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Free Online Proofreader

Perfect your writing with ProWritingAid's proofreading tool. Try it now for polished, error-free text.

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Our writing tool goes beyond proofreading

In addition to basic proofreading, ProWritingAid has over 25 tailored reports to help improve your writing.

Readability

Redundancies

Sentence structure

Overused words

Transition use

Inclusive language

Homonym confusion

Sentence length variety

Business jargon

Predicted read time

...and more!

It’s just like having a real-life writing coach

Some reports provide quick grammar suggestions. Others go in depth and help you improve the strength and readability of your text.

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Our proofreading tool works wherever you do

We seamlessly integrate across all the apps you use, whether they’re on the desktop or online.

Proofreader FAQs

1. does prowritingaid autocorrect.

ProWritingAid provides recommendations so you can identify and correct writing errors. You have complete control over whether to accept or ignore these suggestions.

2. Can I proofread emails and social media posts?

Yes. As a matter of fact, ProWritingAid's browser extensions work across almost all websites and online apps, including Gmail, LinkedIn, and Google Docs.

3. How can ProWritingAid help?

ProWritingAid helps with a variety of writing tasks. It corrects grammar, spelling, and punctuation, while also enhancing vocabulary variety and more.

4. Is ProWritingAid free?

A free account allows you to edit up to 500 words at a time. If you want to edit larger documents, upgrading is necessary. You can find more information on our pricing page .

5. Can ProWritingAid paraphrase?

Yes! You can rewrite sentences with a single click using Rephrase. See multiple options to reword any sentence.

6. Does ProWritingAid have a plagiarism checker?

Yes! ProWritingAid’s plagiarism checker will check your work against over a billion webpages, published works, and academic papers, so you can be sure of its originality. Find out more about pricing for plagiarism checks here .

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Free Online Proofreader

Need a quick way to proofread your writing? Hemingway Editor Plus is here to help. It uses AI to fix common grammatical issues and spelling mistakes. But it doesn't stop there. Hemingway Editor Plus also has advanced features to fix wordy sentences, passive voice and more.

Why proofread your writing?

Good spelling and grammar are crucial for any writer. They are the foundation of clear communication. Errors in spelling or grammar can confuse readers and weaken your message. They might even hurt your credibility. A spelling and grammar checker is vital. It catches mistakes that are easy to overlook. By using one, you make sure your writing is polished and professional, helping you communicate more effectively. Clean, mistake-free writing is important for students, business professionals, and creative writers. It helps make a strong impression.

Proofreading made easy with AI

We all know proofreading is one of the most annoying parts of writing. It's a monotonous task that adds extra time to every draft. Plus, after working on your text for hours, it's all too easy to miss an embarrassing mistake. And with so many complex grammatical rules, it's easy for tricky sentences to be confusing to fix.

Hemingway Editor Plus has AI do all the hard work for you, making a troublesome step a breeze. All you have to do is select a section of your text and then click “Rewrite.” Hemingway Editor Plus will fix any spelling and grammar mistakes in seconds. It also rephrases your text to be clear and straightforward.

Make your writing bold and clear

Hemingway Editor Plus tracks the grade level of your entire document and individual sentences. If a sentence is hard to read, it's marked with a yellow highlight. Very complicated sentences are marked in red. This way, you can look at your document and immediately see problem areas. With Hemingway Editor Plus, you can use AI to simplify individual sentences or whole paragraphs in seconds.

Edit your writing in seconds

Save time with instant suggestions to rewrite wordy sentences, poor grammar, and passive voice.

Write like you, not a robot.

Hemingway Editor Plus matches your tone and word choice so rewritten sentences sound like you.

Break through writer's block.

Hemingway Editor Plus suggests ways to rephrase your writing you won't have thought of.

Find the perfect style and tone

Use AI to apply one of our eight styles. For example, make it more confident, formal, or friendly.

Try Hemingway Editor Plus for free

No credit card required.

14-day free trial with up to 200 sentence corrections.

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Slick Write

Check your grammar in seconds.

Slick Write is a powerful, free application that makes it easy to check your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest. Whether you're a blogger, novelist, SEO professional, or student writing an essay for school, Slick Write can help take your writing to the next level. Curious? See why Slick Write is the best. Try the interactive demo , or check your own document . No software download or installation is required.

Why Slick Write?

The grammar checker is lightning fast

Customizable feedback to suit your style

We do not redistribute your documents

Add impact to reports

Improve your grades

Engage your audience

Inspire confidence

English is a difficult language, so using correct grammar and diverse vocabulary will set you apart from the crowd. Using good sentence structure and wording improves your content's impact and readability while building your readers' trust. Slick Write goes beyond spell checking to teach you the habits of effective writers. How does your writing rate?

Improve your resumé

The job market is competitive. Gain an advantage, impress employers, and land more interviews by demonstrating professionalism and superior communication skills on your resumé.

Get the extensions

Using an extension is the easiest way to submit your work to Slick Write. They are available for Chrome and Firefox .

Bust your writer's block, and create new metaphors by playing the word association game . To begin, type a word or phrase in the box below, and hit enter. To quickly find associations for your own text, highlight a word or phrase in it, and use the toolbox popup.

The associator learns contextual word associations from real literature, so it may return offensive results.

Results for:

I know what I'm doing. Disable these hints.

• Submission Limit There is a limit of 200,000 characters, which is approximately 30,000 words. Anything longer should be submitted in smaller chunks, or it will be automatically trimmed.
• No document It looks like you forgot to enter your document. Paste it in and try again.
• Structure This tab shows sentence structure within the context of the document. Hover over a sentence to see its word count. Select a word or phrase, or click a sentence to get more information.
• Quotes This tab shows your quotations highlighted as Slick Write sees them.

More information »

• Sentence type flow Pieces with good flow will make use of all four sentence types, varying them to keep the reader interested.
• Sentence length flow Sentence length is indirectly related to sentence type, and is a good indicator of flow. Flow can be altered by adding, removing, lengthening, shortening, combining, or splitting sentences. Long sentences will be indicated by a red line on the graph. Sentences that flow poorly with their surroundings will be orange, and the source of the problem can often be found in a nearby sentence.
• Word length flow Word length is a minor contributor to overall flow, but even minor variations are signs of good rhythm.
• Passive Voice Index This is a measure of how frequently the passive voice is used. Consider revising your document if it scores over 100.
• Prepositional Phrase Index This is a measure of how frequently prepositional phrases are used. Consider revising your document if it scores over 100.
• Average sentence length Sentence length is a major contributor to the level of education required to read a body of text.
• Sentence length standard deviation This is a measure of the amount of variation in the length of a text's sentences. In texts that have broad appeal, this tends to fall between 50 and 90% of the average sentence length. You can increase this number by making long sentences longer, and short ones shorter.
• Sentence deviation to length ratio This is a measure of the sentence variety, and a major contributor to flow. Most novels score between 0.5 and 0.9, and popular ones often score near the high end of the range. You can increase this number by making long sentences longer, and short ones shorter.
• Just the stats preset Use this preset when you're only interested in the stats tab. Critique and Flow will be hidden.
• Honesty preset This preset checks for common indicators of deception, either by lying or omission, and is based on the findings of this study . Areas with high concentrations of these indicators should be viewed with skepticism. Note that the presence or absence of these indicators does not guarantee that a statement is true or false, and that the study was done on spoken communications, so it might be more applicable to interviews and speeches. As always, use your brain.
• Doubled words A word used twice in a row may be a typo.
• Commonly confused words This will check for the internet's most frequently confused words and notify you if it looks like you misused one. It is experimental and probably the least reliable feature. Consult a dictionary when necessary.
• Sentences starting with the same word A word should not be used to start more than one sentence in a single paragraph.
• Misplaced conjunctions It is considered poor style to place coordinating conjunctions at either end of a sentence. Placing a subordinating conjunction at the end of a sentence is against the rules.

It is said that one day, passive voice will bring weakness to your prose.

More information » Even more information »

• Overwriting Words like "very" and "really" make sentences wordier and weaken your message. These can be deleted in almost all cases without affecting the meaning of the sentence.
• Abstract words Abstract words lack specificity and overusing them can make even simple concepts difficult to understand. There are times when abstract words are desirable or even necessary; it would be difficult to write about math or programming without mentioning variables or functions, but you should use more specific terms whenever possible.
• Wordy and redundant phrases These phrases make your writing more difficult to understand. In most cases, they can be replaced with one or two words, or even deleted.
• Legalese These antiquated, arcane words and phrases will make your writing look like a contract.
• Double negatives Double negatives are almost always poor style.
• Adverbs They aren't bad in small quantities, but consider revising your document if more than 5.5% of its words are adverbs. Adverbs ending in "-ly" are considered the worst offenders.
• Adjectives They aren't bad in small quantities. A few of the words on this list can also function as other parts of speech. You have been warned.
• Contractions In formal writing, the use of contractions is considered a fault.

The boxer decked his opponent.

• Profanity Profanity should not be used in formal writing outside of direct quotations.

The critic's scathing review hit the nail on the head .

• Similes Similes and metaphors should be used sparingly. This option will detect most common types of similes.
• "Said" replacements Some people think that these substitutes for "said" are weak or obnoxious, especially if overused.

Her dress was long , and it touched the floor.

Her long dress touched the floor.

• Gender-specific pronouns Avoid using gender-specific pronouns in formal writing when the subject's gender is unknown.
• Weasel words Like abstract words, weasel words and phrases lack specificity. At best, they convey uncertainty. At worst, they can be used to "weasel out" of telling the truth in a straightforward manner. When checking a document that is speculative by nature, you might want to disable this detector.
• Third person pronouns According to this study , high concentrations of third person pronouns may indicate deception.
• Bias language These words and phrases often show the author's bias.
• Uncommon words Uncommon words will increase the document's reading difficulty.

Hot peppers burn my mouth, but I eat them anyway .

Since burritos taste good , I like to eat them.

• Sentence fragments A sentence must have at least one noun and one verb. Anything that does not is a fragment, and if it occurs outside of dialog, it should probably be rewritten.
• Long sentences Long sentences tend to be more difficult to read, making them good candidates for trimming or splitting. Alternatively, parallelism may be used to improve their readability, though this will not decrease the ARI score.
• Success with Style: Using Writing Style to Predict the Success of Novels
• Grammar Girl For your obscure writing questions
• Basic Prose and Style Mechanics An excellent, concise resource
• Television Tropes & Idioms Tricks of the trade
• Writing Realistic Injuries An invaluable article for anyone who writes action or horror
• Online Etymology Dictionary Learn the history of English words
• Scribophile Discuss the finer points of writing with other novelists
• Suggestions from the official See Sharp Press blog Learn about the mistakes that will keep your novel from being published.
• Smashwords Easy ebook distribution for indie authors
• Duotrope Find and learn about publishers
• CreateSpace
• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
• Creative Writing Prompts and Exercises Spark your creativity
• RhymeZone A popular rhyming dictionary
• Seventh Sanctum Name generators and more
• Apache OpenOffice The best free office software
• Literature & Latte Makers of the popular Scrivener editor

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Posted on Jan 13, 2023

The 7 Best Proofreading Software to Level Up Your Writing

After spending hours writing an article or a novel, it’s good practice to check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes in a process known as proofreading . Clean and accurate text immeasurably improves the reader’s experience, making proofreading a fundamental type of editing . 

For many writers, re-reading their writing and searching for tiny errors can be tedious and time-consuming, especially since it’s easy to become blind to one’s own text. Fortunately, several pieces of proofreading software are available to help you catch major errors in record time. 

The 7 best proofreading software: 

1. Grammarly

2. prowritingaid, 3. antidote, 4. languagetool, 5. quillbot, 6. scribens.

Whether you're a student, an author, or a casual writer, these tools can help you polish your output, so let’s dive in. 

💰 Price: Free | Starts at $12/month. ✅ Best for: Students, casual writers. 🖇︎ Compatibility: macOS/Windows desktop app, web app, browser extension, mobile app.

