'Whitesmoke'-writing software

[licity-lieu]

I've just been tooling around with my google personalised page (amazing what needs to get done!) when I noticed the 'add a tab' bit at the top of my screen. I clicked on it and entered the title 'writing'. The whole page then gave me all these suggested links to various writing places and tools around the web (AW was not suggested, to my horror). Anyway, I clicked on this writer's tool called Whitesmoke (http://www.whitesmoke.com/). It seems impressive giving synonym suggestions, solving punctuation problems etc--Catch is it costs $79. (there is a free demo version though) Has anybody ever used this program, or anything similar? Is it just glorified Microsoft Word?

P.S If a program such as this is consulted, does one run the risk of being executed by the writing police?:D

[Sean D. Schaffer]

$79.00? Ugh! I would probably look for something free on the 'Net and go with it.

I'm afraid I haven't used this program you're talking about, but the price seems a tad steep for me. Even a Microsoft program, by itself, could cost less than that at the local computer store.

For me, a word processor should be nothing more than a glorified typewriter. Too many bells and whistles, and the thing will confuse me more quickly than anything else could.

As for suggestions, you could spend $10.00 or less on a quality Roget's Thesaurus and get much the same effect, and something that will work as fast as you can flip through the pages.

But that's just me. Still, I hope this helps you out a bit.


:)

[Jamesaritchie]

Like any other grammar and style program, it gets some things right, and other terribly wrong. There really is no such thing as software that knows grammar. As for synonyms, if there's one thing writers should avoid, it's a list of synonyms.

Whitesmoke can, I think, be of some help, as long as you don't trust it too much, and just use it as sort of a base tool. But you can't trust it anymore than you can trust the grammar check in Word.

[WritingDad]

If you are using MS Word you can easily highlight a word and press SHIFT+F7 which will bring up a list of synonyms and antonyms.

I am also a little leery about relying on a piece of software to suggest ways to improve my writing.

[justpat]

Writing is an art, not a science. So, I don't know if it would be much help. Now I played around with script writing for a while and used special software for that, but thats different because the formatting is so different. Thats all I really used it for.

[licity-lieu]

Thanks all--just what I needed. I didn't think it was worth it either. MS Word can, at the best of times, throw up crappy suggestions so I just wondered if this thing could be better.

Guess I'll just have to continue to rely on my sheer creative genius--not!:e2tomato: