I must admit to being intrigued the first time I saw an ad for WhiteSmoke software. The idea was simple - this was a piece of software that would improve your written work. Now, you all know how I feel about Microsoft Word - the spelling and grammar check just don’t cut it. so I wondered how this piece of software would compare. I didn’t think I’d get the chance though, as I didn’t want to lay out $100+ just to try it out. Instead, I signed up as an affiliate and persuaded my ad manager to let me try it so I could write my own review (they offered to provide stuff, but what kind of writer would I be if I let someone else do all the writing?)

Getting The Program

The software is available as a download and works with any program. You can paste text in and copy it out, or simply compose in the compose window. I tried the online demo, and there are some minor differences from the downloadable product. However, most of the main features are the same.

So, what does it look like? It’s a bit like Word, Google Docs and other word processing programs. It’s got a simple array of formatting buttons across the top for editing style, font and font size, followed by buttons for bold, italics, underline, creating coloured text and a few more. The second row has buttons for alignment, bullets and numbering, and cutting and pasting. A cool feature is that it will paste text from Word or plain text depending on the button you choose.

The top of the window has three tabs on the left (enrichment, dictionary and templates) plus two on the right for information. The templates window allows you to load one of 600 templates in the commercial, literary, medical or legal categories and customise them for your needs. The dictionary is a lookup window and the main window, where you write and edit text, is enrichment. At the bottom of a window is a WhiteSmoke button, as well as undo, redo and demo buttons. The bottom right allows you to select the type of writing you are doing (great for those interested in business and literary, less so for those of us who blog for a living) If you’re writing a speech, dissertation or letter, you’re covered too. On to the main window.

Error Checking

You can use WhiteSmoke with any application, since it works with cut and paste, and you can also set it to check as you type. When you paste some text in, and hit one of those two buttons you get some text underlined in different colours. The colour code is blue for enrichment/thesaurus, green for grammar and red for spelling, cleverly following MS Word conventions. Here is where it gets interesting. Click on or hover over an underlined word and you get suggestions for improvement. So, how did WhiteSmoke do? I used it to check three articles I was writing for a client.

It picked up well on spelling errors. I use UK English, so it tried to convert them to US English. It found no grammatical errors - I had to insert a deliberate mistake to test that. That’s a major improvement over Word, which always finds grammatical errors where there are none. For me, the winner was the enrichments popup menu. That’s in two parts. The left suggests adjectives and adverbs you can add to enrich your writing, while the right suggests synonyms. Just click to add your changes. I liked some of the suggestions and can see where this type of software would help people who struggle with writing.

There are several different WhiteSmoke products aimed respectively at general writing, business writing, creative writing, legal writing, medical writing and executive writing, as well as a language translator that offers instant translation into 20 languages. There are also pro versions with additional enhancements (currently on sale for $1 when you buy the main program).

The Verdict: This is a useful product, especially for people who are new to writing or who have English as a second language. Even experienced writers will find it useful on a day when the words just aren’t flowing the way you want.

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Categories: writing resources
Tags: Features, reviews, writing resources, writing tools