Grammarly is probably the web’s best-known proofreading tool, with a free plan that allows you to quickly correct mistakes and get tailored suggestions based on your goals (for instance, informal vs. formal tone, general vs. knowledgeable audience). That said, the tool is not foolproof and should not be fully trusted for major projects, like self-publishing a book , for example. 

Conveniently, Grammarly’s browser extension is compatible with most writing and publishing apps, including the Reedsy Book Editor , which allows you to write, edit, proof, and publish in the same place.

🤓 For a more thorough analysis of the tool, check out our in-depth Grammarly review .

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Resolve every error, from plot holes to misplaced punctuation.

💰 Price: Free | Starts at $20/month. ✅ Best for: Students, authors. 🖇︎ Compatibility: macOS/Windows desktop app, web app, browser extension, Scrivener. No mobile app.

Perhaps Grammarly's closest competitor, ProWritingAid has a similarly accessible interface, and its free option also provides basic proofreading features. However, its premium version sets itself apart, which takes the editing a step further by offering tips for better story structure and suggestions for improving transitions, vocabulary, and overall readability. This makes it more suitable for fiction writers than Grammarly.

While more expensive on a monthly basis, ProWritingAid’s yearly billing saves you 67% 一 making it a strong contender for “best value for money.” Read our ProWritingAid review for a more detailed analysis (and a 20% discount!).

✋ While these tools are extremely helpful, they are no substitute for professional (human!) proofreaders, who have a more nuanced understanding and mastery of language. If you’re aiming to write for professional purposes, consider hiring a proofreader 一 you can find many on Reedsy’s marketplace.

Hire a professional to proof your work!

And make sure your book is ready to hit the presses.

Learn how Reedsy can help you craft a beautiful book.

💰 Price: $59/year | $119 lifetime deal. ✅ Best for: Academics, authors. 🖇︎ Compatibility: macOS/Windows desktop app, web app, mobile app. 

Despite having been in the business for the past 25 years, Antidote has flown under the radar compared to some of the options we’ve already mentioned. Aimed more at professionals and academic writers, it does an excellent job of checking both grammatical and typographical errors while giving suggestions on style, vocabulary, readability, and even gender neutrality. Without a free trial, you sadly cannot take it for a spin before committing, but if you do, you’ll find its annual subscription rate rather competitive. 

What kind of editing does your book need?

Takes one minute!

💰 Price: Free | Starts from $5/month. ✅ Best for: Students, casual writers. 🖇︎ Compatibility: macOS, Windows, all browser extensions, Google Docs/Word plugin.  

LanguageTool is a user-friendly proofreading tool that offers many of the same basic features as Grammarly and ProWritingAid, but at a fraction of the cost. With a focus on helping casual everyday writers, its premium editing suite can feel lacking compared to its rivals. But if you’re not looking for too much guidance (or are simply looking to improve how you draft your emails and essays), you may appreciate LanguageTool’s relatively lean subscription price.

💰 Price: Free | $19.95/month. ✅ Best for: Any writer. 🖇︎ Compatibility: Web app, Chrome and Word extension. 

QuillBot is a sort of Swiss army knife for writers. It offers tools to help with paraphrasing, summarizing, generating citations (for nonfiction or academic work), and checking grammar. In this regard, its proofreading capabilities are on par with those of Grammarly and ProWritingAid. However, it offers significantly fewer features (like spotting overused or repeated words, for example). Overall, its free version (especially as a browser extension) can be helpful to any kind of writer and a great starting tool for proofreading.

Which writing app is right for you?

💰 Price: Free | Starts at $9.90/month. ✅ Best for: Students. 🖇︎ Compatibility: Web app, browser extension, Office, mobile app.

Scribens is a basic proofreading web app that does a good job of spotting grammatical and typographical errors and word repetition. Its free package and handy browser extension make it a nice proofreading option, especially for students, but the premium version might not be worth the bucks compared to more feature-rich options like Grammarly.   

💰 Price: Free | Starts at $13.99/month. ✅ Best for: Casual writers. 🖇︎ Compatibility: Desktop/web app on Windows, Chrome extension, mobile app.

Ginger is a basic spelling, translating, and rephrasing tool 一 with the latter being perhaps its strongest feature. As a proofreading tool, it’s not the most thorough option, as it doesn’t seem to spot simple mistakes like possessives or double spaces. However, you can still use it to correct some mistakes or rephrase poorly written sentences.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned author, this list should help you find the right proofreading software. But remember, while they’re quite helpful in polishing your writing, they’re not a substitute for professional proofreaders 一 so consider hiring one for your more ambitious projects.

Continue reading

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13 Best Free Online Proofreading Tools to Write Flawless Content

Who else wants to write flawless contents that will impress others? If you are searching for proven ways to improve your writing, make sure to use online proofreading tools.

In this detailed guide, I’m going to show you the 13 best free online proofreading sites to create error-free content on your blogs. Whether you are writing for a blog or creating essays, proofreading is a must.

Here’s where using online proofreading tools will help you rectify your grammatical errors on the go.

Table of Contents ☰

Why is proofreading important?

1. grammarly, 2. google docs, 4. wordrake, 5. paper rater, 6. grammarcheck, 7. language tool, 8. hemingway app, 9. spell check plus, 10. reverso, 11. prowritingaid, 13. stackedit, faqs | free online proofreading tools, final thoughts about using top free online proofreading tools.

Whether you’re a blogger, writer, or student, you need to create flawless content to attract an audience. If you want to create a successful career online, you already know that blogging is one of the best ways.

Blogging is mostly about writing error-free content. Google gives top rewards to the sites that consistently update their pages with flawless content.

If you are not getting top results for most keywords you are trying, you might be writing content that is full of grammatical errors. So finding errors and writing error-free content on your blogs or websites is really crucial if you want to bring more traffic from search engines .

That’s why proofreading is important and you need to always take care of the content you are publishing online. Whether you are writing for blogs or academic articles, you need to proofread your articles before submitting them to someone.

Proofreading softwares have many benefits including correcting your typos on the go and you can easily save them in docs or text files.

That said, if you want to create flawless content, try Jasper. Jasper is a great way to create content automatically and it also works as an incredible writing tool. 

We’ve been using it for some time and so far and it’s working great. You can read our review on Jasper or check out Jasper pricing plans if you want more information before signing up with them. You can also try Jasper 7-day free trial from here.

Few solid proofreading tips to create flawless content:

• Always make sure to re-read your articles or essays before publishing.
• Read your content loudly to rectify your grammatical mistakes or typos easily.
• Ask your friends to easily find out the mistakes on your content. Or hire an editor to easily make corrections.
• Write in small paragraphs so that you can easily figure out where you are making grammar mistakes. Also use short sentences if you want to hone your writing skills.

Make sure to use proofreading sites online to write great content without any typos. Let’s now get into the details.

Top 13 online free proofreading tools

Currently, Grammarly is the most accurate tool for grammatical corrections in the market. This site not only helps you find your grammatical errors but also gives you relevant explanations of each mistake. This is a huge advantage for people whose native language is not English.

It also has an in-built plagiarism checker that will help you find the duplicate contents in a copy. It also checks the word count and gives you precise details about the document you are working on.

Here are a few benefits of using Grammarly to write error-free content .

• Eliminates most writing mistakes
• Works wherever you write online (this tool helps you write mistake-free in Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and nearly anywhere else you write on the web)
• Built by the world’s leading linguists

Get Grammarly here for free

There’s a reason why I put Google Docs in the second place in the online proofreading tools list. The reason is it’s not only free but Google Docs provides excellent features to edit your writing on the go. You can also include Add-ons such as Thesaurus, Lucidchart diagrams, Template gallery, etc to make your editing process easier while writing.

You can save the files even offline when the connection is lost or if you simply like to write without having Internet connection. All in all, Google Docs is the perfect writing solution for all the writers who are into essay writing, copywriting, etc.

Here are the features of using Google Docs for editing.

• It offers 15GB of free space for all the Gmail users
• You can keep and save almost any file
• Share how you want
• Safe and secure

Start using Google Docs

Believe it or not, Ginger software is the world’s best grammar checker. It’s one of the best online proofreading tools that help you easily correct your sentences without having to worry much.

If you want to improve your writing and productivity on the go, start using Ginger software. It will give you effortless features to hone your writing skills without having errors. If you are always making silly mistakes while creating blog posts or writing essays , try Ginger.

It will ensure that your writing is flawless but it does require you to stay online if you want it to make changes on the go.

According to the Ginger website, it uses the most sophisticated “patent-pending technology to decipher the semantic meaning and context of text input, by comparing it to billions of similar sentences from the web.”

Here are a few powerful features of the Ginger tool.

• Offers great English corrections
• Works in Microsoft Office and browsers
• Lightweight application
• Great design
• Built-in dictionary
• Automatic translator

Try Ginger tool now

WordRake is a powerful writing assistant tool for professionals like bloggers, writers, and editors. WordRake is created by lawyer and writing expert Gary Kinder.

WordRake is the first and only automated in-line editing software that can be used to seamlessly edit in Microsoft Word and Outlook. WordRake uses a ton of algorithmic rules that provide you accurate context suggestions to improve your writing. 

Here are a few powerful features of WordRake;

• Offers you an automated in-line editing software 
• It’s available for Mac or Windows
• Offers one-click editing for both Microsoft Word and Outlook
• It helps you easily find high-level grammar and punctuation mistakes

Start using WordRake

Correctly spelled words used in the wrong context mean embarrassing mistakes for you. So this tool helps you with the most advanced “contextual spell checker” to easily rectify your grammatical errors.

‘Paper Rater’ is a free proofreading software that utilizes Artificial Intelligence to help writers and students write better.

Here are a few powerful features of Paper Rater;

• Grammar & Spelling Check
• Free Proofreader
• No Downloads Required
• It will also check for any duplicate contents using its plagiarism detection tools
• It also gives you writing suggestions to improve your writing

Try Paper Rater

GrammarCheck is another widely popular proofreading tool that checks your text for grammatical errors instantly.

You can paste your content or enter your text into the form on their website.

Here’s what it looks like;

Once you click on the “Free Check” button, the tool will instantly show you the grammatical mistakes if any. 

If you see an underlined spelling error or grammar suggestion in your text, click on it to see more options so you can make necessary corrections. 

Here are a few features of GrammarCheck;

• Free proofreading tool to quickly find grammar mistakes
• Easy to use as you can paste the content or enter text on their tool
• Helps easily find spelling errors, gives style suggestions, and grammar suggestions

Start using GrammarCheck

LanguageTool is an Open Source proof­reading program for English, French, German, Polish, and more than 20 other languages.

This online proofreading software finds many grammatical errors that a simple spell checker like MS Word can’t detect and enables you to write flawless content. If you’re using the LibreOffice or OpenOffice add-on you can also make use of this free tool “Language Tool”.

Here are the awesome features of this amazing proofreading tool;

• It’s completely free to use
• It also offers a free browser extension to proofread on the go
• You can use this tool to check grammar, style, and spelling mistakes in your text

Try Language Tool for Free

The Hemingway app is one of the popular online proofreading apps used for distraction-free writing. It offers an easy-to-use editing tool that helps you improve your writing.

You can paste your content or paragraphs into the Hemingway App editor and it instantly shows you all the writing mistakes (and gives you suggestions).

As you can see above, if you see text highlighted in red, your sentence is complicated to understand. So, you can simplify that highlighted text to polish your writing.

Here’s the list of features offered by the Hemingway App;

• The online version of Hemingway Editor is completely free to use
• Helps you polish your writing
• Helps you identify sentences that are too complex to understand
• Hemingway will provide you with a readability grade 

Start using Hemingway App

‘Spell check plus’ uses an advanced yet user-friendly interface for all of you to check your text to see if there are any errors in your text.

The great feature of this tool is that it targets a number of errors made by second language learners of English. So this tool is a blessing for the people whose native language is not English and who still want to improve their English writing skills .

