WritingTools

The world's smartest system-wide grammar assistant; a better version of the Apple Intelligence Writing Tools. Works on Windows, Linux, & macOS, with the free Gemini API, local LLMs, & more.

theJayTea
1204
66
Swift

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

Add your own buttons for unlimited potential!

image

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

I want to especially shout out momokrono, who’s extensively contributed to the Windows/Linux version, and Arya Mirsepasi, who built the entire macOS port!

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, and it’s been featured in 🔥 25+ publications (Beebom, XDA, How-To Geek, Neowin, Windows Central…).

Writing Tools was also the 🔥 8th most trending AI program in the world on GitHub in Oct '24.

⚡ 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 Go wild with your own buttons!

  • They’re your own magic buttons. Dream, and it’ll magically be done with AI.

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 or in the EU:

  • 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 even when actively using it.
  • 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.

✅ 1 Minute Installation

🪟 Windows:

  1. Go to the Releases page and download the latest Writing.Tools.zip file.
  2. Extract it to your desired location (recommended: Documents or App Data/Local), run Writing Tools.exe, and enjoy! 😄

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

🔒 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.

✨ 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.

🦙 (Optional) Ollama Local LLM Instructions [for Windows/Linux v7 onwards]:

These instructions are for Writing Tools Windows/Linux v7+, using its native Ollama provider:

  1. Download and install Ollama.
  2. Choose an LLM from here. Recommended: Llama 3.1 8B (~8GB RAM of VRAM required).
  3. Run ollama pull llama3.1:8b in your terminal to download it.
  4. Open Writing Tools Settings and simply select the Ollama AI Provider. The default model name is already Llama 3.1 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.

🦙 (Optional) Ollama Local LLM Instructions:

These instructions are for any Writing Tools version, using the OpenAI-Compatible provider:

  1. Download and install Ollama.
  2. Choose an LLM from here. Recommended: Llama 3.1 8B (~8GB RAM of VRAM/RAM required).
  3. Run ollama pull llama3.1:8b in your terminal to download 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

Instructions here!

👨‍💻 To Compile the Application Yourself:

Instructions here!

🌟 Contributors

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

🪟🐧 Windows & Linux version:

1. momokrono:

Added Linux support, switched to the pynput API to improve Windows stability. Added Ollama API support, the core logic for customisable buttons, and localization. Fixed misc. bugs and added graceful termination support by handling SIGINT signal.

@momokrono has been incredibly kind and helpful, and I’m forever grateful to have him as a contributor. Not only has he provided extensive help with code, but he’s also played a big role in managing GitHub issues. - Jesai

2. Cameron Redmore (CameronRedmore):

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

3. Soszust40 (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 Arya Mirsepasi! This was a big endeavour and he’s done an increadble job.

Over so many emails, @Aryamirsepasi has been someone I truly look up to, and it’s rare to find people as kind as him. We’re incredibly grateful for all his contributions here! — Jesai

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! 😄

If you’d like to improve Writing Tools, please feel free to open a Pull Request or get in touch with me (email below).

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.