Free And Paid Editing Tools Compared: Which Is Right For You?

Gary Smailes | 13 November 2025

Map the Editing Process to Tool Types

Before hunting for subscriptions, match problems to the stage of editing. Each pass asks a different question. Pick tools built for those questions.

Developmental editing

Focus: structure, plot, pacing, character arcs.

What tools do well: diagnostics and summaries, not verdicts. Large language models like ChatGPT or Claude pull themes, list beats, and point to sagging sections. Plottr helps map scenes and timelines.

Try this:

• Paste a chapter and ask for a beat list in scene order.
• Request a summary of stakes for each POV.
• Ask for a pacing map, scene by scene, with slow spots marked.
• In Plottr, arrange scenes by act and track character goals across chapters.

Quick prompt:

"Role: developmental editor. Constraints: no rewrites, UK spelling, thriller genre. Passage: [paste chapter]. Request: list beats, stakes, and turning points. Flag slow or redundant scenes with line references. Criteria: return up to 8 notes."

Use output as a mirror, not a mandate. Your brain makes the decisions.

Line editing

Focus: clarity, rhythm, tone, concision.

What tools do well: sentence-level suggestions. Expect flags for sticky wording, echoes, and flab. Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Antidote, and WordRake excel here.

Tactics that help:

• Run a report for overused words, then replace only where voice stays intact.
• Ask for three alternatives to a single confusing sentence.
• Use WordRake for legal or business prose when punch and brevity matter.
• In Antidote, review connectors and sentence rhythm.

Mini exercise:

Pick one paragraph with a knotty sentence. In an LLM, paste the paragraph and say:
"Role: line editor. Constraints: preserve first-person teen voice, UK spelling, no extra adjectives. Passage: [paste]. Request: offer three rewrites for the bolded sentence only. Criteria: keep meaning and tone."

Accept sparingly. Protect voice.

Copyediting

Focus: grammar, punctuation, usage, consistency.

What tools do well: enforce rules and highlight errors. LanguageTool, Word’s Editor, and ProWritingAid tackle subject-verb agreement, commas, hyphenation, and common usage slips.

Steps to try:

• Set dialect before running checks, UK or US.
• Load a blacklist of pet errors, for example, “comma splice,” “each other vs one another,” “which vs who.”
• Use custom dictionaries for names and invented terms.
• Review rule explanations to learn patterns, then update your style sheet.

LLMs help here too, with careful framing:

"Role: copyeditor using Chicago. Constraints: no voice edits, UK spelling, respect house hyphenation list. Passage: [paste]. Request: point out grammar and punctuation errors only, with short rule notes. Criteria: bullet list, no rewrites."

Proofreading

Focus: typos, spacing, formatting, last-mile glitches.

What tools do well: surface-level catches. Built-in spellcheckers sweep for typos. PerfectIt checks style sheet items across a whole document.

Routine worth adopting:

• Run a final spellcheck after all edits, not before.
• Search for double spaces, stray tabs, and double punctuation.
• In PerfectIt, run checks for numbers, dashes, quotes, and capitalization rules from your style sheet.
• Do a PDF pass to spot layout hiccups, widows, and orphans. Your eyes still rule this stage.

Style sheets and consistency

Focus: capitalization, hyphenation, numbers, names.

What tools do well: maintain choices across chapters. PerfectIt excels with style sheets. ProWritingAid supports custom rules and term banks.

Build a lightweight sheet early:

• Names and nicknames, with preferred spelling
• Capitalization rules for titles and headings
• Hyphenation choices, for example, decision-making vs decision making
• Numbers policy, words vs numerals
• Dialect notes, UK vs US spelling, dialogue punctuation preferences
• Special terms, invented words, foreign phrases

Workflow:

• Feed the sheet to PerfectIt and run checks before each handoff.
• Add new terms during drafting, not after.
• For series, keep a master sheet versions by date, then run checks against the latest file.