Spell check plus design almost resembles the MS Word interface but it will catch more grammatical mistakes that MS Word won’t catch. This tool allows you to paste the text into the text box, once you enter the text, you will see if there are any errors in your copy after clicking the button “Check Text”.

This online tool is able to detect problems with words that sound the same. For ex: there versus their, its versus it’s, etc.

This tool catches thousands of commonly confused words that other spell checkers ignore.

Features include:

• It is available online and therefore accessible from any computer.
• It follows a pedagogical approach that encourages learning
• It updates automatically

Try Spell Check Plus for free

Reverso is a free online translation, dictionary, grammar, and spell-check tool that provides you great features to edit your writing easily.

This tool also offers online translation into French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, and Japanese.

Here are a few great features of the Reverso tool:

• You can benefit from a translation service that has been tested on millions of translations and has been constantly improved
• Optimize the translation quality thanks to the automatic spell checking of the mistakes contained in the original text of your documents
• You can improve your oral skills and your accent by listening to native speakers pronunciation of whole texts
• You can also translate idioms and suggest better translations that could improve the translator
• View the dictionaries results on the same page and discover the various meanings of words

So what are you waiting for?

Try Reverso Tool

ProWritingAid is an incredible proofreading platform used by over 1 million authors, editors, students, and professionals worldwide.

It gives you in-depth reports on your content’s sentence structure, punctuation issues, repeated phrases, and more to improve your writing.

Read: ProWritingAid Discount 2024: 20% Off On Premium Plans

Here’s the features list of ProWritingAid;

• Helps you with grammar checking, sentence formation, punctuation mistakes, etc
• Offers free browser extensions so you can check real-time grammar and spell checking online
• Extremely user friendly that can be used as a personal writing coach

Try ProWritingAid Now

Ludwig is a popular sentence search engine used by over 15 million users worldwide to improve their writing.

Ludwig offers highly relevant context examples taken from trusted sources to help you write better in English. Unlike other proofreading tools mentioned on this list, Ludwig helps you write PROPER sentences in English.

As you can see above, once you enter a word or phrase, Ludwig shows you how professional writers have used that word or phrase.

Here are the awesome features of Ludwig;

• You can find your sentence in the best contexts
• Ludwig also helps you easily translate into English in the best possible way
• It currently has over 200 million English sentences 
• Discover the missing word in your text
• Helps you properly paraphrase your sentences

Try Ludwig Now

StackEdit is a popular open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown. If you’re a blogger or online creator who’s looking to use Markdown to create professional-looking content, StackEdit is a great tool for you.

It also offers a live preview function as well as built-in spell checking to improve your writing.

Here are the features offered by StackEdit;

• Works as a spell-checking tool
• The ability to write in this app, and edit your content with Markdown tools as you go
• You can upload your content directly to your blog or online storage drives such as Google Drive and Dropbox
• Allows you to insert inline comments in your files

Try StackEdit For Free

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Re-read your content loudly, ask a friend, write small paragraphs, use short sentences, and make sure to use some proofreading sites for error-free writing.

For me, it’s Grammarly. I have been using Grammarly to proofread my blog posts from the beginning and it works like a charm for me.

Yes, it’s free to use. Apart from the free version, you can also opt for its paid services to get more features.

Yes, there are so many but I would recommend you go with the Pro Writing Aid, the best free Grammarly alternative . You can also use tools like free plagiarism checkers like Writer if you want to check duplicate content.

Of course, you can earn money from proofreading. As software testers, there are proofreaders for flawless writing work.

There are lots of freelancing sites available like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, etc. where you can easily get suitable work online.

Here are the three best proofreading software tools for professionals who want to improve their writing.

– Grammarly (uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to assist you with better writing) – Ginger Software (it has developed language enhancement technology that uses statistical algorithms to improve your writing) – WhiteSmoke (can be used as a grammar checker, spell checker, and style checker tool)

A proofreading tool is a writing assistant tool that helps you correct your English grammar, style, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. Most proofreading tools help you check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors with a single click.

Yes, if you’re a student, editor, author, or professional who regularly writes and looking to improve your writing, Grammarly premium is worth every penny as its pricing starts at $11.66 per month.

Here are some of the best free proofreading tools you can use in 2024.

– Grammarly  – SpellCheckPlus – Reverso – Hemingway App

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So next time if you want to write flawless content without having any typos or grammatical errors and want to impress your blog readers with your writing, make sure to use the free online proofreading tools listed in this post. Feel free to bookmark this page as it will come to be handy in the future too.

No matter what type of tool or service you use, there’s always one defect – almost none of them rectifies your grammatical mistakes with 100% accuracy with today’s technology. So don’t get disappointed, just make sure to read better stuff and keep on writing every single day to hone your writing skills.

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Reader Comments (13)

First of all, great list.

I am using Grammarly, and it has been an absolute game-changer for me when it comes to proofreading my writing. It is, without a doubt, the best proofreading tool I have ever used. The real-time suggestions and corrections it offers have significantly improved the quality of my work.

What I love most about Grammarly is its versatility. Whether I’m writing an important email, a blog post, or even a social media caption, Grammarly is always there to ensure that my content is error-free and polished. The seamless integration with various platforms and the browser extension make it incredibly convenient to use.

I will also check out the other options you mentioned in the post.

Cheers, Aziz Malek

I have been using Grammarly from the beginning to proofread my blog posts and it’s amazing.

Chrome extension and MS Word integration work very well.

I will definitely consider the other options you mentioned in the post.

Thanks Amit Garg

The Tools are very useful to the content for the story and the thesis writing to the content writers and the students also. It helps to improve the writing skill and the communication skill for the writers.

Proofreading and editing is just not a cup of cake. A right mix of software is required to support your proofreading. As a proofreader, I think these would definitely help me out in my work.

Proofreading and editing is just not a cup of cake. A right mix of software is required to support your proofreading. Excellent points Min, truly said. Editing is definitely a masters game and you should get access to the right online proofreading tools if you really want to keep your content tight.

Have a look at typely.com. It has some unique features.

Thanks for the suggestion, I’d definitely check it out.

A very useful blog post . I downloaded Ginger and started using it. It proved to be quite helpful. Since I am in writing profession, these kind of tools is an advantage for me. Saves time and corrects mistakes. Thanks for sharing a very useful post. 🙂

Hi Shilpi, glad you found it useful and honestly, Grammarly is the most popular Grammar and punctuation checker tool currently which is literally used by millions of people worlwide. However, there are other solutions like Ginger, Pro Writing Aid and Whitesmoke which are great for online proofreading, so you should check them out as well.

Thank you for the comprehensive review of proof reading tools,

I love to proofread my content myself. We do have a very strong team of proofreaders and enhancers on GuestCrew but I love to proofread my own personal content myself.

However yes, that does leave room for mistakes. Am thinking to give grammarly a try soon – been hearing about it for some time.

will surely check out the rest of the tools that you have mentioned,

thanks, Uttoran Sen,

Hi Sen, Glad you found this comprehensive review of proof reading tools helpful. So what online proofreading tools are you currently using? GuestCrew is great but there are also tools like Ginger, Whitesmoke, Grammarly etc that can help you improve your writing.

This is helpful. Thanks for sharing this online, this is a good start up tips for all aspiring and so as for professional writers. Cheers!

Hey Anil great article. i hope these tools will increase my writing ability. Thanks

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All online proofreading and copy-editing services on Wordy are done by professional, first-language editors based in the UK, US, and Australia. Each job has its own webpage with a messaging system, so that you can get in touch with your editor – and they with you – at any point in the process. This is great for last-minute changes or when signing off on a job. The messaging page stays open for up to three days after the editor has delivered the job, so if you have any questions – ask them!

Especially online proofreading and copy-editing services are all about understanding the context and concept of your text, and adhering to the tone of voice and rules you’ve already laid down when you send through your document. In our humble opinion, it really takes a skilled, intelligent editor to make the best of your text and ready it for publication. We do rely heavily on technology to make job processing and assigning on Wordy as straightforward as possible, but when it comes to online proofreading, it’s all about good old elbow grease. There aren’t any secrets to it; just the accumulated editing experience of more than 2,000 years. Wordy adheres to the professional and ethical standards laid out by the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading in the UK and The American Copy Editors Society in the US.

If you’re representing a company or an educational institution, the chances are that you’re not used to paying per delivery for your proofreading services, but instead receive an invoice once a month for the jobs you’ve actually processed. We can set up an open credit account for you, which will invoice individual users of the account or an account owner. We’re also here to step in as account managers, if you want to set up a copy-editor team to handle all your jobs or upload a house style you’d like us to follow. Do get in touch if you want to know more about our credit accounts for companies and educational institutions.

We provide online proofreading and copy-editing services to clients from all over the world, but as a company we are located in London. That means that tech support and client support are there for you during UK business hours, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. GMT – and as quickly as possible the following business day. In short, we’ll reply to your questions or comments as fast as we can, but do note that headquarters staff need our beauty sleep, too. Proofreaders are, of course, available 24/7.

Several things are taken into account. First, how many words does the document contain? Second, are you requesting just proofreading and editing or additional services, such as rewriting or an express delivery? The cost also increases if you have a house style guide that you want editors to refer to, or if you restrict the availability of your job to a team of editors that you have selected. The best way to get an estimated turnaround time for your document is to upload it for an instant price quote and approximate delivery time .  If the turnaround time and quote are acceptable, you can continue with the purchase and place the order. If not, no further commitment is required.

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6 Free Online Proofreading Tools For Perfect Writing [2022 Edition]

Published by Abhishek Raj

Updated on January 1, 2022

Proofreading is a cornerstone of impeccable writing skills. Whether you are writing an email , a blog post, an essay or even an academic paper, you will appreciate how proofreading can dramatically improve your English writing skills. It is awkward to find silly spelling or grammatical errors in your writing, especially once it has been published. It is therefore imperative to scan your articles or messages for common errors before hitting the publish/send button. In this article today, I will share the best free online proofreading tools for an error-free writing experience. After-all, flawless writing not only attracts, but also helps bolster the trust and authority of an author. Agree?

The importance of proofreading and editing

Proof reading and revision are fundamental to the writing process because they:

• Ensure that your writing is error free and up to the highest standards.
• Provide you a second chance to review your writing tone and style.
• Add credibility and professionalism to your work.
• Encourage your readers to appreciate and cite your work.
• Save you from the disgrace of being labeled as a callow writer or author.

List of the 6 best & free online proofreading tools:

Now let’s review the top 6 proofreading tools on the internet, one by one:

1. Grammarly

If you are a blogger or a freelance writer, you must have heard about Grammarly. It boldly positions itself as the world’s best free online proofreader. I am myself using Grammarly software to proofread the articles on this blog and please, believe me, it does the job incredibly well. Its online proofreader automatically scans your text using over 400 advanced grammatical rules and word-usage.

To use Grammarly, you will first need to create a free account using your email address . You can use Grammarly in either of the following forms, as per your convenience:

• Standalone online proofreader
• A software application on your computer
• Chrome extension – to help you proofread anything you write on the web, including your emails, social media posts, and even WordPress.
• Add-in for Microsoft Word.

2. Language Tool

After Grammarly, my next recommendation is Language Tool . Funded by the European Union, this free online proofreading tool integrates well as an extension with popular web browsers like Chrome and Firefox, including support for integration with popular text-based writers like Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Libre Office. The free version enables you to do a quick grammar check for up to 20,000 characters. In my honest opinion, this is a must-try proofreading tool.

