Is any one using Grammarly and have they had any issues with it?

[DAgent]

Because I certainly am.

In general, it's working fine on webpages that I view and type things in on Chrome (I don't use any other browser), and even Chrome's own spellchecker still highlights spelling errors just fine on webpages, usually agreeing with Grammarly. That's fine, but when I use Google Docs, that's where things get weird.

Even though I still have the option to display spelling and error checks on Google Docs turned on, now that Grammarly is in place, Google Docs is NOT displaying any spelling/grammar errors at all. You can still do a manual Google Docs spell check and that does work as usual, but it never highlights the words like it's supposed to, to get your attention to them. Sure, Grammarly is still highlighting them, but there are times when Grammarly turns itself off and I'm not sure what is going on here.

Does Grammarly just disable Google Docs' ability to highlight errors? Is there any way to get both systems highlight errors in Google Docs?

 

[Brian G Turner]

The only issue I had with it is that it was pretty useless for use with a manuscript! I found it to be little more than a worse version of the default Word spelling & grammar checker.

 

[DAgent]

The only issue I had with it is that it was pretty useless for use with a manuscript! I found it to be little more than a worse version of the default Word spelling & grammar checker.

Yeah, there has certainly been that issue. Clearly, it was not designed with creative writing like prose and I dare say poetry in mind.

 

[sknox]

Or fantasy writing, especially historical fantasy. Between the invented words and the antiquated terms, not to mention placenames, not to mention invented colloquial phrasing, a grammar/spelling checker is worse than a noisy cat.

 

[CupofJoe]

I use it with my emailer. It works better than the in-build spell-check.

 

[ColGray]

I use ProWritingAid and find it to be "helpful".

Pro's

• Catches a lot
• Highly configurable (I can set it to a manuscript of a specific genre type or an email)
• I can add terms to the dictionary
• I can add terms of art or terms that are specific to the manuscript/my writing
• The manuscript reports are AMAZIN. They show things like
  • in aggregate, what dialogue tags do i use?
  • Am i within the normal bounds of a genre for tense, description, etc
  • Are my descriptions one sided -- i.e. do i only use visual descriptors but no scent, touch or sound cues?
  • Compare me to a master of a particular genre and show me who i deviate

Con's

• Open up a 100k+ word manuscript and prepare to wait as there is apparently 0 memory between instances of opening a document
• If you "ignore" a suggestion, it will suggest that suggestion again. And again.
• Oh, did you close the manuscript/restart you computer? Cool, all the ignores have now been re-added as things you should check
• You will never hit 100% of the identified things to check because SEE ABOVE

 

[msstice]

I use a plain text editor (VS Code) and a plugin called ltex (LTeX – LanguageTool grammar/spell checking - Visual Studio Marketplace) that uses Language Tool (LanguageTool - Online Grammar, Style & Spell Checker) in the background.

I don't know how it would do with a single file 140k words long, but my manuscript is broken up into chapters and it does fine on things 5-10K in size.

I see that Language Tool has a plugin for Chrome, so that might be worth checking out.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I used it many years ago and gave up. It just found far too many errors and most of them weren't errors at all! In fact most of the time I couldn't even work out why it flagged them at all. They were just words in a doc. It could take me an hour to get through a couple of pages. Honestly the Word SPAG checker was better.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[DAgent]

I use a plain text editor (VS Code) and a plugin called ltex (LTeX – LanguageTool grammar/spell checking - Visual Studio Marketplace) that uses Language Tool (LanguageTool - Online Grammar, Style & Spell Checker) in the background.

I don't know how it would do with a single file 140k words long, but my manuscript is broken up into chapters and it does fine on things 5-10K in size.

I see that Language Tool has a plugin for Chrome, so that might be worth checking out.

I think I might just give that a try some time

In general, I've found Grammarly to be a bit buggy, when you get a word highlighted and you wave your mouse over it to see the pop-up options and then try to select the correction, the pop-up vanishes, and continues to do so once you've got it back. Bit annoying. Then there's the confliction when you have say a spelling error overlapping in a sentence it thinks is grammatically wrong, it just goes a bit crazy when you try to select either option. You really shouldn't have to fight your spellchecker.

In fairness, it does seem to spot more spelling errors than the built-in checker on chrome or in google docs, but the cons seem to outweigh the pros.