Putting stages together

A clean sequence keeps noise down.

1. Developmental pass, diagnostics only
2. Line pass on a scene or two at a time
3. Copyedit on a stable draft
4. Proofread after layout or final compile
5. Style sheet check before every export

LLMs slot into developmental and line work. Grammar tools help during copyediting. PerfectIt and spellcheckers finish the race.

Action

List pain points by stage. Be blunt and specific.

• Developmental: sagging middle, weak stakes for secondary POV, scenes without conflict.
• Line: wordy transitions, mixed metaphors, flat verbs, dialogue tags pulling focus.
• Copyediting: comma splices, misused en dashes, which vs that errors, consistency in toward vs towards.
• Proofreading: missing words after cuts, double spaces, misnumbered chapters.
• Style sheet: place names, capital letters in headings, serial comma policy, UK vs US spelling in quotes.

Now match problems to tools.

• Stakes and pacing, try ChatGPT or Claude for summaries and beat maps, Plottr for structure.
• Clarity and concision, try ProWritingAid, Antidote, WordRake, plus targeted LLM rewrites for single sentences.
• Grammar and usage, try LanguageTool, Word’s Editor, ProWritingAid with Chicago or house rules.
• Typos and formatting, try PerfectIt and a final spellcheck in Word or Google Docs.
• Consistency across a book, try PerfectIt with a live style sheet and ProWritingAid custom rules.

The right stack serves the stage. Fewer tools, clearer goals, better pages.

Free vs Paid: What You Get

Free tiers help with the low-hanging fruit. Paid plans go wider, deeper, and smoother. The right choice depends on your manuscript, your schedule, and your tolerance for noise.

Depth of checks

Free tiers flag typos and basic grammar. Missed articles, stray capitals, common subject‑verb slips. Helpful, fast, and fine for early drafts.

Paid tiers add nuance. Expect notes on dangling modifiers, register mismatches, jargon bloat, redundancies, and diction.

Example:

• Sentence: Walking to the station, the rain soaked my coat.
• Free: no issue or a generic passive warning.
• Paid: flags a dangling modifier, suggests a fix such as As I walked to the station, rain soaked my coat.

Another:

• Sentence: We are currently in the process of initiating implementation.
• Free: flags adverbs or wordiness in a broad way.
• Paid: recommends a tighter option such as We are starting implementation, plus a note on register if business tone matters.

Mini test: paste a paragraph with one long sentence, one line of dialogue, and one jargon-heavy line. Count correct flags, not total flags. Signal over volume.

Context awareness

Free checkers stumble on long sentences, idioms, dialect, and dialogue. Expect false alarms on voicey lines.

Paid plans read context better. They follow pronoun chains, handle nested clauses, and reduce false positives in quoted speech.

Example:

• Dialogue: Ain’t nobody telling me different.
• Free: flags ain’t, suggests is not appropriate.
• Paid: notices quoted speech, reduces or hides the flag under a dialogue rule set.

Example:

• Long sentence with appositives and a parenthetical aside.
• Free: multiple flags, many unhelpful.
• Paid: fewer flags, clearer reasons, a single suggestion that respects tone.

Try a one-minute check: run the same page through both. Count how many suggestions you accept. Higher acceptance equals better fit.

Customization

Free tiers offer on or off toggles and dialect selection. Little room for house rules.

Paid plans let you build style guides. You set hyphenation, capitalisation, numbers, and banned words. Domain presets help too, for example fiction, academic, or business.

Practical wins:

• Add a series bible to a term bank, with character names and invented places.
• Lock in hyphenation choices, for example decision‑making or decision making.
• Force numerals for 10 and above, words below 10, except in dates and ages.

Once those rules exist, checks feel tailored. Fewer nags, more trust.

Document length and limits

Free versions cap characters or sessions. Some web apps time out or mute features in long files. That slows real work.

Paid plans handle whole manuscripts. Desktop versions allow offline editing, faster processing, and fewer hiccups with big projects.