3. Pro Writing Aid

If you are looking for a feature-rich and user-friendly interface in an online proofreader tool, look no further than Pro Writing Aid . It checks your text in real-time for grammatical errors, writing style (Active/Passive), spelling mistakes, and over-used words. Like the other fellow online proofreaders, Pro Writing Aid also integrates well with MS Word, Open Office, Google Docs, and Google Chrome, so that you can proofread your text wherever you write. The free version allows you to check a text of up to 500-words. However, if you wish to upgrade (which is a little expensive), you gain access to checks with unlimited word counts, full reports and in-depth articles. Here is a screenshot of Pro Writing Aid in action:

4. Google Docs

If you are looking for a trustworthy and faster spelling and grammar checker, then Google Docs is perhaps the best free online proofreading tool that you need to choose. With no fancy detailed reports and advanced language checks, Google Docs is perfect for intermediate to advanced English writers who are just looking for quick spelling and grammar checks. Once you’ve finished writing in Google Docs, either click on the Spell check icon on the top toolbar or type the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + X).

Google Docs will then highlight all the errors in the document, giving you a chance to review each spelling and grammatical error, one by one.

5. Ginger Software

Ginger software is yet another free and equally efficient online proofreading tool. I’ve used it and have found that it is more or less similar to Grammarly. With a strong contextual grammatical and spelling check algorithm, Ginger is hands down one of those few online proofreader tools that you can trust. What’s more? Ginger also provides support for integration with Windows/Mac (as software) and with Chrome/Safari/Office (as an extension).

6. Grammar Lookup

Grammar lookup  uses artificial intelligence to check for common grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors in your text. It also checks for sentence structuring and styling issues to make your writing more interesting and meaningful. It is lightweight, free and gets the job done in a matter of seconds.

I don’t think there is even a capping on word count while proofreading your text. All these awesome features make it eligible to be listed among the best free online proofreading tools.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Yes, you can use two or even more proofreading tools simultaneously. However, be cautious about the conflict of grammatical and punctuation rules.

Proofreading is the final stage of the writing and editing process. Once your draft is final, you may use a reliable proofreading app to iron out all the grammatical and punctuation errors.

Every proofreading software has its own pros and cons. Some are fantastic at spelling and grammatical corrections, while some excel at punctuation and sentence styling. However, as a beginner, you may start with a free Grammarly account.

Proofreading apps cannot substitute human reasoning and intelligence. So, the best technique is to first go through the draft on your own. Read it several times and make edits accordingly. Once you’ve proofread yourself, take the help of a proofreading tool to check for even further scopes to make your writing clearer and more interesting.

What’s your favorite proofreading tool?

I have just reviewed the best handpicked proofreading tools to help you write more efficiently and clearly. What has been your experience with the tools I’ve reviewed above? Can you suggest even more free and reliable online proofreading apps? Please share in the comments below.

Disclosure : This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you decide to click through and make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. Read more about this disclosure

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About the author

4 thoughts on “6 free online proofreading tools for perfect writing [2022 edition]”.

Hi Abhishek

I enjoyed reviewing your post about proof-reading tools and have used your web link in a PDA I am doing to support Inclusiveness. I found your straightforward and short blog will appeal to students looking for something that ‘does what it says’.

Thank you so much, Sarah. ?

A very good compilation of the best proofreading tools on the Internet. How about the built in proofreader in MS word?

Hi Anurag. That’s also a good option. But for a better proofreading experience, I suggest you go with Google Docs.

Comments are closed.

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Table of Contents

What Is Proofreading Software?

The 5 types of proofreading tools.

• The Best Proofreading Tools & Editing Software

Final Thoughts

The best free & paid proofreading & editing software (to use in 2023).

If you’re looking for the best proofreading tool on the market, I’ll tell you what it is:

The best proofreading software out there is Grammarly .

But even in 2022, it still has severe limitations.

We at Scribe tested the 8 most popular editing apps on the market in 2022, and none of them could hold a candle to a human proofreader .

But that doesn’t mean proofreading tools are worthless. Not at all.

I highly recommend Grammarly for :

• Flagging possible grammar mistakes
• Finding repetitive words and phrases
• Noticing “picky” details like spacing
• Highlighting basic style issues
• Cleaning up your writing before it goes to an editor
• “Last looks” for typos

I do not recommend Grammarly for :

• Accepting every suggestion
• Blindly altering your writing style
• Skipping a human editor

Why not? Because of writing like this:

“Our team has reviewed and requested our Chrome product team to review the GingerChrome store page again and fix any necessary correction.”

This was an actual comment from the team of the Ginger editing app (not Grammarly), on a negative review of the Ginger Chrome Extension.

As part of our test, we ran their comments through the Ginger app itself, and the app found nothing wrong with it .

Then we ran it through another app. And another. Of all the proofreading apps we tested, most found 0 errors in that sentence.

Even Grammarly, the top performer, only found 2, and one of its suggestions was arguably worse. (I’ll show you those suggestions in the Grammarly review.)

So, before you start using Grammarly , make sure you understand what it is and isn’t good for—in 2022 and beyond.

True editing apps, like Grammarly, apply artificial intelligence (AI) to proofreading.

AI is the science (and art) of programming computers to think and behave like human beings. It’s at the cutting edge of technology, but it has a long way to go.

You might think that Microsoft Word’s spell checker is pretty good—and it is—but it isn’t artificial intelligence. MS Word just checks each word you type against a dictionary.

That’s pretty basic stuff.

Editing apps are far more than spell checkers; they’re true grammar checkers. They’re even style checkers. And those kinds of mistakes are a lot harder to find than spelling errors.

Why? Because grammatical errors depend on context.

Here’s an example:

If I write, “It was the best of time, it was the worst of time,” you know right away that “time” is missing an “s.”

A spell checker wouldn’t flag it because “time” is in the dictionary. The word exists, it’s just being used incorrectly

Human beings see issues like that immediately because our brains are wired for language. But teaching a computer to do the same thing is far more complicated than you might imagine.

In fact, it’s so complicated that even the best proofreading app doesn’t do it very well.

That’s why a good proofreading app needs to explain each flagged issue, simply and clearly, to help you decide how (or even whether) to follow the suggestion.

There are 5 different types of proofreading tools, most of which can be useful to professional Authors. All 5 of them check for spelling mistakes, grammar errors, and style choices, but they’re used in different places.

1. Chrome Extensions

Proofreading extensions for Chrome or other browsers (like Firefox or Safari), evaluate your writing no matter where you go on the web. If you’re typing online, they watch what you type and offer suggestions.

You can install these like any other browser extension, and they add writing tools to your browser that check spelling, grammar, and style.

If you write in Google Docs, you’ll need more than a Chrome extension. You’ll need a grammar tool that integrates directly with the Google Docs app.

2. Online Proofreading Tools

Website apps.

Free online proofreading apps are websites that offer a simple text box where you can paste limited amounts of text to check it for spelling, grammar, and style.

They’re free, but you get what you pay for. The ones we tested ranged from bad to terrible.

Full-service online apps

Some services (like Grammarly) offer true web apps, akin to Google Docs, that let you write and save documents in your own cloud space.

They include a full range of built-in proofreading tools, but their formatting tools are limited. For professional manuscript formatting , I recommend writing in MS Word with a Grammarly addon.

3. Mobile Apps

These are keyboard extensions for phones and tablets that automatically check your writing on every text and tweet.

If you write on an iOS or Android tablet in a mobile word processor, you’ll want a mobile proofreading app.

4. MS Word Add-ons

For writers who compose on MS Word, proofreading addons provide grammar and style suggestions right in your Word documents as you type.

If you write in MS Word, this will be your best choice, but these add-ons only work on MS Office for Windows. Apple users will need to use a desktop app.

5. Desktop Apps for Mac and Windows

Desktop proofreading software provides a native word processor that’s designed for proofreading and editing .

Most of these apps don’t have great formatting options, so I recommend writing in MS Word even if you use a desktop app for editing.

If you don’t have access to an MS Office add-on, you can open any .docx file in a desktop proofreading app to check it.

The Best Proofreading Tools & Editing Software

1. grammarly.

Grammarly is far and away the best proofreading and editing tool on the market. It offers:

• Browser extensions
• A full-service online app
• Mobile apps
• An MS Office add-on for Windows
• Desktop apps for Mac and Windows

It even has a Google Docs integration, but this is a newer offering that seems less robust than the others. It let me type “I eats the pudding” without any complaints, even though the browser extension flagged it correctly.

The MS Office add-on doesn’t work on a Mac, but the desktop app lets you drag and drop a .docx file to open it in the app and check your writing.

The Chrome extension and desktop app were extremely easy to install, and Grammarly’s features (which work the same way across every version) made it the clear winner:

• It has the smartest AI (and best proofreading flags) of every app we tested
• One-click suggestions make it easy to accept good changes
• The clean, intuitive interface requires almost no learning time
• You can filter the suggestions by category with one click
• There’s even a “Change-all” option for pervasive errors

Basic suggestions are free, with advanced grammar suggestions (including tone) in paid plans:

• Premium Version: $139.95 per year
• Business Version: plans starting at $150 per member, per year

Caveat of Grammarly

1. internet requirement.

Grammarly has to be connected to the Internet to work, even with the desktop app. That’s because the AI “lives” in the cloud, not in the app that sits on your desktop.

If the app can’t communicate with the AI, it can’t understand what you’re typing.

2. The AI is still learning

Grammarly was the smartest app we tested, but that only says so much.

For our sample text:

The Grammarly desktop app suggested:

“Our team has reviewed and requested our Chrome product team to discuss the GingerChrome store page again and fix any necessary corrections .”

This isn’t much better. But I’ll let you in on a secret: this is a very hard test for any proofreading AI system.

Why? Because it probably wasn’t written by a native English speaker. “Fix any necessary correction”? Nobody would say that. The construction is just too strange.

Which is exactly the problem.

AI systems get smarter with feedback. They learn which suggestions people did or didn’t accept, and they adjust future suggestions based on that information.

But mistakes that native speakers would never make are, by definition, very rare, so the system doesn’t see them often enough to learn from them.

That’s why we chose this as a test: to push the proofreading AI’s to the limit of their capability.

The fact that Grammarly made any sense of it was impressive.

2. ProWriting Aid

ProWriting Aid was the only other app we tested that had a chance against Grammarly. It works with:

• Google Docs
• MS Office (in Windows)
• Desktop app

Not surprisingly, it also needs an internet connection to work. Powerful AIs need powerful computers. They live in the cloud on fast, dedicated servers and work with your computer (or phone) remotely.

It also doesn’t work with MS Office on Apple, just like Grammarly.

But in the battle of ProwritingAid vs. Grammarly, this one lost because:

• It offered fewer one-click fixes
• The interface was not as clean
• Navigation was not as intuitive
• The suggestions were not presented as well
• Extra features, like reports, cluttered the screen without being useful

3. Hemingway App

We included the Hemingway App in our test because it appeared in other articles on grammar checking software, but it was designed more for bloggers than professional Authors.

And it wasn’t very smart.

The one feature it did have was the ability to work offline, but that’s the tradeoff. If you want an AI that’s smarter than a word processor, you’ll need an Internet connection.

The Hemingway App failed our test because:

• It does not offer one-click fixes
• It gives general writing guidance but no specifics
• It’s designed for WordPress and Medium, not book Authors

It does have a free online tool, but the tool doesn’t save your work. If you get disconnected or you close the tab by accident, you can kiss your work goodbye.

The Hemingway App is good for helping you see things that need to be fixed, but that’s about it.

4. Ginger Software

We loaded the Ginger Chrome extension to give it a try, but the AI didn’t even come close to Grammarly.

These are the folks who wrote our bad test copy, and their own software didn’t correct it.

They did a nice job designing their sales page, but the app doesn’t stand up to the hype.

5. WhiteSmoke

WhiteSmoke is the used car lot of proofreading services.

The sales page extols the virtues of proofreading apps in general, hoping you won’t notice that the “demo” video doesn’t show the product and that they hardly offer any screenshots of the app.

There’s no free version or trial version, and what little you can see of the app doesn’t look great.

This is not the app you’re looking for.

6. PaperRater

PaperRater is a website that’s supposedly designed to help students write papers (not books), but it doesn’t even do that.

• It doesn’t offer any fixes
• The “report” is terrible
• If you click on “advanced analysis,” it takes you to Grammarly

Enough said.

