PWA Everywhere which does the checking in real-time unless you disable it for a specific duration. I much prefer the stand-alone PWA (I don’t know if they still provide it) and the plugin.
I also have Antidote which is also good, especially because it provides integrated dictionary and works with WordPerfect that PWA doesn’t. It’s little more complex to setup and use. It doesn’t always agree with PWA, or vice versa, but in general, it is also very good.
I guess all various tools are pretty good overall. The best thing you can do is to install trial versions of each and see which works for you. Even if they don’t offer a free trial, subscribe for a month and have a go.
Thank you! I already work with Antidote at my work so I know how it works. I like that you have both French and English. But, some of my English speaking friends told me Antidote is not always “natural” in his English suggestions (I don’t know, I’m not sure I could see the difference to be honest ). Also, now you can’t buy Antidote only once, you have to pay monthly. And I have to admit, I’m starting to be tired of this (and that’s also why I love Scrivener ).
In the best world, I would love to use only one software, that I buy once (one can dream!). But, truly, I feel I’ll end up buying two THE sigh. Someone suggested “Le Robert Correcteur” for the French language, and they have a “lifetime” option, which I consider very strongly.
By the way, why do you use WordPerfect? Curious as I write everything on Scrivener and then use Word (….) to do some of the corrections (!!!).
Thanks again for your feedback, I really appreciate!
Antidote has a special price for the dual language English+French.
And their software kind of never expires. They release new versions, but whatever version you buy will keep on working for as long as your OS supports it.
It doesn’t seamlessly integrate to Scrivener, though. You have to use it in parallel, on the side.
To be fair, I wasn’t excepting to find a software to integrate with Scrivener, I was ready to just copy paste into word. So ProWritingAid was a nice surprise but before investing in anything, I would like to have some feedback from other writers.
Someone also suggested LanguageTool. Do any of you heard about it?
Si pour toi la correction d’écrits en français est tout aussi importante – sinon plus – que d’avoir un correcteur pour l’anglais, moi je dis qu’Antidote c’est le mieux qui se trouve.
If having a tool that handles French just as good as it handles English matters to you, I say Antidote is the best tool you can find. (My opinion.)
I don’t think any software actually beats it for French, is what I’m saying.
For reference : I’m using V.10 (Antidote français)
I’m a native French speaker so checking it is less a problem than my English. But I know Antidote is a very powerful tool in French. That’s the English part that I want to be sure of… And (I know I know I can’t have everything) the fact you need to pay monthly .
So, I guess right now Antidote is in the first position.
Antidote has annual subscription, not monthly. I have only the English so for me 48€ a year is not bad at all for what you get. The integrated dictionary alone is well worth the cost. I do agree that subscription model is a pain but I consider it an ongoing service rather than one off item. It’s a different thing with “plain old software” where you are forced to subscribe for the sake of it.
I had to check if PWA are still offering lifetime licences and they do. I got mine 5 years ago for £230 which I think is good value for money and it has improved a lot since then. The only niggle for me is that the PWA Everywhere can be rather “invasive” and distracting at times.
Just give PWA a go, the free version has quite strict limits, but it will give a good idea what it does and how, and if it intrigues you enough, pay one month subscription to see if it fulfills your requirements before committing to the lifetime licence.
I prefer it. No nonsense word processor that gives me 100% control over the presentation rather than forcing me to oblige with what ever someone else decided it to be. I use Mellel on Mac for that same reason. Plus neither is trying to force you to their subscription model and online services that are a) crap and b) needless. I have no intention to allow any company force to take over my system and data - I prefer to choose my own cloud storage services that meet my requirements, not what some mega corporation decides I have to have.
Yes and yes. I don’t think there is one perfect solution that would fulfill all (my) requirements, and from what I have read, neither does anyone else. Each tool has is strengths and weaknesses and you either use more than one to try meet them all or select the closest match to your requirements.
I’ll keep that in mind. I might end getting both. My actual WIP is bilingual, as I write a story set in Montréal and some of my characters switch from one to the other. While I don’t write whole paragraph in French, some sentences will be, just to give the flavor to my character. And I know Antidote can help with those kind of things.
But I also have other stories that are just in English. Thanks again!
Thanks! But after checking the pricing, is not that terrible. I still don’t like the principle but I know this is a good software so I will probably end getting both. Although I will probably get Antidote first and wait a bit for PWA, budgetwise.
If you can come up with a good workflow, AI would also be an option to check grammar. You could tell it to not rewrite, but only flag grammar issues that need to be fixed, and the general rule of how to fix it yourself. You could probably try it for “free” with one of the free options out there. If you’re technically inclined and have a machine that can handle it, you could run Ollama on your own machine and have everything local.
I’ve tried more than one of the grammar tools out there, and for me, I didn’t really like the rewrites they suggested, or yeah, too many options that get in the way of what you want when all you need is basic grammar checking and no BS.
I don’t know Ollama and if by “technically encline” you mean good at doing code/IT thingy, I am afraid I’m not this kind of person .
I didn’t know AI could check grammar though. I heard they could help with check incoherency in the story or flag redundancies. Is there any suggestion that would not need me to be an expert ?
And thank you a bunch for your answer, I really appreciate!
). Also, now you can’t buy Antidote only once, you have to pay monthly. And I have to admit, I’m starting to be tired of this (and that’s also why I love Scrivener 
).
