LanguageTool is an open source proofreading program designed to find errors that regular spell checker tools cannot detect. It is a rule-based style and grammar checker that will find errors for which a rule is defined in its XML configuration files, such as mixing up “their” with “there.”
Detects various grammar problems
The program can also detect various grammar problems and comes with support for over 20 languages, including English, German, Polish, French, Spanish, Swedish, Greek, Chinese, Danish, Japanese, Icelandic, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese.
Additionally, it boasts an easy-to-use, simple and straightforward graphical user interface that allows anyone to paste text that needs to be spell checked. It can check the text in the clipboard, tag text, cut/copy/paste text, and reside in the system tray area.
Detects a wide range of problems
From the Options dialog, you can enable which type of problems the application can detect, including bad style, grammar errors, slang, punctuation errors, possible typos, redundant phrases, commonly confused words, collocations, capitalization, semantics, as well as non-standard phrases.
LanguageTool for LibreOffice and OpenOffice
Besides being a standalone application, LanguageTool is also available as an extension for two of the most popular and powerful open-source office suites, LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice.org, allowing users to proofread their texts by right-clicking on selected phrases or paragraphs.
LanguageTool for Mozilla Firefox
In addition, the application is also available for download as an add-on for the world’s most popular open-source web browser in the world, Mozilla Firefox. It requires no restart and places a small button on the main toolbar, allowing you to proofread highlighted text from websites or forms.
Under the hood and availability
The application is written entirely in the Java programming language, which means that it’s a cross-platform software, designed to work with any GNU/Linux distribution, as well as the BSD, Solaris, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, where the Java Runtime Environment is installed.
What’s new in LanguageTool 4.5:
- Improved error detection for Catalan, Dutch, English, Galician, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Ukrainian.