7. LanguageTool

LanguageTool offers add-ons and/or extensions for several browsers and word processors, but the AI just isn’t up to par.

You can try it for yourself for free using the online tool, which does offer one-click changes, but if you hit “undo,” you’ll have to run the check all over again.

It found no errors in our horrible test copy, and it tags people’s names as misspellings.

8. SlickWrite

The free online version of SlickWrite is reasonably smart when it comes to finding issues, but it’s lousy at fixing them.

It doesn’t offer any suggestions, and the explanations it does offer are far too technical. You won’t understand them unless you already have a solid command of sentence structure, grammar, and style, which largely defeats the purpose of the app.

Although it’s far from perfect, Grammarly has a solid place in the professional Author’s arsenal.

It offers a ton of useful features in a simple, clean interface, and it’s the smartest proofreading AI by far when it comes to writing skills.

Authors who want to self-publish ( and 99.99% of them should ), will still need to hire an editor . But that editing will be faster, smoother, and a lot cheaper if you’ve done everything you can to clean up your writing before you get there.

The Scribe Crew

Read this next.

Roundup: The Best Professional Book Editors

10 of the Most Common Grammar Mistakes to Avoid (& How to Fix Them)

What are Beta Readers? (& How Authors Can Find Them)

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Whether you’re writing a thesis, research paper, or PhD proposal, Proofed’s academic proofreading and editing services will help ensure your writing reads smoothly and your ideas are communicated effectively.

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No matter what you’re working on, with Proofed’s academic proofreading and editing services, you can rest assured that your writing will be clear and concise, with a strong academic style and tone.

We can even check references and citations in your work. Because good writing is vital for success in academia, our proofreading and editing services can help you achieve your career goals.

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Our team includes editors with PhDs and master’s degrees in a wide range of subject areas. We’ve also edited thousands of academic documents so we understand the high standard of writing required in academia and will use our skills and expertise to make your writing the best it can be.

Are You Looking To Publish Your Writing?

Proofed’s academic proofreading service has helped thousands of academics in many fields of study prepare their papers, reports, and articles for publication. Visit our researcher page to learn more about how we can polish your writing, thus increasing your chances of publication.

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We pair your document with an editor who understands your field of study. If you’re happy with the results, let us know, and we’ll make sure the same editor works on all of your documents. That way, you can be sure the proofreading we provide will always meet your standards.

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Top 10 Best Online Proofreading Software & Tools in 2023

Proofreading tools & software are one of the most sought-after writing tools for a reason.

One missed mistake can ruin the impression of the whole copy

“Pubic relations is quite different from public relations.” 

A perfect example of a typo that can ruin your copy, right ?

Well, we all are guilty of making common grammar goofs that make us look dumb.

Sometimes, faulty writing can cost us grades and even get that business proposal dumped!

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But doesn’t proofreading and polishing your writing seem like extra work?

Hell yeah, me too!

In this article, I’ll share a list of my top 10 best proofreading software and tools  that will check your writing for grammar and spelling errors, suggest you any missing punctuation, and polish your copy for free!

Top 10 Best Online Proofreading Software & Tools for 2023

1 grammarly’s online proofreading software.

Grammarly is one of the world’s best proofreading tools you can find.

It comes with a sleek online editing interface ( where you can write directly or upload a document to proofread it ), an add-in for MS Word ( proofreading tool in MS Word ), and a free browser extension (your personal proofreader on social media, emails, and WordPress)

Grammarly is an online proofreader tool, so you can use it across all any platform you write, may that be a blog post, social media updates, or a business email, Grammarly proofreads all. Check out my hands-on Grammarly review here .

You can also use Grammarly’s writing editor online for free ( click here to get a free Grammarly account ) and then directly write on their inbuilt editor right from your browser.

It detects over 400+ types of grammatical errors, and contextual spelling mistakes ( ones that your favorite word processor often skips ), and helps you with the correct punctuation.

If you have already written a paper or article, you can simply copy-paste or upload the document and let Grammarly do the proofreading for you.

What I liked about Grammarly is that it detects and proofreads complex language mistakes like subject-verb agreement, active and passive voice checker, or writing style.

For example, here’s a sample document that I threw at Grammarly to test its proofreading capacity.

You can also set Grammarly to proofread your document based on your language preference (American English, British English, Canadian English & Australian English) to get customized suggestions further.

Not only that,

You can also use the Goals feature to check your copy based on your audiences like their potential (expert, knowledgeable, etc.), tone (formal, informal, neutral, etc.), and domains like academic, general, creative, business copy, etc.).

This goals feature comes in handy because unlike other proofreader tools out there, Grammarly helps you detect mistakes and offer better word suggestions based on your audience and writing style.

Grammarly Performance report

No proofreading service is complete if it doesn’t offer you a performance report. These reports not only help you measure your writing skills (and improve them over time with a spirit of competence) but also helps you rate the work of freelance writers and students).

Pro Tip: If you have an online proofreading job or offer proofreading services, you can generate these PDF performance reports for clients to make your work more professional.

The premium version of Grammarly comes with added benefits like better word choice, checking your content for more grammatical errors, and a plagiarism checker.

Grammarly’s online proofreader tool also provides one of the best plagiarism checker software you can even find. It checks your content against a database of over 8 billion web pages that detects any traces of copied content ( I’ve tried it, and it works wonders! ). Apart from that, Grammarly’s citation generator helps you generate citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago.

Grammarly is also available with business plans for teams ( trusted by Cisco, Dell, etc .) and as Grammarly EDU ( trusted by The University of Phoenix, Illinois, and leading libraries, to name a few ).

Grammarly also offers a  free chrome extension  that proofreads, corrects, and makes sure everything you write on chrome (emails, social media, blog posts) error-free.  ( Add to Chrome for free )

On a side note, if you’re looking for free proofreading apps on mobile, Grammarly’s Android and iOS apps have got you covered.

Get Grammarly Now ››

Recommended:

• 15 Best books about blogging to read
• How to avoid Writer’s block easily (according to science)
• Originality.AI review: Best AI content detector tool for site owners

2 ProWritingAid ‘s Editor and Proofreading Tool

If you’re looking for the best proofreading software for writers, it is this!

I’ve covered ProWritingAid before in this blog. It’s one of the best grammar and spell-checker tools you can find online.

Unlike other writing tools, ProWritingAid offers more proofreading services or features:

• Editing your content : (includes grammar and spell corrections, proofreading, punctuation checking, style suggestions, and other advanced editing tools like tense shifter).
• Style checker, clichés, sentence structure, readability measures, repeated words, dialogue checker, pacing, checking your transition words, acronym, and homonym checker are few of the features offered by ProWritingAid that make it a perfect writing & editing tool for authors and editors.
• Checking for plagiarized content : Even though you don’t copy, there might be traces of unintentional plagiarism (errors in a proper citation, some content influenced by something you read some time ago, etc .) that could ruin the game for your paper. 

I highly recommend you to check out my ProWritingAid review because the range of proofreading that this tool does is insane! I’ve listed over 20 different types of tests you can do with it (and honestly, I left it at 20 because I simply couldn’t include everything it does!).

ProWritingAid is the only proofreader software in this list that supports Google docs ( along with other options like using it online, with MS Word, as a standalone app, etc .), which is an added bonus if you do a lot of writing on Google docs (like me!).

UPDATE:  Grammarly now supports Google docs!

If you’re looking for proofreading software for Scrivener, PWA has got your back covered. 

ProWritingAid works for everyone looking for an easy-to-use yet accurate proofreading tool but works as the best editing, and proofreading tool for authors, storytellers, and potential writers .

ProWritingAid’s style checker detects such errors that are next to impossible for the human eye to check, may that be a passive voice, use of adverbs, or any other readability element like sticky sentences or maintaining a safe glue index.

Having said that…

ProWritingAid, like Grammarly, can be used to preset a style based on what type of content you write. You can set it to check your copy based on business, web, creative, or any other purpose. This feature gives a better scope for proofreading your document based on the industry you’re writing.

SPECIAL OFFER: We’ve partnered with ProWritingAid to offer DigitalGYD readers with special ProWritingAid discount coupons. Simply, go to www.prowritingaid.com use the code “ GYD1925 ” to claim your exclusive ProWritingAid discount coupon and save a whopping 25% OFF .

My Verdict: ProWritingAid is truly a writers’ tool. And apart from creative writers, ProWritingAid as a writing assistant or proofreader for anyone in general, is a tough competition to Grammarly. So, technically it is not #2 on this list; both Grammarly and ProWritingAid are #1 for me.

Get ProWritingAid Now ››

3 WhiteSmoke’s Proofreading Software

While Whitesmoke doesn’t stand a chance in front of Grammarly or ProWritingAid for that matter, it is the best you can get if you don’t want Grammarly or ProWritingAid for some reason.

Hence position #3 on our list.

WhiteSmoke offers all the essay correction, and writing suggestions based on natural language processing or NLP and according to context. It’s a great proofreading software for dyslexia.

It checks for your grammar mistakes, and style errors and offers features like thesis checker to tense shift checker that make your proofreading with WhiteSmoke buttery.

With its plagiarism-checking feature, WhiteSmoke can be your best CopyScape alternative if need be. Furthermore, it offers integrations with MS word and Outlook, so if you’re looking for proofreading tools in MS Word, WhiteSmoke is for you.

If you’re looking for the best website proofreading software, WhiteSmoke’s one-click instant proofreading feature has got you covered.

While Grammarly and ProWritingAid have full-fledged free versions of their software, the free version of WhiteSmoke is very limited and gives you the ability to proofread 250 words of content at a time.

Quick note: Whitesmoke or any of the top 3 proofreading software mentioned above cannot (as of yet) detect content generated by AI writing tools . So, in case you need something similar, Originality.AI could fit your bill.

Special Offer: WhiteSmoke currently offers a 50% Discount OFF the regular pricing for their Spring Sale . So, make sure you grab it while you still can. Claim your WhiteSmoke discount here .

Get WhiteSmoke Now ››

4 Ginger’s Proofreading Software

Ginger software is another popular free proofreading tool that checks your content for its correctness and coherence.

Ginger’s online proofreading service does a great job checking the mistakes in the document you submit. It checks for a variety of errors (like misused word correction, consecutive nouns, phonetic spelling mistakes, etc.) and makes sure your content (may that be an essay, a research assignment, or a CV for a job application) is 100% error-free and flawless.

You can also download Ginger’s free proofreading software to your computer if you prefer a proofreader that reads out your document loud so that you can hear it and spot minute grammar mistakes to fix. 

Like Grammarly, Ginger also helps you learn throughout your correction process with tips about each mistake and how to avoid it the next time you write something.

All these features make Ginger a popular Whitesmoke alternative .

Get Ginger Now ››

5 Paper Rater

Paper Rater is another incredible online proofreading tool that uses a Linux-based OS with artificial intelligence to provide you with the best results to eliminate all the punctuation and grammatical mistakes from your content.

You can also use it as a plagiarism checker tool along with grammar and spelling checks to hone your writing.

There are two ways to use this tool for proofreading your content online:

• either upload the file that contains your essays, articles, etc.
• or, copy-paste the content that you want to proofread online

Then you’ll have to select an option where it says, “ Select the education level of this paper’s author ,” and click on the “ Get Report button ,” and it will proofread your content online and show you all the grammatical mistakes in your content.

Other notable features of Paper Rater as a free proofreading tool:

• Can be used for plagiarism checking
• Automated essay scoring
• Grammar and spelling checker
• Access to their vocabulary builder
• Feedback and writing instructions to hone your writing skills

Although Paper Rater is a free online paper editor, it gives you a ton of other useful features like advanced plagiarism check, ad-free, faster processing text, etc. with its premium version that costs you $7.48/mo or $47.70/yr.

Paper Rater vs Grammarly

There is no comparison between Paper rater with Grammarly. In fact, they are the ones who promote Grammarly right on their website. 

Apart from that, Paper Rater doesn’t offer as many features as Grammarly does, nor is it efficient to catch as many grammar mistakes.

