If you’re looking for one of the best grammar checkers around, I’d recommend taking Antidote for a spin. I use it like a little office assistant to catch errors my eyes may have read over after I’ve already proofread a document multiple times. It ranks among my most frequently used tools, alongside Outlook, Firefox, and my accounting software. I’ve pinned it to my computer’s task bar, so it’s always within reach, whatever I’m working on.

Antidote's logo

A fellow translator once recommended Antidote to me – it has been around for a long time, but in my experience few other translators or writers/editors have heard of it. I have no link whatsoever (financial or otherwise) with Antidote, but I’m keen to tell you about it because I find it so useful.

I should say upfront that I prefer to stay in the linguistic driving seat in my work, so please remember that tools like this are the buttons on the dashboard getting me to the right destination, which means helping me deliver the best possible work for my clients.

Read on for a behind-the-scenes look at how I use this software to help me to reach the holy grail of clear, consistent, correct and complete English translations and edits.

What is Antidote and how much does it cost?

Antidote is writing assistance software and it’s published by Quebec-based Druide.

It’s a grammar and style corrector, a bit like Grammarly or ProWriting Aid.
It integrates with Windows applications and with CAT tools (useful for translators).
The latest version is 12.
Antidote is compatible with Mac or PC and has a mobile version.
You can use it for English or French (or both).
It costs €59.00 per year (billed annually) and you can add the second language for around €30.
I think there’s a limited free option. Or you can try it free for 30 days.

The details: what does Antidote+ include?

To write this blog post, I had to devote a little time to going deeper under the hood of Antidote’s features, and I came across some other neat little perks I wasn’t already familiar with. The counting and billing feature (more on that later) is one example, but I found that my subscription includes Antidote Mobile. I didn’t even have that app installed on my phone, thinking I would never need it. Thinking about it, it could offer a useful bilingual dictionary when travelling in France or when a work-related idea pops into my head when I’m away from my desk. Plus I didn’t know it offered interactive maps and satellite photos of cities and countries around the world. How cool!

I don’t use Antidote Web either; I use the downloadable version of the software that requires no internet access. That means this post will only cover the features of the downloadable version, because I’m not as familiar with the web version. One of the reasons why I have opted for that version is because I wanted peace of mind that my work will stay only on my local computer and isn’t being used to train AI hosted on random servers.

Dictionaries and reference material

Antidote includes pretty comprehensive dictionaries that are frequently updated with new words, just like my other online dictionary subscriptions. It does not replace my online Oxford Premium dictionaries account, my paper New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, or any of my style guides or spelling dictionaries, which I regard as the ultimate authorities. But it does offer me a dictionary at a click, perfect for early queries while working on a first draft of a translation or a first pass of a copy-edit, before I do further research. The information it gives me includes etymologies, synonyms, hyponyms and antonyms, phonetic transcriptions and audio pronunciation.

As you can see from the screenshot, the dictionary options are neatly displayed in a left-hand column, with the main information in the middle screen, and further details on the right. This includes further sources of information about the word in context and its origins, plus word frequency – this latter bit of information isn’t something typically found in other dictionaries I use.

A playground for language lovers

If you spend a bit of time exploring the software, you’ll discover language guides, including one on the basics of business writing. How about rhymes for your word query, or even quotations? Tick. And buckle up, because you’ll even find an extensive guide to punctuation and grammar, if that’s your thing (guilty as charged).

Collocations

One of my favourite and most-used features in Antidote is the collocations dictionary (they call it Combinations). Honestly, if you’re a translator, editor or writer, several times a day you’ll be asking yourself, ‘but do we actually say it like this?’, or ‘that doesn’t sound quite right, can I check somewhere?’. Antidote’s got your back. There are collocations dictionaries online, but I find that this one saves me time.

***Can I get a side of verb modifier with that adverb?***

Spelling treasure trove

Spelling variants are another super useful detail, as seen in the right-hand column in the screenshot below. Sure, other dictionaries can tell me whether a word like ‘program’ is US or UK spelling. But other Englishes exist, too! Multilingual authors writing in English, but for whom English is not their first language, may find they’re not confident about which variant uses which spelling. And remember: Canadian or Australian English may use a spelling variant you might not expect.

***Did you know ‘downwards’ (with an ‘s’) is the UK spelling?***

Finally, Antidote’s dictionaries offer a few customisation options, so you can also add your words to your custom dictionary (stored locally).

Counting words or characters. And billing, too!

One brilliant feature that I’ve only just discovered, even after using the software for a few years, is the ‘statistics’ tab. This will count a text you’ve written by words, characters or sentences, and even tell you the total reading time. You can get some of this in Word, of course, but you may also want access to these stats when working in a different tool with the Antidote plugin. One example from my own work would be MemoQ – I can use the Antidote plugin to check the word count and other stats without having to first export the file back to its native format. Actually, this would also be a great workaround when working in text within Excel, which does not offer word or character-based statistics.

