At the beginning of the year, I tried the Cordial correction software, this time I'm tackling the industry benchmark for spelling software with Antidote. For the writing of this text, Antidote provided me with version 9 of its software.

When I work on this blog, I spend a lot of time writing texts, but sometimes, caught up in passion or lack of time, I find myself rereading too quickly and missing spelling or grammar mistakes. And that's ugly!

One solution to this problem is to use correction and writing assistance software such as Antidote. This type of software can detect spelling and grammar mistakes, incorrect word usage, etc. It is therefore the ideal tool for correcting and improving a text.

Published by the Quebec company Druide Informatique, Antidote is an old hand in the field of correction software since the first version of the software was released in 1996!

In its version 9, Antidote is a very complete software with 3 dimensions: a corrector, dictionaries and guides. On a daily basis, it is the "corrector" part that I use the most, but the other modules are sometimes very useful.

The corrector

The spearhead of Antidote, the correction module integrates almost everywhere: web browsers, word processing programs (Office, NotePad, LibreOffice, WordPerfect, etc.), messaging systems (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) or can be used directly via the Antidote application by typing or pasting your text into the window.

When you want to use the corrector on a text, the Antidote screen will open and you will be able to review all the points that pose a problem. These points are classified into 3 categories:

• language for everything related to spelling and grammar
• typography to correct errors with apostrophes, spaces, quotation marks, etc.
• style to work on repetitions, turns of phrase or vocabulary

When you launch the correction, you will go over each of the errors or alerts and a small pop-up will explain why there is an error. You can then choose to accept the correction, reject it, move on to the next error or add a word to your personal dictionary. When you validate a correction, your original text in Word, in an email or other… is directly corrected.

The corrector interface is pretty well designed and allows you to have an overview of the errors in your text!

The corrections themselves are relevant and rarely are they inappropriate... and when they are, it is often because your sentence is poorly worded or confusing... in short, when Antidote makes a mistake, it is your fault!

Dictionaries

Although it is not the part that I use the most, the dictionaries can be very interesting, because they are very complete. There are 10 of these dictionaries:

• Definitions: very classic, but very useful for checking the correct use of words!
• Synonyms: the editor's friend who seeks to avoid repetition
• Antonyms: to find a word with the opposite meaning to another
• Co-occurrences: to see what other words a word can be used with
• Lexical field: set of nouns, adjectives and verbs belonging to the same syntactic category (for example for the word sea, you will find: boat, ocean, sailor, fishing, fish…
• Conjugation : all conjugations of a verb
• Family: This dictionary groups together all words with a common morphological root (example still with the word sea: overseas, amerrissage, etc.)
• Quotes: quotes containing the word you are looking for
• History: This is the etymological part of the word to understand its origin and its evolution over the centuries
• Nano visual: an illustrated dictionary… because sometimes a simple image is easier to understand than a long definition!

In short, you will have understood, on the dictionaries side, Antidote is a fabulously rich and deep software.

The guides

If you feel that your spelling or grammar lessons are a long way off and that you could use a little refresher, then you will be well served by the many guides included in Antidote. There are 11 of them:

• Spelling: all spelling rules (plural, conjugation, capitalization, etc.)
• Glossary: ​​here you will have files on the use of words (neologisms, anglicisms, semantics, etc.)
• Grammar: all grammar rules (adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc.)
• Syntax: everything that governs the order of words and their organization
• Punctuation: reminders on the use of signs
• Style: a point to help you make your texts more pleasant
• Writing: all the writing conventions that apply when writing specific documents
• Typography: everything that concerns the arrangement of the elements of a text
• Phonetics: to understand the sounds and rhythm of language
• History: files on the evolution of our language
• Language points: here you will find columns published on the Druide Informatique website about frequently asked linguistic questions.

As you will have understood, these guides will not necessarily be useful to you on a daily basis, but as soon as you have a linguistic question you will definitely find what you are looking for.

Conclusion

After 2 months of using Antidote on a daily basis, I am far from having explored this tool completely, it is so deep and complete. Even if its interface lacks sex appeal (at the same time, the material is a bit dry so it is difficult to make sexy), Antidote has very quickly become part of my professional habits. There is no longer a text or an email that does not go through its mill... which has allowed me to avoid nasty mistakes, those that we make when we do not take the time to reread.

Beyond that, with all the richness of this tool, I was also able to brush up on certain rules that govern the use of French and its spelling.

In short, if you write a lot and want to improve the quality of your writing, not to mention correcting your typos or spelling mistakes, Antidote is an essential tool! To put in everyone's hands, even those of the youngest!

Article updated on January 6, 2025 by Byothe