I’ll write a detailed review and my analysis on Paper rater vs Grammarly soon. From the first look, it just feels just another mistake-free grammar & proofreading service.

So these were our top 5 picks for the best online proofreading tools.

Apart from these tools above, here is a list of free online proofreading tools that are worth a try!

6 PerfectIt by Intelligent Editing

PerfectIt by Intelligent Editing is a full-fledged and one of the best proofreading software for professionals. It is designed to be used by businesses, corporate clients, authors, and writers.

PerfectIt offers a plethora of proofreading services that save you a lot of money hiring a professional proofreader.

One of the best features I like about Intelligent Editing is that it learns your preferences over time. This feature saves you time and keeps your style consistent across the document.

You can download Intelligent Editing’s proofreading software to integrate it with MS Word.

It then runs a series of tests over your written document to check every single grammar or writing error ( you can, however, skip to any particular test mode to proofread your document for that specific grammar rule ).

 It does offer a free trial mode, but you’ll have to buy it to use it to its full potential.

7 Autocrit Online Editing

Autocrit is one of the best  online proofreading tools for book authors and editors that can save you from those grammar nazis and create an impression of error-free English.

If you’re an author or editor who wants to improve your writing or manuscript, AutoCrit online editing software is made especially for you. It simplifies the revision process and helps you quickly become a prolific writer.

You can simply consider AutoCrit as an online book editor or proofreading tool for manuscripts, which helps you with editing and revision of your writing (especially helpful for authors who want to write high-quality and flawless content).

It checks your content for too many adverb usages, cliches, sameness in sentences, and a lot more.

To use Autocrit, either use their drag-and-drop text editor to copy-paste all the content you want to proofread and improve (OR) you can also upload a file that contains the text you want to improve. 

Once you click on the “Analyse the Text for Me” button, it will immediately start showing suggestions to improve your content along with the typos, grammatical mistakes in content, etc.

It will ask you for your email address to send you a free summary report of your content once you are done uploading.

Autocrit offers you the following features:

• Helps you compare your manuscript with other famous writers
• Autocrit helps you learn about your bad writing habits so you can avoid it
• Proofreads your novel/book based on your genre (and data it has collected from over seven different genres)
• Custom summary score based on your writing

UPDATE:  Autocrit now offers a free trial, and the paid version with full access to its manuscript editor costs you $29.97 per month.

8 Slick Write

Slick Write earns its position in this best proofreading software & tools designed to help you revise and edit your content easily

If you can’t afford to hire a prolific English writer who can proofread your content, essays, or articles for grammar-free writing, Slick Writer is a handy free online proofreading tool for you.

It’s designed to eliminate all the common grammar mistakes made by most people while creating content which includes;

• Incorrect usage of adverbs
• Free sentence rephraser tool
• Excessive prepositional phrases
• Incorrect usage of passive voice etc

Check the image below to see Slick Write’s free online proofreader in action.

9 Correct English

Correct English is an AI-powered free online proofreading tool that doesn’t require you to download the software. If you want a minimal proofreader that does a decent job, Correct English is one of the best proofreading sites I’d recommend to you.

As the name says, Correct English helps you correct English within your content by checking all the grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes, etc. to improve your context.

What does it offer?

• Free grammar and punctuation checker tool
• Subject/verb agreement checker
• Helps you give pizzazz to your content
• checks for communication clarity in your content.

10 Polish My Writing (After The Deadline)

Polish my writing is one of the best proofreading websites you can find for free. It just has an editor that lets you write or copy-paste your prewritten document to proofread.

It is an essay proofreader free for use and lets you correct simple grammar mistakes and providers style suggestions.

If you’re looking for a free online paper editor, Polish my writing, aka after the deadline is something you might want to try.

Wrapping Up: Best Online Proofreading Software & Tools in 2023 (Free & Paid)

I hope you liked our list of the top 10 best free online proofreading tools and software for 2023.

If you want to stop spending countless hours editing, proofreading, and correcting grammar within your content, start using the online proofreading tools mentioned in this post.

All of them are free to use and easy to access so you can quickly improve your essays, content, and articles.

However,  with over 10+ million other people using Grammarly as their proofreading tool of choice, you can never go wrong with it.

All these proofreading tools mentioned here do their job well, but when it comes to choosing a winner, none beats Grammarly. 

Try Grammarly For Free ››

Pro tip: You can earn money online by doing various online proofreading jobs. All you need is a tool like Grammarly that you can use to proofread your clients’ documents (and if something is more complex, you can use Grammarly’s manual proofreading service without letting anyone know) and charge them a fee for that. You can provide your services on sites like Fiverr or Upwork too.

You can try Grammarly free of cost using the button below , or  gift yourself the paid version  by availing of a 20% discount on Grammarly . If you’re a student, click here to get a Grammarly student discount .

So what are your thoughts? 

Do you have any more free online proofreading tool recommendations? Comment below with your favorite  proofreading software!

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FAQs on Online Proofreading Tools, Software & Websites

What is the best proofreading software?

Based on my experience, Grammarly is hands down the best proofreading software. Apart from correcting over 500 grammatical errors, it has options to check your copy based on tone and language. You can also generate PDF reports for clients or to gauge your writing skills.

What software do professional proofreaders use?

Most professional proofreaders I know use Grammarly. Other than that ProWritingAid is also an excellent choice for professional proofreaders and authors.

Is there a better software better than Grammarly?

Not really, but ProWritingAid gives Grammarly tough competition based on what it has to offer and the value for money.

Which is better Grammarly or ProWritingAid?

Grammarly and ProWritingAid are solid competitors, but if you ask me which is better, I would say it depends on how you intend to use them. Grammarly is intended towards academic writing, business writing, and other forms of casual writing. On the other hand, ProWritingAid is more geared towards creative writing, novels, manuscript, and a favorite amongst authors.

Is there a proofreading app?

Yes, Grammarly offers proofreading apps for both Android and iOS. You can download them here .

What is the best proofreading website?

Here is a list of the top 10 proofreading websites. If you ask me, Grammarly has to be the best proofreading website. The editor, the writing assistant, and the overall user experience make it the best proofreading website you can get.

What is the primary purpose of proofreading an article?

The primary purpose of proofreading an article is to make sure there are no grammatical or spelling mistakes in it. You also need to make sure that the content of the article is jargon-free, conveys the right tone, and has a consistent style of writing throughout.

Why is it important to proofread your content?

It’s important to proofread your content because error-free and flawless content is a must if you want to have clarity in your communication. No matter how good a writer you are, there are always missed punctuations, inconsistencies in writing style, and words that can be replaced by better versions. Proofreading helps you comb out all these grammar goofs and polishes your writing and boosts the credibility of your content.

While choosing a proofreader depends on many factors like budget, personal choice, and company allowance but in general, Grammarly is what most professional proofreaders use. Other than that, ProWritingAid, PerfectIt, etc are also used by many.

What are some of the best proofreading websites?

Grammarly and ProWritingAid are some of the best proofreading websites that also offer a generous free plan. You could literally proofread your writing using these websites (they also offer browser add-ons, MS Word add-ins, and native apps) against the most common grammar and punctuation errors. If you need to advanced options they offer premium plans that can scan your content for almost all possible errors and make your writing readable.

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DigitalGYD content is free. When you purchase through referral links on our site, we may earn a small commission.

Swadhin Agrawal

Hi, I'm Swadhin Agrawal, founder, and editor-in-chief of DigitalGYD . DigitalGYD is a multiple-times award-winning blog where we aim at helping bloggers how to start a blog and grow it into a profitable online business.

I'm a professional blogger for a decade now and am the founder of Value Intent Media Pvt. Ltd., a media company that creates content for a multi-million-sized audience across various verticals.

Our research & content on DigitalGYD is often referred to by brands like The Telegraph, Forbes, Times of India, Yahoo! Finance, HuffPost, Bluehost, Neil Patel, The Next Web, etc.

4 thoughts on “Top 10 Best Online Proofreading Software & Tools in 2023”

Hi, Can you please let me know of the TOP #1 Proofreading software which contains top-notch information about everything?

Like some softwares don’t contain names of rivers, lakes, cities, and towns of the world, etc. and auto-correct them wrong into something else.

It should be an all-rounder, please help!

Thanks, Ali

That’s where a human assistance might come to help. As of now, no software is as perfect as you are expecting. I’d suggest hiring a human proofreader instead. :)

Hi Swadhin,

Wow, I didn’t know there were so many free tools out there for proofreading. I know many people use Grammarly and it never lets them down.

My business partner is my proofreader and editor so I have a built in human to help me, otherwise I would be using Grammarly myself.

I’ll pass this on.

Hello ma’am,

Nothing beats an human eye! You’ve the best proofreader in the world!

Comments are closed.

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Free online proofreading

A reliable proofreading tool for any writer.

A complete environment

Typely is more than just a proofreading tool. It's a complete writing environment.

Thousands of checks

More than a thousand checks are being performed and we've only scratched the surface.

Inspired by the greatest writers

Gain access to humanity’s collective understanding about the craft of writing.

A proofreading tool that does not bark at every tree

Typely is precise. Existing tools for proofreading raise so many false alarms that their advice cannot be trusted. Instead, the writer must carefully consider whether to accept or reject each change.

We aim for a tool so precise that it becomes possible to unquestioningly adopt its recommendations and still come out ahead — with stronger, tighter prose. Better to be quiet and authoritative than loud and unreliable.

Relax, focus, write your next masterpiece...

Writing presumes more than simply laying out words on a paper. Typely helps you get in the mood and keeps you focused, immersed and ready to write your story.

Whether you need a distraction-free environment, some chill relaxing sounds or a pomodoro timer to manage your time we got you covered.

Got questions? We have answers.

No. Typely is completely free and we plan on keeping it that way. We are considering some advanced features however that might be available under a premium plan.

The only limit we have applied thus far is on the number of characters you can submit and that is being set at a maximum of 50,000.

In theory yes but that will require a lot of work and professionals dedicated for this job. We are considering a way of letting the community participate somehow.

Typely does not do grammar checking because it's hard and almost impossible to get right. The aim for Typely is to be precise and reliable.

The four best AI writing apps worth a try

Suswati Basu is a multilingual, award-winning editor and the founder of the intersectional literature channel, How To Be Books. She was shortlisted for the Guardian…

AI tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing writing, aiding in document creation and streamlining work processes.

Human oversight remains crucial to ensure accuracy and prevent AI-generated content from being too generic or erroneous.

Various AI writing apps, such as Copy.ai, Anyword, Writesonic, and Rytr, offer different features and pricing plans to cater to diverse needs.

Whatever the industry, more and more people are using artificial intelligence to assist with their work, especially since the launch of ChatGPT . Many workers and students now use the tool to write documents, essays, and more. It often speeds up the process of creating content and managing the mundane aspects of work. While they aren’t taking over the world yet, they are quickly evolving and have reached a stage where they can be useful, at least in the right circumstances.

Of course, all AI writing software requires some level of human oversight to achieve the best results. Without it, the software can generate content that is rather generic or even hallucinate facts , even though it may appear to be written by a human. As AI tools gain popularity, people are becoming more adept at recognizing the often bland nature of AI-generated content and are likely to either identify it or at least be suspicious of content that seems to lack a human touch.

How do AI writing tools work?

Predictive text on a smartphone or keyboard works in a similar way to AI. It essentially provides an “educated” guess as to what a user might say next based on their history of typing in a specific app. The difference is that it will rely on what other people have said as well, and find some level of commonality.

For example, if typing the sentence “The cat sat on the,” the model predicts the word “mat” based on the input sequence. It’s a simplistic illustration, but in reality, the model considers a vast number of possible continuations based on its training data and selects the most likely one.

Some large language models (LLMs) now use internet searches to gather information relevant to their writing prompts, which they then integrate into their responses. While earlier versions tended to produce stiff and robotic output, developments in algorithms and programming have allowed AI writers to produce more human-like responses. These days, most are using OpenAI’s ChatGPT models to power their tools.

