WritingTools

Writing Tools

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

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d3ce4694-b593-45ff-ae9a-892ce94b1dc8

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

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/76d13eb9-168e-4459-ada4-62e0586ae58c


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 ❤️

Buy Me A Coffee


✨ 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! It’s been featured in 25+ publications (Beebom, XDA, How-To Geek, Neowin, Windows Central…).

⚡ What can I do with it, exactly?

1️⃣ Hyper-intelligent Writing Tools:

2️⃣ Powerful content summarization that you can chat with:

3️⃣ Chat with an LLM anytime in a click:

🌟 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:

✅ 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 (work-in-progress):

Run it from the source code

Writing Tools works well on x11. On Wayland, there are a few caveats:

macOS:

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, also open a Finder Window, and drag the writing-tools.app into the Applications folder. That’s it!

👀 Tips

1️⃣ Summarise a YouTube video from its transcript:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/dd4780d4-7cdb-4bdb-9a64-e93520ab61be

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.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/42a3d8c7-18ac-4282-9478-16aab935f35e

✨ Options Explained

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

🔒 Privacy

I believe strongly in protecting your privacy. Writing Tools:

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 (PS: For most local LLM providers, any random string here will suffice.)
    • 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

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

3. Run the Program

👨‍💻 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: ```bash

    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:

```bash
pip install -r requirements.txt
  1. Build Writing Tools:
    python pyinstaller-build-script.py
    

macOS Version (by Aryamirsepasi) build instructions:

  1. Install Xcode
    • Download and install Xcode from the App Store
    • Launch Xcode once installed and complete any additional component installations
  2. Clone the Repository
    • Open Terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to store the project:
      git clone https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools.git
      
  3. Open in Xcode
    • Open Xcode
    • Select “Open an existing project…” from the options.
    • Navigate to the macOS folder within the WritingTools directory that you cloned previously, and select “writing-tools.xcodeproj”
  4. Configure Project Settings
    • In Xcode, select the project in the Navigator pane.
    • Under “Targets”, select “writing-tools”
    • Set the following:
      • Deployment Target: macOS 14.0
      • Signing & Capabilities: Add your development team
  5. Build and Run
    • In Xcode, select “My Mac” as the run destination
    • Click the Play button or press ⌘R to build and run

🌟 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. 🫡

1. Joaov41:

Developed the amazing picture processing functionality for WritingTools, allowing the app to now work with images in addition to text!

🤝 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: jesaitarun@gmail.com

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.