Getting Started
PaperEdit is a tool that helps improve your writing by highlighting typos, mistakes, clunky sentences, flow issues, and more. What used to take you hours can now take minutes!
To begin using PaperEdit, simply double click the app. You’ll then be presented with a demo document highlighting many of PaperEdit’s capabilities.
There are three ways to begin editing your own writing. The first is to open a document you already have on your drive (File->Open from the system Menu). The second is to create a new document (File->New) and begin typing. The third is to copy and paste your text right into the existing window.
The Navigation Bar
PaperEdit has several ways of viewing your document, called ‘modes’. You can access different modes by using the navigation menu at the top of the window.
The top tabs (Write / Edit) enumerate the category of each mode, while the bottom enumerate its subcategories. PaperEdit Features the following modes:
Write Mode
Normal
Normal writing mode is where you can write without being distracted by highlighted suggestions. It features an RTF text editor similar to what you’ll find in the ‘Notes’ and ‘TextEdit’ apps.
Full Screen
Full screen mode places your writing front and center, removing all distractions. To exit this mode simply press the ‘esc’ button on the top left of your keyboard.
Edit Mode
Language
In Language Mode, PaperEdit scours your text to highlight issues with language, such as typos, potential style problems, repetitive words, and more.
Sticky Sentences
See how cumbersome the above sentence sounds? Our Sticky Sentences Highlighter highlights sentences which contain an excess of glue words. Sentences which use a lot of glue words are considered ‘sticky’, or awkward sounding.
Repeat Words
The Repeat Words highlighter catches all those words that seem to clone themselves when no one’s looking, whether they ended up next to each other or spread out across a sentence.
Recycled Starting Words
The Recycled Starting Words highlighter warns you when you’ve started consecutive sentences with the same word. It’s easy enough to do but sometimes hard to spot on your own. No worries, PaperEdit has you covered!
Passive Voice
It isn’t necessarily wrong to use the passive voice, but it can take the reader out of the action a bit. The Passive Voice highlighter will help identify these for your review.
Hyperboles
Hyperboles are literally the worst… okay, maybe not, but they can make your writing sound a little over the top if you’re not careful. The Hyperbole highlighter will help you identify and review each one it finds.
Prepositions
A prepositional phrase is a modifying phrase consisting of a preposition and its object. A sentence that uses too many of these can sound unfocused and confusing.
Extra Spaces
Extra whitespace is extra hard to find with the naked eye. PaperEdit will do it for you so they don’t sneak their way into your final draft.
Flow
Flow Mode searches your writing to determine how each sentence and paragraph flows. Overly long sentences or paragraphs are highlighted for review, as well as those which may sound choppy or robotic.
Dialogue
Dialogue Mode highlights all the dialogue in your writing, as well as dialogue tags. It allows you to step through your dialogue without being distracted by other prose, giving you a feel for how the dialogue itself flows.
Pieces of Dialogue
The Pieces of Dialogue highlighter highlights in green text that lies within quotation marks. By reading through just the green text, you can have a much better idea about how your dialogue flows.
Dialogue Tags
The Dialogue Tag highlighter marks in orange text such as “said”, “replied”, “remarked”, and so on. Dialogue tags that are used too often may make your writing sound stilted. Try varying it up with a little help from this blog post.
Unfinished Quotes
One of the harder errors to find in a large work of writing is unfinished quotes. When dialogue starts with a quote but doesn’t finish with one, PaperEdit marks it in red.