Which is the best free AI app for writing?

ReadWrite decided to ask AI itself for a text prompt to assess how well it would fare:

Write a 250-word short story about a character who discovers a hidden world within their favorite childhood book. The story should include:

• A vivid description of the hidden world, including its unique features and inhabitants.
• The character’s emotional journey as they explore this new world and confront their own nostalgia.
• A surprising twist or revelation that changes their perspective on the book and their childhood.

Copy.ai ’s free trial uses ChatGPT-3.5, hence it is limited in terms of vocabulary and sophistication. Using the given prompt, it managed to create a story about a woman named Evelyn who discovered a magical library hidden in a garden.

While the story was quite pleasant to read, several noticeable AI traits appeared. For one, it used the main character’s name in every paragraph. Several words seem to be commonly used by ChatGPT, such as “nostalgia,” “abundance,” and “vibrant.” Combined with the repetitiveness, it seemed rather obvious that AI was used.

The pro version of Copy.ai uses ChatGPT-4, so it may produce better results. It’s unclear whether the app will incorporate new versions of the LLM, as OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman revealed that ChatGPT-5 is on its way.

Copy.ai is also compatible with a variety of other AI models including Azure and Anthropic , which makes it more flexible for delivering results. Another piece of good news is that the company has a zero-retention data policy.

Like OpenAI, Copy.ai has a free version with limited words, while the Pro version starts from $36 per month for five users, and has unlimited capacity.

Anyword is a little bit more complicated to use as it doesn’t bring the user directly to the writing app. It offers a variety of writing options, including 1,000-word SEO-friendly blog articles, social media posts, and ad campaigns. If you just need a simple text prompt box, you can find it under “general prompt” on the dashboard.

However, it allows you to change the tone of voice from neutral to rebellious, or even to a multi-tonal style incorporating three dimensions. There is also the capability to target specific audiences, whether they are nostalgic readers or creative writers. When kept neutral with a broad audience, it produced a similar copy, characterized by the repetition of names and overly flowery language. Nevertheless, the story was creative but seemed to heavily favor the fantasy genre.

Using other filters, it generated a tale almost identical to the first, including the same phrases such as “The Enchanted Forest,” “newfound,” “intertwining,” and “grandmother.” It’s quite apparent that it has a defined notion of what constitutes a childhood book.

The Starter plan with one seat costs $39 per month paid annually. The Data-Driven plan costs $79/month, and the Business plan is $349 per month.

Writesonic is another free AI writing tool, with an interface comparable to ChatGPT as it has a dark left-hand side panel. Like Copy.ai, the unpaid version is powered by ChatGPT-3.5 among others, but has better billing options than OpenAI. The company states that it is “agnostic” about using a variety of LLMs.

“Our proprietary AI Model Gateway, called GPT Router dynamically routes between multiple AI models, thus speeding up responses and ensuring the best quality output as well as non-stop reliability,” it says on its website. These include Meta’s LLama and Google’s Gemini models.

The AI article writer can create long-form content pieces and includes a chatbot assistant named Chatsonic. When tested with a text prompt, it produced a slightly more imaginative story, making it more reliable than other tools.

Although there is a free version, Chatsonic costs $12 per month when paid annually and claims to offer output quality comparable to GPT-4 and Claude 3 Opus . The individual plan costs $16 and includes additional features such as an SEO optimizer, plagiarism checker, and a tool for facts and citations.

Rytr , with a name that phonetically resembles “writer,” adopts a no-nonsense approach by featuring a straightforward interface like that of a writing pad. That being said, it still allows users to select the tone and use case of the output. Using the “story plot” function, it produced a tale almost identical to one by Anyword.

Not only did “Amelia” have a copy of “The Enchanted Forest,” but she also showed a penchant for streams and creeks. Hence, it is obvious that Rytr also uses ChatGPT-3 for its content writing.

Rytr is free to use, with unlimited queries available for $7.50 per month. In comparison, ChatGPT-4 costs $20 per month currently. The difference is that Rytr offers other features such as a plagiarism checker and SEO toolkit.

Featured image: Canva

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The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

Suswati Basu Tech journalist

Suswati Basu is a multilingual, award-winning editor and the founder of the intersectional literature channel, How To Be Books. She was shortlisted for the Guardian Mary Stott Prize and longlisted for the Guardian International Development Journalism Award. With 18 years of experience in the media industry, Suswati has held significant roles such as head of audience and deputy editor for NationalWorld news, digital editor for Channel 4 News and ITV News. She has also contributed to the Guardian and received training at the BBC As an audience, trends, and SEO specialist, she has participated in panel events alongside Google. Her…

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Best Ways to Read Digital Comics in 2024

Tablets are a great way to read your favorite digital comics from Marvel, DC and others. Check out our top picks!

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Collecting and reading physical comic books can be a fun hobby, but those comics take up a lot of space if you've been collecting for years. Plus physical comics can also be difficult to find, especially if you're looking for older issues or you don't live near a local comic shop.

Luckily, many of the major comics publishers have digitized their comics and developed their own subscription services and apps. That means you can access some of the most popular and influential comics throughout the years, like The Dark Knight Returns on DC Universe Infinite and House of M on Marvel Unlimited .

You can download many of these apps to your smartphone, but its smaller screen might make reading panels uncomfortable or difficult. Tablet screens are larger and allow you to view whole comic pages at once, and they make it easier to view splash pages -- a comic page or two that's mostly one image.

Here are the best ways you can read digital comics.

Best tablets for digital comics

These are the best tablets you can use to access and read your favorite digital comics.

Best entry-point tablet

Apple ipad (2021).

Despite this iPad being a few years old, CNET'S Scott Stein said it's still good enough to do most things you'd want to do on a tablet. That includes reading your favorite comics. The screen is 10.2 inches and the starting price ($249) is low compared with most tablets, which means you can buy more graphic novels and single issue comics -- or prosthetics for your Hellboy cosplay.

Best high-end Android tablet

Samsung galaxy tab s8 plus.

If you want a tablet that can handle demanding tasks during your day and that lets you unwind with some comics at night, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Plus is for you. CNET's Joshua Goldman said this tablet could almost replace your laptop, and it has a 12.4-inch screen, so you can see all the cameos and details when the X-Men host the annual Hellfire Gala.

Best portable tablet

Apple ipad mini (2021).

Apple's iPad Mini is the smallest tablet on this list, with a screen size of 8.3 inches and a weight of just over half a pound. But like Ant-Man, that smaller size packs a surprisingly powerful punch. Stein found that the Mini is powerful enough that you won't crash the system with current apps. However, the $400 price tag might be more than some people want to pay for portability.

Best if you don't mind sideloading apps

Amazon fire hd 10 (update: currently unavailable).

Amazon's Fire HD 10  is the cheapest device on this list ($150), making it a great option for people who want a tablet but don't want to spend a lot of money. You can easily access comics and manga on this tablet through Amazon's Comixology app, but you'll have to sideload other comic apps. Don't worry -- that's easier than it sounds. I'm not Ultron, and it took me only about 15 minutes to get Marvel Unlimited working on my Fire HD 10. Once you get your app loaded, you're set to read whatever comics that app offers.

Best subscriptions and apps for digital comics

Here are the best subscriptions and apps to access your digital comics.

Marvel Unlimited

That large spike in Marvel searches around 2018 coincides with the release of Avengers: Infinity War.

According to Google Trends, more people have searched for Marvel Comics than other major comics publishers over the past 20 years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe probably factors into these searches, but the first MCU film -- Iron Man -- was released in 2008 and Marvel Comics was beating other publishers before the film's release. If you're into Spider-Man, X-Men, Captains America or Marvel, Thor or the Avengers, you'll find them in Marvel Unlimited. 

Marvel Unlimited subscriptions start at $10 for a monthly subscription and $69 for an annual subscription, and the service gives you access to old and new comics featuring beloved characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America. The app has over 30,000 Marvel comics available, and it adds new comics weekly.

You can download the Marvel Unlimited app from Apple's App Store or the Google Play store.

DC Universe Infinite

It appears that films helped spike interest in comic characters over the last 20 years.

According to Google Trends, DC Comics might be the second most popular comics publisher, but then, it has Batman. Based on Google Trends data, the Dark Knight is the most popular superhero over the past 20 years compared with other well-known characters like Spider-Man, Superman, Captain America and Iron Man. DC Universe Infinite gives you access to comics starring the DC Trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, as well as teams like the Justice League, Teen Titans and Suicide Squad.

A DC Universe Infinite subscription starts at $8 for a monthly subscription or $75 for an annual subscription and gives you access to the full runs of archetypal comics like Action Comics and Detective Comics. You also have access to over 32,000 other comics, including influential works like Watchmen and The Sandman, and new comics are added every week.

You can download the DC Universe Infinite app from the App Store and Google Play .

The Comixology app is a digital comics storefront owned by Amazon, and it has over 230,000 comics, manga and graphic novels. While you can purchase comics from either Marvel or DC through the app, you can also purchase popular nonsuperhero comics, like Saga and The Walking Dead.

Comixology also has a subscription service, called Comixology Unlimited, which you can subscribe to for $6 a month . With a subscription you can access over 45,000 comics and manga, including collected volumes of The Walking Dead and Attack on Titan, and a library of Comixology Originals from creators like Scott Snyder. You also get discounts on some digital single issue comics.

You can access Comixology from the Kindle app from the App Store and Google Play .

Libby is an app that connects you to your local public library's eBook collection, including any digital comics your library offers. However, that also means you're limited to only the digital comics your library offers. So you might not have access to older or newer comics, or comics that aren't as popular or mainstream. 

Libby's biggest strength is its cost: free. All you need is a library card, a tablet to read on and a love for comics. That means you can save your money for tickets to Comic Con.

You can download Libby from the App Store or Google Play .

For more, check out the best tablets of 2024 and the best Android tablets and iPads of 2024 .

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Chinese network behind one of world’s ‘largest online scams’

Exclusive: Vast web of fake shops touting designer brands took money and personal details from 800,000 people in Europe and US, data suggests

More than 800,000 people in Europe and the US appear to have been duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a vast network of fake online designer shops apparently operated from China.

An international investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and Le Monde gives a rare inside look at the mechanics of what the UK’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute has described as one of the largest scams of its kind, with 76,000 fake websites created.

A trove of data examined by reporters and IT experts indicates the operation is highly organised, technically savvy – and ongoing.

Operating on an industrial scale, programmers have created tens of thousands of fake web shops offering discounted goods from Dior, Nike, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Versace and Prada, as well as many other premium brands.

Published in multiple languages from English to German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian, the websites appear to have been set up to lure shoppers into parting with money and sensitive personal data.

However, the sites have no connection to the brands they claim to sell and in most cases consumers who spoke about their experience said they received no items.

The first fake shops in the network appear to have been created in 2015. More than 1m “orders” have been processed in the past three years alone, according to analysis of the data. Not all payments were successfully processed, but analysis suggests the group may have attempted to take as much as €50m (£43m) over the period. Many shops have been abandoned, but a third of them – more than 22,500 – are still live.

So far, an estimated 800,000 people, almost all of them in Europe and the US, have shared email addresses, with 476,000 of them having shared debit and credit card details, including their three-digit security number. All of them also handed over their names, phone numbers, email and postal addresses to the network.

Katherine Hart, a lead officer at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, described the operation as “one of the largest online fake shops scams that I have seen”. She added: “Often these people are part of serious and organised crime groups so they are harvesting data and may use it against people later, making consumers more susceptible to phishing attempts.”

“Data is the new currency,” said Jake Moore, a global cybersecurity adviser at the software company ESET. He warned such personal data troves could also be valuable to foreign intelligence agencies for surveillance purposes. “The bigger picture is that one must assume the Chinese government may have potential access to the data,” he added.

The existence of the fake shops network was revealed by Security Research Labs (SR Labs), a German cybersecurity consultancy, which obtained several gigabytes of data and shared it with Die Zeit.

