You’ve finished your article, your blog post, or your book.

You know it’s time to edit your work. But, editing can be a pretty daunting task, and it can be difficult to be an honest judge of your own work.

If you don’t have the time or money to invest into a traditional editor, then an online proofreading tool can be a great alternative. Especially, when you’re just starting out.

There are a variety of online proofreading tools that’ll help to streamline the editing process and improve the quality of your writing.

But, what’s the best proofreading software for your needs? Glad you asked...

Here are five of the most commonly used proofreading tools, so you can decide which tool is the best fit for your writing workflow.

Chances are you’re not a professional editor. But, what if you could turn to a professional editor every time you finished writing? Using proofreading software is like having an editor in your back pocket.

Sure, it won’t provide you the same level of depth, or attention to detail. But, it can be a great place to get started.

Sure, most word processors have basic spell checking included. But, this isn’t enough. Grammatical errors, sentence structure, flow, adverbs. All of these and more go right over our heads.

A proofreading tool will actually elevate the quality of your writing by correcting these errors and providing you with detailed feedback to improve your writing moving forward.

There are a variety of proofreading tools that have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Below we look at what each tool does best, so you can choose the right one for your next project.

There are dozens of different proofreading tools currently on the market. Each serves respective writing needs and have a variety of features to help elevate your work.

Below we examine the top five proofreading tools currently on the market, so you can decide which tool is best for your writing needs.

Grammarly is one of the most popular proofreading tools on the market. It’s helpful, easy to use, and very intuitive. All you have to do is copy your text into the tool and you’ll be able to fix any glaring spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.

Beyond the web app, it also syncs across any kind of writing you’re doing online. If you’re sending an email or writing a Facebook post, the Grammarly editor will be by your side, cleaning up your grammar no matter where you’re writing.

Plus, there’s even a desktop app, and mobile app for those who send a lot of emails and text messages while on the go.

It’ll catch and correct grammar mistakes like:

• Comma usage and comma splice
• Common grammar and spelling mistakes (while explaining the grammar rules)
• Misspelled words
• Words used in the wrong context
• Repetitive words
• Vocabulary enhancement
• Weak adjectives

ProWritingAid is an editing tool originally developed for authors, that came to life back in 2012. But, far from being just for authors the tool now hosts writers of all types. 

It takes a unique approach to proofreading in that the tool will take your writing and compare it to other exceptional writing in your genre.

Plus, you’ll be able to learn as you edit your own work. You’ll get a detailed breakdown of your most common mistakes, so you can avoid them the next time around.

Hemingway is a neat little tool whose goal is to help you write like Hemingway. Not a bad deal, I know we’d all love to write prose like one of the best writers in history.

This app focuses on improving the readability of your writing. It’s available as an online app, or as a downloadable desktop version. However, the desktop version will cost your $19.99. But, if you’re doing a lot of writing, and prefer to do it with the wifi off. Then, this can integrate nicely with your writing workflow.

When you paste your text into the app it’ll break down your writing based on the following metrics:

• The number of adverbs you use
• The number of times you use passive voice
• Complex phrases that have simpler alternatives
• The number of sentences that are hard to read
• The number of sentences that are very hard to read

Your goal is to have these numbers as low as possible. If you’re used to writing lengthy, complex sentences, then this tool will offer a lot of corrections. It will help you write with simplicity, and make it as easy as possible for your readers to digest your words.

Ginger is a proofreading tool that’s been around for over a decade, making it one of the longest-running editing tools. Some recent updates to the software have elevated it to one of the top tools in the space.

Other tools like Grammarly have a larger user base, however, the feature set is pretty similar. The free version works great as a proofreader and will pick up grammar and spelling errors while offering a useful sentence rephraser. It also has a personal trainer feature will help to identify and eliminate any weaknesses with your writing.

But, the real power of Ginger comes to life with the premium version. For example, there’s a built-in text reader which will read aloud any text within a Word Doc, PowerPoint, website opened with Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer, and even Outlook.

This gives you a better perspective on the readability of your content and lets you catch errors you’ll typically miss.

Plus, there’s a super useful translation feature that can translate your writing into 60 different languages. If you’re writing for a multicultural audience, or want to have portions of your text in different languages, then this feature is invaluable.

Whitesmoke truly shines in its ability to be everywhere. A lot of writers have a specific writing program they stick to, and it can be hard to break away from that.

With an integrated tool, you can save a lot of time. Instead of having to copy and paste your work back and forth, you can do it all in one place. You can install Whitesmoke on your computer and this tool will show up wherever you’re writing.

This tool will help to check your grammar, spelling, syntax, sentence flow, and even provide contextual recommendations. A lot of tools just provide a word-by-word breakdown of your grammar and spelling mistakes, but Whitesmoke provides a contextual analysis of your entire text. This will help to provide you with more accurate recommendations that’ll improve the quality of your writing.

Maybe you’re just looking for a simple edit, and nothing as extensive as the level of editing the above tools provide. There’s a handful of other proofreading software that are used for more specific writing and editing needs.

Here are a few additional proofreading tools worth exploring:

As you can see there are a ton of different proofreading tools you can use to elevate the quality of your writing.

The proofreading software you’ll end up using depends on your overall needs. If you just need a quick grammar cleanup, then running your writing through the free version of Grammarly or ProWritingAid will do the trick. Or, you could even use one of the simpler tools in the section above.

For more high-level editing work, then you’ll probably want to upgrade to one of the premium versions of the tools highlighted above.

Personally, I prefer the combination of Hemingway App to tighten up my work, then run it through Grammarly for grammar and spelling cleanup. But the choice is yours!

What’s your go-to proofreading software? Please share your favorite in the comments below!