Druide’s software is a valuable tool for grammatical and spelling correction. It integrates directly into your word processing software and email clients to help you better proofread and correct your mistakes.
Those who write a lot on a daily basis know it very well that rereading themselves immediately after writing a long text is always quite complicated. Typos and other grammatical mistakes that would make you jump on a text written by a third party often seem to succeed in deceiving your vigilance when proofreading your own work.
Fortunately, there are tools, more or less effective, to help you in your proofreading and to accompany you in the correction of your writings. While free solutions like Grammalect – a browser extension – or Scribens – an online remediation tool – can help out, they are still limited and are nowhere near as comprehensive as paid solutions.
Among the best known, Antidote, a Canadian software package including a corrector, a dictionary as well as guides to help you refresh your memory on certain rules of grammar, syntax, spelling, etc. The program takes into account many parameters such as language variations and regional expressions, and even offers for those who would be required to write content in the language of Shakespeare, an English correction module.
Once installed on your machine, Antidote can be used in several ways: by launching the program directly, using the modules integrated into your software, or from the floating module for software that does not support Antidote integration.
Download Antidote (Paid)
1. Correct text from the clipboard
Whatever medium you enter text on, Antidote offers a way to correct it. If no module or menu is integrated into the input software used, it is always possible to have the text corrected by Antidote from the Windows clipboard.
To do this, select your text and copy it to the clipboard using the shortcut Ctrl + C, then right-clicking on the software icon pinned to the taskbar, click on Corrector. The text is then automatically displayed in the Antidote correction window with all the corrections suggested by the program.
Alternatively, deploy the hidden icon bar from the taskbar, and right-click on the Antidote icon. Choose to Correct copied text.
The content is automatically pasted into the Antidote editor and the corrector opens directly with the elements to be corrected. After all the corrections are applied, click Copy & Close, and paste the corrected text where you want to use it.
2. Correct text from software with the integrated module
For certain software, Antidote offers a directly integrated module allowing access to its corrector. This is, for example, the case for the Microsoft Office and LibreOffice office suites.
On Microsoft Word, Antidote is added directly to the menu bar of the software. Click on the dedicated menu to deploy the associated banner. From there, you can access the corrector, dictionaries and guides.
To correct typed text in your Word document, place the insertion cursor at the start of the text you want to correct and click Corrector. The text is then automatically sent to Antidote’s proofreader.
You can also choose to submit only a specific part of your text to the proofreader. To do this, select the part to correct, and click Corrector so that Antidote only analyzes this extract.
3. Correct text from software that does not include a module
For software that is not compatible with the integrated module, Antidote offers a floating bar, generally placed next to the window in which the text is entered.
Clicking on the green checkmark then allows the text of the document to be transmitted directly to the software corrector.
4. Correct some text from the contextual menu
Antidote is also integrated into the context menus of certain software, on Windows as well as on macOS.
After selecting text from any document, right click, go to the Antidote menu, and choose to launch Corrector. The selected content should open directly in the Antidote corrector window.
5. Correct text from the Antidote editor
Antidote also has a text editor in which it is possible to enter your content directly before correcting it. To use it, open Antidote, click on the File menu and choose to open a New Document.
The document editor is based on a very simple interface, but sufficient for simple typing. All the documents created from the Antidote editor can be saved on your hard disk from the File> Save as menu, in html, txt, LaTex or markdown format.
Type your text directly or copy and paste it from another software. Click on the green tick to start the correction.
The corrector opens and directly underlines the elements to be corrected. Once the corrections are applied, click Copy & Close and go paste the corrected content where you want to keep it.
6. Differentiate between errors
The correction proposed by Antidote revolves around three axes recognizable by means of a color code. The first, in red, concerns the language and includes errors in spelling, conjugation, grammar, syntax, punctuation, upper and lower case letters as well as errors related to homophones, anglicisms, pleonasms, etc.
The second, in yellow, focuses on typographical errors, i.e. correcting spacing according to the punctuation used (space after a comma, space before and after colon, etc.), the need or not to use hyphens and hyphens in certain words, ligatures, to check the different formats of hours, dates, numbers, etc.
The third axis of correction of Antidote in blue concerns the Style of writing. It allows, for example, to count the repetitions of words, to suggest the use of synonyms, or to reformulate certain turns of phrase to enrich the text.
These three correction axes are immediately displayed with the number of errors for each as soon as the corrector is opened.
7. Apply the corrections
Antidote’s correction window is structured around three columns: the various correction axes on the left, the complete text with the errors underlined in the center, and the list of the various errors found by the software on the right.
For it to be complete, the correction of your document must be done in three steps, by selecting the correction axis on which to work from the left column.
Then click on an error from the list on the right, or from the full text in the center, to bring up the tooltip showing the detailed explanation of the error detected. In green, a proposed correction is suggested.
Click on Validate or Correct to accept the correction (or double click), or on ignore to reject it. If an error is detected more than once in a document, correcting the first will apply the same correction to subsequent ones.
During the correction, the text can be modified directly from the Antidote Corrector window, but also from the original document. All the modifications made are reflected in each of the two windows, in real time.
Errors detected by the software are classified using different types of underlines and colors. For each, the software indicates its nature directly in the tooltip. When it is able, Antidote offers a suggested correction. However, it may not be able to apply the correction on its own to an element detected as possibly presenting a potential fault. The tooltip will then indicate a recommendation or invite to reread the sentence to correct the possible typo.
8. Improve the quality of the text
In addition to the so-called classic errors, Antidote makes it possible to enrich and rework a text using revision filters, which you will find under the correction elements in the left column.
These filters allow the text to be re-read from three angles: pragmatic, semantic and logical. Items underlined by these filters are not necessarily wrong, but require your attention.
The use of these filters will allow you to reread your text by highlighting figures, names of protagonists, temporal elements, to check the positive, negative, strong or weak aspects of the text.