If you are a writer, you would be very used to proofreading your own content. Though, it may sound like an everyday task for you, you would relate with me for it being frustrating at times.
Why?
Because, part of the trouble with proofreading your own writing, is that you are so familiar with the writing, you can overlook the errors. This is actually a good thing – our ability to guess and contextualize makes reading much faster and easier. However, it also means that we struggle to accurately clean up our own mess. If you want a solution to this problem, we came across a very simple and easy to use tool that will help you edit your writing and spot typos.
TypoVision: Free Proofreading tool
The tool is called TypoVision which makes it very easy to spot editing mistakes by creating an alphabetized list of words used in the document. This sounds simple enough, but it makes a big difference. By disorienting yourself from the writing in its original form you can overcome your natural instinct to overlook typos. Furthermore, by alphabetizing the list, words that should be spelled the same, but which have been spelled differently, immediately jump out. This is particularly helpful for spotting proper nouns or other special terms that have been used multiple times inconsistently. For example, if you write “inc” and “llc” but only describe one entity, this may alert you to a typo.
Over the next few months the developers hope to roll out a few additional features. One such feature will be to highlight each word in the list one at a time for a certain amount of time. This will help you quickly scan through the list without breaking concentration. Other similar innovations are on the way.
This simple software clearly is not going to change the world but perhaps it can lead to at least a bit of better writing. Its free and intended as an extra little proofreading tool that can help you spot errors before submitting your final work. The developers are always looking for feedback and new ideas, so if you have any suggestions feel free to drop us a comment here or email the developers at the address listed on their website.