Writing Tools

Instantly proofread and optimize your writing system-wide with AI:

Demo.mp4

Summarize content (webpages, YouTube videos, documents...) in a click:

Demo.-.Summaries.mp4

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Hi! I'm Jesai, and I develop and maintain Writing Tools (Windows & Linux) with help from our amazing contributors.

Writing Tools will always remain completely free and open-source.

If you find value in it, it would mean the world to me if you could support my continued development of it ❤️

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✨ What is Writing Tools?

Writing Tools is an Apple Intelligence-inspired application for Windows, Linux, and macOS that supercharges your writing with an AI LLM (cloud-based or local).

With one hotkey press system-wide, it lets you fix grammar, optimize text according to your instructions, summarize content (webpages, YouTube videos, etc.), and more.

It's currently the world's most intelligent system-wide grammar assistant and works in almost any language!

⚡ What can I do with it, exactly?

1️⃣ Hyper-intelligent Writing Tools:

• Select any text on your PC and invoke Writing Tools with ctrl+space.
• Choose Proofread, Rewrite, Friendly, Professional, Concise, or even enter custom instructions (e.g., "add comments to this code", "make it title case", "translate to French").
• Your text will instantly be replaced with the AI-optimized version. Use ctrl+z to revert.

2️⃣ Powerful content summarization that you can chat with:

• Select all text in any webpage, document, email, etc., with ctrl+a, or select the transcript of a YouTube video (from its description).
• Choose Summary, Key Points, or Table after invoking Writing Tools.
• Get a pop-up summary with clear and beautiful formatting (with Markdown rendering), saving you hours.
• Chat with the summary if you'd like to learn more or have questions.

3️⃣ Chat with an LLM anytime in a click:

• Press ctrl+space without selecting text to start a conversation with your LLM (for privacy, chat history is deleted when you close the window).

🌟 Why Choose Writing Tools?

Aside from being the only Windows/Linux program like Apple's Writing Tools, and the only way to use them on an Intel Mac:

• More intelligent than Apple's Writing Tools and Grammarly Premium: Apple uses a tiny 3B parameter model, while Writing Tools lets you use much more advanced models for free (e.g., Gemini 2.0 Flash [~30B]). Grammarly's rule-based NLP can't compete with LLMs.
• Completely free and open-source: No subscriptions or hidden costs. Bloat-free and uses 0% of your CPU when idle.
• Versatile AI LLM support: Jump in quickly with the free Gemini API & Gemini 2.0, or an extensive range of local LLMs (via Ollama [instructions], llama.cpp, KoboldCPP, TabbyAPI, vLLM, etc.) or cloud-based LLMs (ChatGPT, Mistral AI, etc.) through Writing Tools' OpenAI-API-compatibility.
• Does not mess with your clipboard, and works system-wide.
• Privacy-focused: Your API key and config files stay on your device. NO logging, diagnostic collection, tracking, or ads. Invoked only on your command. Local LLMs keep your data on your device & work without the internet.
• Supports multiple languages: Works with any language and translates text better than Google Translate (type "translate to [language]" in Describe your change...).
• Code support: Fix, improve, translate, or add comments to code with Describe your change...."
• Themes, Dark Mode, & Customization: Choose between 2 themes: a blurry gradient theme and a plain theme that resembles the Windows + V pop-up! Also has full dark mode support. Set your own hotkey for quick access.

Writing Tools has been featured on Beebom, XDA, Neowin, and numerous others!

✅ Installation

Windows:

1. Go to the Releases page and download the latest Writing.Tools.zip file.
2. Extract it to your desired location, run Writing Tools.exe, and enjoy! :D

Note: Writing Tools is a portable app. If you extract it into a protected folder (e.g., Program Files), run it as administrator at least on first launch so it can create/edit its config file (in the same folder as its exe).

PS: Go to Writing Tools' Settings (from its tray icon at the bottom right of the taskbar) to enable starting Writing Tools on boot.

Linux:

Run it from the source code (instructions below).

macOS (beta):

The macOS version is a native Swift port, developed by Aryamirsepasi. View the README inside the macOS folder to learn more.

To install it:

1. Go to the Releases page and download the latest .dmg file.
2. Open the .dmg file and drag the writing-tools.app into the Applications folder. That's it!

👀 Tips

1️⃣ Summarise a YouTube video from its transcript:

YouTube.Summary.Tutorial.mp4

2️⃣ Make Writing Tools work better in MS Word: the ctrl+space keyboard shortcut is mapped to "Clear Formatting", making you lose paragraph indentation. Here's how to improve this:

P.S.: Word's rich-text formatting (bold, italics, underline, colours...) will be lost on using Writing Tools. A Markdown editor such as Obsidian has no such issue.

MS.Word.Paragraph.Formatting.Being.Lost.Fix.mp4

✨ Options Explained

• Proofread: The smartest grammar & spelling corrector. Sorry not sorry, Grammarly Premium.
• Rewrite: Improve the phrasing of your text.
• Make Friendly/Professional: Adjust the tone of your text.
• Custom Instructions: Tailor your request (e.g., "Translate to French") through Describe your change....