Quick test before a deadline: open a 60,000‑word file and run a full pass. Note any crashes, timeouts, or missing features. No surprise constraints, please.

Integrations and workflow

Free tiers often live in a browser. Copy, paste, fix, copy back. Errors creep in, and momentum drops.

Paid plans plug into Word with track changes. Many offer Google Docs add‑ons, Scrivener integrations, and version history. Teams get shared rules and project spaces.

Benefits you feel:

• One click accept or reject inside Word.
• Suggestions that respect track changes.
• Shared style guides across a team, so everyone applies the same rules.

Specialty checks

Free tiers rarely include extras. Advanced features sit behind a paywall for a reason, they require ongoing maintenance and support.

Paid plans add specialty modules:

• Plagiarism scanning for academic or content teams.
• Inclusive language and sensitivity flags.
• Readability targets by grade or audience.
• Terminology management with approved terms and banned synonyms.
• Consistency sweeps for headings, lists, tables, and references.

If your work involves citations or regulated vocabularies, this layer saves hours.

Support and reliability

Free tools ship with community forums and basic help pages. Response times vary.

Paid vendors offer priority support, user guides, webinars, and faster model updates. Uptime improves, which matters on deadline. You pay for time, not only features.

Sanity check: send one support question during a trial. Note speed, clarity, and tone. Good support pays for itself.

A quick side‑by‑side scenario

Paragraph:

I kind of think we should possibly consider postponing the rollout, given stakeholder misalignments and the fact that we haven’t yet finalized the budget.

• Free result: flags kind of and possibly, suggests consider removing filler, highlights haven’t yet as redundant.
• Paid result: proposes a concise rewrite, We should postpone the rollout, since stakeholders disagree and the budget remains unfixed. Adds a register note if a softer tone serves better, for example We recommend postponing the rollout.

Count how many suggestions help your goals. Free feedback trims fluff. Paid feedback also aligns tone and intent.

When free tiers shine

• Early drafting, when you want a quick sweep for typos.
• Short blog posts or emails.
• Simple documents without custom rules.
• Trial runs to learn a tool’s voice and defaults.

When paid plans earn their keep

• Long manuscripts where stability matters.
• Team projects with house style and shared terms.
• Work that requires track changes in Word.
• Genres that punish inconsistency, for example academic and technical.
• Tight deadlines where support and uptime matter.

Action

Make a must‑have list before testing anything. Use plain language.

• Custom style rules for hyphenation, capitals, numbers.
• Long‑document support without character caps.
• Offline desktop editing.
• Word track changes integration.
• Scrivener or Google Docs add‑on.
• Plagiarism or sensitivity checks.
• Term banks and banned word lists.
• Dialect control, for example UK or US, with dialogue protection.
• Team features, shared guides, version history.
• Data controls, training opt‑out, and clear retention policies.

Now mark each line as Free, Paid, or Unknown for your top two tools. Run a one‑hour trial on real pages, not sample text. If a requirement hides behind a paywall, note the price and the time saved per chapter. Choose the tier that reduces noise and returns hours to writing.

Choose the Right Stack for Your Budget and Genre

Pick tools that match the stage you are in, the work you write, and the money you want to spend. One good stack beats five scattered tabs.

The free only stack

What to use:

• Word or Google Docs spellcheck
• LanguageTool Free
• Hemingway web
• PerfectIt trial or a manual style sheet in a spreadsheet

Where this shines:

• Early drafts
• Blog posts and newsletters
• Tight budgets

How to run it:

1. Draft in Word or Docs with spellcheck on. Fix the obvious.
2. Paste a page into Hemingway web. Tame the purple and red, but keep your voice.
3. Run LanguageTool Free on the same page. Accept clear fixes only.
4. Build a simple style sheet. One column for terms and names, one for choices such as email vs e-mail, percent vs per cent, and how you style numbers.