A core group of developers appears to have built a system to semi-automatically create and launch websites, allowing rapid deployment. This core appears to have operated some shops themselves, but to have allowed other groups to use the system. The logs suggest at least 210 users have accessed the system since 2015.

SR Labs consultant Matthias Marx described the model as “franchise-like”. He said: “The core team is responsible for developing software, deploying backends, and supporting the operation of the network. The franchisees manage the day-to-day operations of fraudulent shops.”

‘It reeled me in …’

It was a few weeks before Christmas. Melanie Brown, 54, from Shropshire in England, was looking for a new handbag. She put the image of a leather item from one of her favourite German designers, Rundholz, into Google. Immediately a website appeared offering the bag at 50% off the usual £200 retail price. She added it to her cart.

“It reeled me in,” she said. After selecting the bag she spotted other designer clothes from a high-end brand she loves called Magnolia Pearl. She found dresses, tops and jeans, racking up a £1,200 bill on 15 items. “I was getting a lot for the money, so I thought it was worth it,” she said.

But Brown was being ripped off. Over nearly a decade, a network operating from Fujian province in China used what appears to be a single software platform to create tens of thousands of fake online shops.

There are the big global brands such as Paul Smith, haute couture houses such as Christian Dior, but also more niche, much sought-after names such as Rixo and Stella McCartney, and high street retailers like Clarks shoes. Not just clothes – there are fake stores selling quality toys, such as Playmobil, and at least one selling lighting .

About 49 people who say they were scammed have been interviewed for this investigation. The Guardian spoke to 19 from the UK and the US. Their evidence suggests these websites were not set up to trade in counterfeit goods. Most people received nothing in the mail. A few did, but the items were not the ones ordered. A German shopper paid for a blazer and received cheap sunglasses. A British customer received a bogus Cartier ring instead of a shirt and another was sent a non-branded blue jumper instead of the Paul Smith one they had paid for.

Strangely, many who tried to shop never lost money. Either their bank blocked the payment, or the fake shop itself did not process it.

However, all of those interviewed have one thing in common: they handed over their private data.

Simon Miller, the director of policy and communications for Stop Scams UK, said: “Data can be more valuable than sales. If you are hoovering up someone’s card details that data is invaluable then for a bank account takeover.”

SR Labs, which works with corporations to protect their systems from cyber-attacks, believes the scam is operating on two levels. First, credit card harvesting, in which fake payment gateways collect credit card data but do not take any money. Second, fake selling, where the criminals do take money. There is evidence the network took payments processed via PayPal, Stripe and other payment services, and in some cases directly from debit or credit cards.

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The network used expired domains to host its fake shops, which experts say can help to avoid detection by websites or brand owners. It appears to have a database of 2.7m of these orphaned domains and runs tests to check which ones are best to use.

In Germany, the owner of a glass bead factory said she had received angry calls almost every day from shoppers asking where their Lacoste clothes were. She found out that an old website of hers, perlenzwoelfe.de, had been used for the scam. She was findable as content she had previously placed on at that address was visible in web archives. She reported the fraud to the police. “The officials just said there was nothing they could do about it.”

It was the same story for Michael Rouah who runs Artoyz , an online store and shop in central Paris selling handmade toys. His full catalogue of products was copied. “They changed the name and used another domain … They stole the images from our website and changed the prices, putting them – of course – much lower.”

He was alerted to the fraud by customers. “We generally can’t do much about it … We explored taking action with a lawyer, but it takes time and it costs money,” he said.

The network appears to have originated in Fujian province. Many of the IP (internet protocol) addresses can be traced back to China, some to the Fujian cities of Putian and Fuzhou.

Payroll documents found in the data suggest individuals were hired as developers and data harvesters and paid salaries through Chinese banks.

There were also three templates for employment contracts, where the employer is listed as Fuzhou Zhongqing Network Technology Co Ltd.

Officially registered in China, and issued with an official unique identifier number, the company gives its address as Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian. It is not clear what connection it has to the network.

The contracts set out strict working conditions. The employee is given a performance score and can increase their salary with a higher ranking. They are judged on whether they refrain from playing video games, watching movies, or sleeping while at work. If staff are sick or take a holiday, their salary is reduced for days missed unless they work overtime.

The data includes a spreadsheet describing the payment between January and October 2022 of 2,410,000 yuan (almost £266,000) in dividends to at least four shareholders of an unnamed company.

The Fuzhou Zhongqing company is now advertising for developers and data collectors via Chinese recruitment websites. The salary for a data collection specialist is 4,500-7,000 Chinese yuan (about £500 to £700) a month and the business is described as a “foreign trade company that mainly produces sports shoes, fashion clothing, brand bags, and other series”.

The Fuzhou Zhongqing company did not respond to a request for comment.

Action Fraud, the UK’s reporting centre for cybercrime, said it would seek to have the fake web shops taken down.

Online scams are a growing problem. There were 77,000 cases of purchase fraud – where goods are paid for but never materialise – in the UK in the first six months of 2023, a 43% increase compared with the same period in 2022. In the US consumers lost nearly $8.8bn to fraud in 2022, an increase of more than 30% over the previous year. The second most commonly reported scam is related to online shopping fraud.

According to the TSB fraud spokesperson Matt Hepburn, purchase fraud is “the biggest driver” of online financial crime in the UK. He said technology companies should do more to protect consumers. “Search engines and tech platforms must prevent their users from being exposed to fake sites, and swiftly remove the scam content that is reported to them.”

Hester Abrams, the international engagement manager at the industry collaboration Stop Scams UK, said: “Consumers will only be better protected from criminal outfits exploiting digital systems if businesses and governments make scam prevention a genuine priority. Investigations like this show just how much impact we could have against scammers with a better coordinated international effort.”

Additional reporting from Helen Davidson and Chi-hui Lin

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The Absurdity of Believing China’s Great at Protecting Kids Online

Lawmakers have argued that the Chinese internet is better for kids. They’re wrong.

Listen to this article

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Over the past week, I’ve spent several hours scrolling through Douyin , the Chinese version of TikTok also owned by ByteDance. Both apps are governed by a central algorithm that recommends videos to users based on their interests and behavior. Here is what I saw one morning in the order it was fed to me: a video of an influencer wearing glittery thigh-high stockings posing for a photo shoot, a livestream broadcast of a girl who appeared to be using editing software that made her breasts look comically enormous, a clip from a samurai-themed video game, a day in the life vlog of a single woman living in Tokyo, and a video of a boxing match between two attractive women wearing sports bras.

The content I watched on Douyin was often maximized for shock value, but it was also frequently funny or insightful. In other words, it largely mirrored what can be found on the American version of TikTok, although notably, I didn’t see political videos or criticism of the Chinese government. What was readily apparent is that Douyin is not the sanitized utopia that some commentators have described. “In China, TikTok has a comparable product that promotes educational videos on math & science to kids. In America, they’re promoting videos on eating Tide Pods,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz wrote on X in March. “China’s version of TikTok celebrates academic achievements, athletic achievements, it’s all science projects,” Joe Rogan said on his podcast in 2022. The venture capitalist Vinod Khosla called TikTok “programmable fentanyl,” while Douyin, he said, amounted to “spinach for Chinese kids.”

These comparisons are grossly exaggerated, and the truth is that kids in China regularly view content on Douyin that may be dangerous or harmful, just as kids around the world do on TikTok and every other large internet platform. But there’s something more perplexing—and, frankly, alarming—about this line of thinking, and the extent to which people have begun to imply that Americans can learn lessons from how the internet is regulated in China, where an oppressive regime regularly blocks foreign-owned apps and censors what information citizens can access on the internet.

“China is much more thoughtful and protective of its young people” when it comes to social media, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said at an event earlier this year. “The fact that China has been far more effective in protecting its children from the excesses of technology should make western legislators think,” the British journalist Camilla Cavendish wrote in the Financial Times around the same time, adding, “We are hardly going to win the battle with China over artificial intelligence, or anything else, if we raise a generation of zombies.”

What rarely gets mentioned in these discussions, however, is the fact that the Chinese government has built the most comprehensive digital surveillance system in the world, which it primarily uses not to protect children, but to squash any form of dissent that may threaten the power of the Chinese Communist Party. “Everybody exists in a censored environment, and so what gets censored for kids is just one step on top of what gets censored for adults,” Jeremy Daum, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and the founder of the site China Law Translate , told me.

Read: America lost the plot with TikTok

It should set off warning bells for Americans that many states have explored legislation limiting internet access for minors in ways that mirror what China has done. Last week, the Supreme Court refused to block a controversial law in Texas that would require pornography sites to verify a user’s age with a government-issued ID or other means before they access sexually explicit content. At least half a dozen states have passed similar age-verification laws recently. Related bills—governing not just pornography, but also basic access to social media—are pending in some 30 different states and Puerto Rico, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Although creating obstacles to prevent children from stumbling upon sexual material or signing up for TikTok without their parents’ consent may seem justifiable, the courts have held for decades that forcing adults to verify their age puts an undue burden on the right to access constitutionally protected speech online. Before, we might have expected the Supreme Court to recognize the First Amendment issues at hand and “affirm its previous position that the speech rights of adults outweigh the potential harms to minors,” the journalist Casey Newton recently wrote . “But it’s not clear that we can do so any longer.”

China, however, doesn’t have free-speech concerns, and has spent the past 20 years building and iterating on an elaborate system for confirming the name and age of every internet user, slowly chipping away at the ability to remain anonymous online. The real-name-registration system in the country requires companies to verify the identity of each person who signs up to use a social-media platform or discussion forum. People also need to show a form of identification to purchase a new SIM card, which allows the Chinese government to try to keep track of who is connected to every phone number. Unlike in the U.S., you can’t just walk into a Walgreens in China and pick up an anonymous burner phone. “There is a structural way to verify age that has been embedded in the system for a long time,” Kendra Schaefer, a partner at the research firm Trivium China, told me. “That technical foundation doesn’t exist here.”

The urge to figure out how to protect young people online is, of course, understandable. Many experts worry that children are experiencing profoundly negative side effects from social media, and much of what China has done in this area is part of a sincere attempt to address the same concerns shared by parents everywhere. In this light, it’s tempting to argue that America could also reasonably trade everyone’s digital privacy in exchange for keeping kids safe. But we can look at what has happened in China and see the obvious problem with that logic: It would trap the U.S. in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

Four years ago, Beijing started cracking down on video-game companies, and it now prohibits kids from gaming for more than just three hours most weeks—one hour each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But roughly a year after the rules were put in place, nearly a third of youth gamers in China readily admitted that they were still playing for more than three hours each week, including outside the approved time slots, according to a survey by the market-research firm Niko Partners. The findings reflect what any parent already knows to be true: Teenagers figure out how to break the rules.

Read: Welcome to the TikTok meltdown

One work-around they relied on is buying SIM cards on the illegal black market that were already linked to the identity of an adult, or they simply got their parents or older siblings to sign in for them. These loopholes prompted major game publishers like Tencent to build stringent facial-recognition systems that could be used to root out underage users. In 2022, Tencent announced that people 55 and older would need to scan their face before playing popular mobile games at night to ensure that their grandchildren weren’t using their phones. Why would the U.S. want to go down a path that has resulted in the need for grandmas to pass a facial-recognition test before they can play Candy Crush?

But critics of TikTok are probably right in saying that educational content is more popular on the Chinese version of the app, though not necessarily because of anything ByteDance has done. Rui Ma, the founder of the technology-investment consulting firm Tech Buzz China, told me that Western commentators often fail to appreciate how intense the culture around academic achievement is in China and the ways that is reflected on social media. Kids who are put under enormous pressure to get good grades, in other words, might be more interested in videos related to studying than their American peers.

“The entire system is already set up to support studying over play, and yet, it is still a very difficult problem for parents to get their kids to stop playing video games and wasting time on the phone,” Ma said. On that count, at least, China and the U.S. see eye to eye.