The following options respond in a pop-up window (with markdown rendering, selectable text, and a zoom level that saves & applies on app restarts):

• Summarize: Create clear and concise summaries.
• Extract Key Points: Highlight the most important points.
• Create Tables: Convert text into a formatted table. PS: You can copy & paste the table into MS Word.

🔒 Privacy

I believe strongly in protecting your privacy. Writing Tools:

• Does not collect or store any of your writing data by itself. It doesn't even collect general logs, so it's super light and privacy-friendly.
• Lets you use local LLMs to process your text entirely on-device.
• Only sends text to the chosen AI provider (encrypted) when you explicitly use one of the options.
• Only stores your API key locally on your device.

Note: If you choose to use a cloud based LLM, refer to the AI provider's privacy policy and terms of service.

🦙 (Optional) Ollama Local LLM Instructions:

1. Download and install Ollama.
2. Choose an LLM from here. Recommended: Llama 3.1 8B (~8GB RAM or VRAM required).
3. Run ollama run llama3.1:8b in your terminal to download and launch Llama 3.1.
4. In Writing Tools, set the OpenAI-Compatible provider with:
   • API Key: ollama
   • API Base URL: http://localhost:11434/v1
   • API Model: llama3.1:8b
5. That's it! Enjoy Writing Tools with absolute privacy and no internet connection! 🎉 From now on, you'll simply need to launch Ollama and Writing Tools into the background for it to work.

🐞 Known Issues

1. (Being investigated) On some devices, Writing Tools does not work correctly with the default hotkey.

   To fix it, simply change the hotkey to ctrl+` or ctrl+j and restart Writing Tools. PS: If a hotkey is already in use by a program or background process, Writing Tools may not be able to intercept it. The above hotkeys are usually unused.

2. The initial launch of the Writing Tools.exe might take unusually long — this seems to be because AV software extensively scans this new executable before letting it run. Once it launches into the background in RAM, it works instantly as usual.

👨‍💻 To Run Writing Tools Directly from the Source Code

If you prefer to run the program directly from the main.py file, follow these OS-specific instructions.

1. Download the Code

• Click the green <> Code ▼ button toward the very top of this page, and click Download ZIP.

2. Install Dependencies
After extracting the folder, open your Terminal (or Command Prompt) in the relevant directory.

• Windows:

  cd path\to\Windows_and_Linux
  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Linux:

  cd /path/to/Windows_and_Linux
  pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Of course, you'll need to have Python installed!

3. Run the Program

• Windows:

  pythonw main.py

• Linux:

  python3 main.py

👨‍💻 To compile the application yourself:

Windows and Linux Version build instructions:

Here's how to compile it with PyInstaller and a virtual environment:

1. First, create and activate a virtual environment:

# Install virtualenv if you haven't already
pip install virtualenv

# Create a new virtual environment
virtualenv myvenv

# Activate it
# On Windows:
myvenv\Scripts\activate
# On Linux:
source myvenv/bin/activate

2. Once activated, install the required packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Build Writing Tools:

python pyinstaller-build-script.py

macOS Version (by Aryamirsepasi) build instructions:

1. Install Xcode

• Ensure you have Xcode installed on your macOS system.
• Download it from the Mac App Store.

2. Clone the Repository to your local machine

git clone https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools.git
cd WritingTools

3. Open the Project in Xcode

• Open Xcode.
• Select File > Open from the menu bar.
• Navigate to the macOS folder and select it.

4. Generate the Project File Run the following command to generate the .xcodeproj file:

swift package generate-xcodeproj

5. Build the Project

• Select your target device as My Mac in Xcode.
• Build the project by clicking the Play button (or pressing Command + R).

6. Run the App

• After the build is successful, the app will launch automatically.

🌟 Contributors

Writing Tools would not be where it is today without its amazing contributors:

Windows & Linux version:

1. Cameron Redmore (CameronRedmore):

Extensively refactored Writing Tools and added OpenAI Compatible API support, streamed responses, and the chat mode when no text is selected.

2. momokrono:

Added Linux support and switched to the pynput API to improve Windows stability. Fixed misc. bugs, such as handling quitting onboarding without completing it. @momokrono has been super kind and helpful, and I'm very grateful to have them as a contributor - Jesai.

3. Disneyhockey40 (Soszust40):

Helped add dark mode, the plain theme, tray menu fixes, and UI improvements.

4. Alok Saboo (arsaboo):

Helped improve the reliability of text selection.

5. raghavdhingra24:

Made the rounded corners anti-aliased & prettier.

6. ErrorCatDev:

Significantly improved the About window, making it scrollable and cleaning things up. Also improved our .gitignore & requirements.txt.

7. Vadim Karpenko:

Helped add the start-on-boot setting!

macOS version:

A native Swift port created entirely by Aryamirsepasi! This was a big endeavour and they've done an amazing job. We're grateful to have them as a contributor. 🫡

🤝 Contributing

I welcome contributions! :D

If you'd like to improve Writing Tools, please feel free to open a Pull Request or get in touch with me.

If there are major changes on your mind, it may be a good idea to get in touch before working on it.

📬 Contact

Email: [email protected]

Made with ❤️ by a high school student. Check out my other app, Bliss AI, a free AI tutor!

📄 License

Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.