Home Office: Help Tools for Tortured PC Prose

Say, have you heard the new slogan for the International Dyslexia Association? (Drum roll, please.) "Dyslexics of the world, untie!"

Hilarious, especially if you are one. And I am, mixing up words, letters, and sometimes colors. So I rely heavily on a handful of neat utilities that watch for errors I make in e-mail, memos, and this column.

They aren't just for the spelling-challenged, though. Anyone burdened with English as a native language (or as a second or third language, come to think of it) will find these tools useful.

The writing utility that I get the most mileage from is Fanix Software's $30 As-U-Type. Yes, it's a spelling checker, and no, I haven't lost my marbles. Shelling out money for a feature that's already built into most text-processing products may sound like lunacy, but As-U-Type's features give me an edge in nearly everything I do on a computer.

As-U-Type's autocorrect feature instantly fixes the spelling errors I make every place I type words: chat rooms, forms on Web pages, Internet forums, accounting apps, and dialog boxes in any program.

Some of As-U-Type's tricks are similar to Word's AutoCorrect features. For instance, when I'm frantically typing a mile a minute, As-U-Type corrects any words that have two initial capital letters instead of just one.

And it can transform specific letter sequences into phrases, so when I e-mail my editor, I only have to type the letters ila to tell him "I'm late again, but we had this blackout, see, and the dog ate my UPS." (By the way, As-U-Type imports Word's existing AutoCorrect list. If you use Word's AutoCorrect, turn it off when you use As-U-Type, to prevent conflicts.)

As-U-Type is so smart that it can track not only common mistakes--spelling receive as "recieve," say--but also misspellings that are beyond belief. An example? Thanks to As-U-Type, you can forget about being embarrassed by typing "imbearissed," "embraissed," or "emgarrassek."

Another of my favorite utilities is WordWeb, which contains a free thesaurus and dictionary that surpass those in Word by a long shot. WordWeb can check a word for antonyms as well as synonyms, and it also lists similar words and whether the word can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. You can install it as a Word toolbar or use it as a stand-alone tool when you're writing e-mail, for example. The $18 WordWeb Pro version adds word-finding and anagram features.

Webster's on the Web

Spend a lot of time on the Net? A better choice may be Merriam-Webster's dictionary-and-thesaurus link for your browser. Simply go to Merriam-Webster, choose your browser, and follow the easy installation instructions.

Once the Dictionary button is on your browser's toolbar, you can highlight a word on a Web page and click the button to see the word's definition. Or select the Dictionary button and enter a word you want defined.

You probably know that someone (often everyone) at PC World checks my columns for errors. I still go through them with a fine-tooth comb of an editing program from Plain English Technologies called WordDog (dumb name, smart program). WordDog improves my prose by suggesting tighter phrases, removing unneeded words, and offering alternatives to clichés. This program will make anyone's writing look more professional.

All four tools work with all versions of Windows, and all but the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Lookup Button are available at PCWorld.com's Downloads.

Okay, one more one-liner: Did you hear about the agnostic insomniac dyslexic? Every night, he lies awake in bed wondering if there really is a dog. (I promise: next month, no jokes.)

SUMMARY

As-U-Type List: $30 Fanix Software www.asutype.com

SUMMARY

WordDog List: $25 Plain English Technologies www.worddog.com

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WordWeb Pro List: $18 Antony Lewis www.wordweb.co.uk