Example pass:

• Original: She suddenly began to start walking very quickly.
• After free tools: She started walking quickly.

Simple, clean, and good enough for a first tidy.

Limits to note:

• Caps on document size
• Few custom rules
• Browser copy and paste slows you down

The low cost stack

What to use, under 15 to 25 pounds a month:

• ProWritingAid Premium or Grammarly Premium
• Hemingway desktop
• ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro for scene diagnostics and summaries

Where this shines:

• Short books and client pieces
• Solo authors who want better line work
• Stronger control of tone and clarity

How to run it:

1. Set your dialect, audience, and rules in PWA or Grammarly. Turn off noisy categories you never accept.
2. Do a development pass with ChatGPT or Claude. Feed a scene and ask for a summary, beats, and weak transitions. Keep the notes. Rewrite yourself.
3. Tighten in Hemingway desktop if needed.
4. Final pass in your premium checker inside Word or Docs. Accept suggestions that serve your goal for the page.

Example pass:

• Original: We are currently in the process of initiating implementation across several key departments.
• After low cost tools: We are starting implementation across key departments.

You keep control. The tool trims bloat and flags tone slips.

Watch for:

• Habitual over-corrections in dialogue
• Auto rewrites that flatten voice, especially with nerdy or lyrical prose

The pro stack

What to use for editorial grade work:

• Antidote or ProWritingAid Premium
• PerfectIt for house style
• WordRake for concise legal or business prose
• An LLM with retrieval for developmental notes

Where this shines:

• Full manuscripts
• Teams and client work with strict style
• Deadlines

How to run it:

1. Build your style in PerfectIt. Hyphenation, capitals, numbers, series terms, and reference patterns.
2. Line pass in Antidote or PWA inside Word with track changes. Focus on rhythm, clarity, and register.
3. Use WordRake on business or legal sections. Accept only the cuts that preserve meaning.
4. Development notes with an LLM that reads your outline and style sheet. Ask for gaps, pacing notes, and factual risks. Decide, then revise yourself.
5. Final PerfectIt sweep. Fix headings, lists, references, and numbers at scale.

Example pass for a policy page:

• Original: In the event that employees are not in compliance, management will take the necessary actions in order to ensure adherence.
• After pro tools: If employees are not in compliance, management will act to ensure adherence. WordRake may push further to Management will enforce compliance.

You get speed, consistency, and fewer surprises at proof.

Match the stack to your genre

Fiction

• Goal: protect voice while improving clarity.
• Use ProWritingAid or Antidote for line nuance.
• Turn down tone and formality alerts.
• Add custom rules for names, dialect, and invented terms.
• Do not auto fix dialogue. If a checker calls Ain't nobody telling me different wrong, tell the checker to relax in quotes.

Nonfiction and technical

• Goal: accuracy and consistency.
• Use PerfectIt for style and references.
• Add a term bank with approved terms and banned synonyms.
• Use StyleWriter if you want a plain style baseline.
• Antidote helps with register and usage across long sections.

Academic

• Goal: formal voice and reference accuracy.
• Use Antidote for register and grammar.
• Run PerfectIt for reference patterns and headings.
• Rely on your own checks for citations and sources. No tool will save you from a wrong page number or a misquoted table.

Know when to upgrade

Move up a tier when:

• You accept more than 60 percent of a tool's suggestions
• You hit document limits or timeouts
• You need custom style sheets and term banks
• You start working with an editor or a team
• You spend more time fighting the tool than fixing the prose

A quick math nudge:

• If a tool saves three hours per 10,000 words and your hour is worth 30 pounds, that is 90 pounds saved. Compare that to the monthly fee. Choose like a pro, not a magpie.

Your 30 day minimal stack test

Pick the smallest stack that might work. Run it for four weeks on real pages.

Week 1

• Set goals. For example, cut wordiness by 15 percent and reduce comma errors to near zero.
• Configure the tool. Dialect, audience, and turned off categories that never produce value.