Below the count stats, there’s also a nifty little billing tool that lets you price a piece of work by the word or by characters (with or without spaces), all within the same window. This is a neat timesaver that Antidote doesn’t really shout about. It can also produce a little report for you, if you or your clients like stats!

Writing tools

It depends on the context: checking grammar and sentence structure

Antidote comes with an advanced grammar checker and context-aware corrections. When I’m working, I normally access this feature of Antidote using the Word (or MemoQ) integration.

Here’s two screenshots of how Antidote shows up in my Word ribbon:

Clicking on Antidote in the ribbon, then on ‘Corrector’ with the big green tick, will open up the grammar and typography-checking part of the software. Then, in the right-hand toolbar, you can easily select from a menu of ‘errors’ it has caught – and grouped into categories – and click on them to modify them in the text. You’ll see the changes made to the updated text once you close Antidote.

I don’t tend to use suggestions like style improvements because I usually find they flag false errors. Besides, a human brain is better at sensing which words are most appropriate for the text and audience. However, I do use the corrector to detect things like overused or repeated words, filler words, or words that don’t seem to fit.

This part of Antidote is similar to features you see in alternative apps like Grammarly and ProWritingAid, but I find they are deployed less intrusively in Antidote. The main benefit is that I can choose whether or not to look at these suggestions – it doesn’t just underline everything in a sea of colours that take ages to wade through. It sort of defeats the point of using grammar checking software as a time-saver, if you have to spend ages accepting or rejecting false flags. In Antidote, you can also just hover your mouse over a highlighted word to display a tooltip that suggests a correction along with a detailed explanation.

Antidote as an alternative to Word’s built-in checker

So why are the spelling and grammar checking features of Antidote better than what you already have in Word? Antidote’s spelling corrections are more contextual – this goes further than Word’s built-in spellchecker. Meanwhile, the typography and punctuation verification is one of my most used features. I use this to check for non-breaking spaces, date and time formats, and annoying punctuation slips that may have slipped through.

Maybe because it’s made in Canada, it can also support regional language variation, and even spelling preferences within those. I sometimes work on materials written in Canada, and I can tell you it’s not a case of simply assuming they use English in exactly the same way as American English. In projects that are written (or translated into) US or Canadian English, this feature helps ensure I’m using the right spelling variations. It is also useful for style preferences within UK English. For example, when you’re doing a final spell check, make sure you’ve selected UK English with either ‘-ise’ or ‘-ize’ in the settings and do a consistency check.

Six months ago, Antidote introduced sentence reformulation using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), a new feature for subscribers to Antidote+. Druide’s own large language model (LLM) trains the AI, which Druide hosts on its servers. Reformulation mode suggests alternative rephrasing, often with impressive (but also often silly) results. It provides suggestions for shortening or softening your writing at individual word or sentence level, for example. I haven’t really used this new feature yet, but if you want a quick chuckle, try writing something less than polite and watch it reformulate your ‘abrasive’ tone.

Antidote's rewriting feature — ***But what if you meant to be abrasive?***

Either way, you remain in control of the decision-making; it simply offers you ideas that you can accept or reject, or even refine...or use for your entertainment.

Integrations

As I’ve mentioned, Antidote integrates with Microsoft applications and with LibreOffice, as well as InDesign and most web browsers. I started using a new notes tool recently and was delighted to find it even integrates with that. It’s also compatible with email clients and, importantly, with CAT tools like MemoQ and SDL Trados Studio.

Even without integration, the Antidote Toolbar lets you access all its resources from a floating toolbar, if you click on the flask icon in the system tray next to the clock (on Windows computers).

***Right-click on the flask for a swig of grammar checking***

There are also keyboard shortcuts for correcting copied text, which you can then paste back into the tool you were originally working in.

The verdict: is Antidote worth it?

As with everything, it depends on what you want it for. If you’re someone who works with words every single day, then I would heartily recommend Antidote for giving your work a little glow-up. Or even if you’re someone who just needs a reliable grammar checker for writing business reports and emails, I’d still recommend it over other alternatives I’ve tried.

Pros:

You can easily learn how to use Antidote without yawning through hours of videos or user manuals.
I like that it’s not another monthly subscription; it’s a smart alternative if you prefer to buy software as a one-time purchase. Being able to use the software offline is a HUGE benefit when so many other tools depend 100% on an internet connection.
There are also very few French grammar checkers on the market, so it’s a good option if you write or translate mainly in French.
These days there are few professionals in any field still trying to work with paper dictionaries alone. This software makes me more efficient, thanks to its ability to group categories of errors together so that I can review them in one go instead of constantly switching between errors.

Cons:

Druide released an update recently, and it’s now faster, but Antidote can still be a little slow to check longer or more image-heavy documents.
I’d love to see a few extra features in Antidote, such as a plagiarism checker and a citation manager. It would also make sense for it to offer integration with major style guides.

Let me know if you decide to give Antidote a try, and how you get on. We could create our own little fan club. 🤩

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Translation and editing tools I can’t live without: #1 Antidote