Week 2

• Run your chosen checker (PWA, Grammarly, or Antidote) on two chapters. Track acceptance rate and false positives.
• Do a short LLM diagnostic on one scene: beats, weak transitions, unanswered questions.

Week 3

• Apply your style sheet. Add new terms, hyphenation choices, and number rules from what you’ve accepted so far.
• Test PerfectIt or your manual sheet on a longer section.

Week 4

• Run a full pass on one chapter using your whole stack.
• Measure total time saved vs manual editing.
• Decide: stay free, stay low-cost, or move to the pro tier based on ROI, not FOMO.

The goal is simple: fewer tools, fewer tabs, better pages.

Run a Fair Bake-Off on Your Manuscript

Stop picking tools based on marketing copy and forum arguments. Test them on your actual pages with measurable results.

Prepare your test samples

Pick three chapters that will stress different tool strengths:

Narration-heavy chapter

This tests line editing, tone consistency, and voice protection. Choose a section with description, internal thought, and varied sentence lengths. The tool should catch weak verbs and bloat without flattening your style.

Dialogue-heavy chapter

This exposes over-correction problems. Pick scenes with natural speech, contractions, and character-specific quirks. A good tool will flag genuine errors but leave "Ain't no way" alone in dialogue. Bad tools will red-flag every contraction and informal phrase.

Research or fact-heavy chapter

This tests consistency features, terminology handling, and formatting stability. Use a section with numbers, proper names, technical terms, or citations. The tool should maintain your choices for hyphenation, capitalization, and number style without breaking.

Keep each sample between 2,000 and 3,000 words. Long enough to show patterns, short enough to review thoroughly.

Define your success metrics

Track four numbers that matter:

Accepted suggestions per 1,000 words

Count how many changes you actually make. If you accept 15 out of 20 suggestions in a 1,000-word passage, your acceptance rate is 75 percent. Higher rates mean better signal-to-noise.

False positive rate

Count suggestions you reject. If a tool flags 30 items and you dismiss 20, that's a 67 percent false positive rate. Lower rates mean less noise.

Time saved per pass

Start your timer when you open the tool. Stop when you finish reviewing all suggestions. Include time to configure settings but exclude time spent on changes you would make anyway.

Voice preservation score

Rate this subjectively on a 1 to 5 scale. Does the revised passage still sound like you wrote it? A score of 5 means your voice stays strong. A score of 1 means the tool flattened your style into generic prose.

Document these numbers. Tools that score well on paper might perform poorly on your specific work.

Control your variables

Use identical conditions for each tool test:

Same excerpts, same order

Test Chapter A first, then B, then C with every tool. Fatigue and familiarity will affect your judgment, but consistent order keeps the bias even.

Same goals and constraints

Write down your requirements before you start. For example: "Preserve first-person teen voice. UK spelling. Chicago style for numbers and punctuation. Keep contractions in dialogue."

Track changes enabled

Use Word or Google Docs with revision mode on. Export the marked-up version from each tool so you compare side by side later.

Same settings where possible

Set dialect to UK English or US English consistently. Turn off categories you never use, such as formality suggestions for fiction or casual tone alerts for business writing.

Test your prompts and settings

For grammar checkers, spend five minutes configuring before you start:

• Set your audience: general, expert, or casual
• Choose your dialect and region
• Turn off goal categories you ignore
• Add key terms to your personal dictionary
• Set number and date preferences

For LLMs, use a template prompt instead of winging it:

Role: You are a line editor working on [genre] manuscripts.
Constraints: Preserve the author's voice and first-person perspective. Focus on clarity and flow, not style changes.
Passage: [paste 500-word excerpt]
Request: Identify sentences that are unclear, wordy, or awkward. Suggest specific improvements.
Acceptance criteria: Explain why each suggestion improves readability without changing the author's tone.

Test the same prompt structure with each LLM. Different tools will interpret the same instructions differently.

Evaluate consistency and continuity

Good tools remember your choices and apply them across sections. Test this specifically:

Names and terms

If you spell a character's name "MacBride" in Chapter 1, does the tool flag "Macbride" in Chapter 3? If you use "Wi-Fi" with a hyphen, does it consistently suggest the same spelling later?

Style choices

Check hyphenation (co-operate vs cooperate), number style (15 vs fifteen), and punctuation preferences. A tool should learn from your accepted changes and stop suggesting alternatives.

Series continuity

For fiction, use made-up terms, place names, and character-specific speech patterns. Tools should add these to their dictionary after you correct them once.

Reference patterns

For nonfiction, check how tools handle citations, headings, and list formatting. Consistency matters more than perfection.

Keep notes. Tools that forget your choices waste time and break flow.

Export and compare side by side

After testing each tool on all three samples:

Export marked-up versions

Save each chapter with tracked changes from each tool. Name files clearly: "Chapter1_ProWritingAid.docx" or "Chapter2_Grammarly.docx."

Create a comparison spreadsheet

List suggestions by category. Common fixes (spelling, obvious grammar) in one column. Style changes in another. Rewrites in a third.

Score signal versus noise

Count helpful suggestions versus nagging or wrong corrections. A tool that flags 50 items with 40 good catches beats one that flags 20 items with 15 good catches.

Check for voice flattening

Read the "after" versions out loud. Do they still sound like your work? Voice preservation trumps grammar perfection every time.

Sample comparison

Here's what a real test might reveal:

Original sentence: "Thing is, I never figured Mom for the type who'd keep secrets, but here we are."

Tool A suggestion: "The issue is that I never considered my mother to be the type of person who would keep secrets, but here we are."
Assessment: Destroys voice. Reject.

Tool B suggestion: "Thing is, I never figured Mom for the type who'd keep secrets. But here we are."
Assessment: Minor improvement. Consider.

Tool C suggestion: No flag.
Assessment: Correctly identified acceptable informal dialogue.

Tool C wins this round by staying out of the way.

Document your winner and create a checklist

Pick the tool stack with the best signal-to-noise ratio and lowest voice disruption. Then document a repeatable process:

Settings checklist

• Dialect: UK or US, set once per project and kept consistent across tools.
• Audience/domain: fiction, general, academic, or business chosen to match the manuscript.
• Style guide: Chicago, AP, or house style selected (or noted) before you start.
• Custom dictionaries: character names, place names, and series terms added to every tool you use.
• Ignored categories: tone, formality, or “rewrite” suggestions you never accept turned off.
• Numbers and dates: rules for numerals vs words and date formats set the same way in each tool.
• Privacy and data: training opt-out enabled where available and desktop/offline modes used for sensitive drafts.

Save this checklist with your project notes and reuse it for every new book. The more consistent your setup, the easier it is to compare tools fairly and trust the winner.

Costs, ROI, and Privacy/IP Considerations

Price is more than a monthly line on your card. Count every load-bearing piece.

Total cost of ownership

• Subscription tier. Monthly vs annual. Annual often lowers the rate.
• Add-ons. Plagiarism checks, extra seats, custom dictionaries, premium support.
• Hidden friction. Time spent tuning settings, training the tool, and vetting false flags.
• Hardware hit. Desktop apps that run heavy checks might slow older laptops.
• Exit cost. Moving projects between tools, reformatting, or retraining models.

Quick math example:

• Pro tool at £20 per month, plagiarism add-on at £10, total £30.
• Two hours each month spent wrangling settings and false alarms. If your time is £30 per hour, that is £60.
• True monthly cost, £90.

Annual or lifetime licenses sometimes win. If a lifetime license costs £180 and you would keep the tool for more than two years, you are ahead.

Estimate ROI without guesswork

Use a simple worksheet on a 50k-word project.

• Time saved by tool: hours avoided on line fixes, consistency sweeps, and style checks.
• Time lost to noise: hours spent reviewing bad prompts, wrong flags, and clunky rewrites.
• Net hours saved: time saved minus time lost.
• Value of those hours: net hours multiplied by your hourly rate.
• Subtract fees: subscription, add-ons, any per-check charges.
• Result: positive number means keep, negative means rethink.

Example:

• Tool trims 5 hours from a 50k pass.
• You value your time at £30 per hour.
• Savings, £150.
• Subscription costs £24 for the month.
• Net gain, £126.

Track this for two projects. One lucky month proves nothing. A pattern proves value.

Mini exercise:

• Start a timer when you open the tool.
• Stop when you accept or reject the last suggestion.
• Log accepted suggestions per 1,000 words and total minutes spent.
• Repeat with another tool on the same chapter next week.

Data security

Treat unpublished work like cash. Guard it.

• Prefer desktop or offline modes for drafts, especially pre-contract work.
• Read the privacy policy. Look for storage location, retention period, and deletion process.
• Training policy. Confirm whether your text trains any model. Opt out if possible.
• Session scope. Does the vendor store full documents or only snippets for diagnostics.
• Access controls. Two-factor login, role-based access for teams, audit logs.
• Backups. Ask how long backups keep your text and how deletion requests flow through backups.

If policy pages feel vague, email support and ask for written answers. Keep the replies.

IP and confidentiality

Copyright ownership should remain with you. Read the license and look for red flags.

• License scope. The vendor needs permission to process and display your text. Nothing beyond that.
• Derivative rights. Avoid terms that claim rights to outputs or model improvements based on your prose.
• Jurisdiction and venue. Note where disputes get handled and which law applies.
• Confidentiality. Check for non-disclosure obligations on the vendor side.
• Client work. Use NDAs with your clients and keep projects in private folders or offline modes.

If a clause feels slippery, paste the language into a note and translate it into plain English. If it still feels wrong, walk.

Accessibility and performance

Shiny features do not matter if the tool falls over on a real manuscript.

• Long-document stability. Test on 80k to 120k words. Watch scroll lag, search speed, and save reliability.
• Track changes fidelity in Word. Run a pass, accept a few edits, then compare document structure before and after. Headings and cross-references should survive.
• Scrivener or Google Docs support. Look for native plugins, not only browser hacks.
• Export formats. DOCX, PDF, EPUB. Exports should keep styles and comments.
• Keyboard access. Heavy mouse work slows you down. Check for shortcuts and batch actions.
• Offline behavior. Will the tool run during travel or poor Wi‑Fi.

Run a five-minute stress test:

• Open your largest chapter.
• Run a full check.
• Jump to the final page. Add a paragraph. Undo. Redo.
• Save and reopen. Nothing should vanish or duplicate.

Build a vendor checklist before you buy

Copy this into your notes and fill it in for each contender.

• Privacy policy link.
• Data retention period.
• Data residency, regions listed.
• Model training policy, opt-out path.
• Deletion workflow, including backups.
• Desktop or offline mode available.
• Custom style guide support.
• Maximum document size and performance notes.
• Integrations, Word track changes, Scrivener, Google Docs.
• Export formats maintained, DOCX, PDF, EPUB.
• Security certifications, SOC 2, ISO 27001.
• Support SLA, response time, live chat or email.
• Version history and release notes link.
• Pricing, monthly, annual, lifetime, add-ons.
• Refund policy and cancellation steps.

One last habit. Recheck policies every six months. Vendors update terms, and those updates affect your rights. Keep your receipts, your test results, and your checklist. The goal is simple. Spend less, save hours, keep control of your words.

Frequently Asked Questions

Download FREE ebook

Claim your free eBook today and join over 25,000 writers who have read and benefited from this ebook.

'It is probably one of the best books on writing I've read so far.' Miz Bent

Leave this empty

Get free book