First-month impressions of Readability Formulas and how its data compares to Grammarly's free plan. I'm using them to improve my writing on a shoestring budget.
How do you tend to like Grammarly for writing posts? I just used it for my last article and it seems to have worked out nicely. I'm still playing around with word processors that work best and haven't decided yet. I don't particularly like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. I like the online cloud saving of Grammarly so I can move between devices, so I'm leaning towards that these days. But, I'm not sure if maybe there is something I'm missing that Grammarly does poorly!
Hi Jacob! Great question. Being able to move between devices with cloud is definitely a plus. I'm not using Grammarly as my editor, though. I write in a Google Doc if I'm on mobile or I am working with a collaborator who isn't yet on Substack. Otherwise, I write directly in the Substack editor on my laptop. Being able to write and edit on mobile is a gap I hope Substack will address soon in their app.
1. Their Performance report only has 1 readability score, and doesn't provide much data or insight into the 'why' behind a score. I wanted more data and more insights.
2. Their policies offer no protection of our data and content (what we put in their site or use with their tools). They don't *sell* our data or content, but it is fair game for them to *use* it to train their AI models. I object to that on principle.
For what I used it for, I mostly liked Grammarly and would probably use it more for quick checks (or even for editing, like you do) if their AI policy was more ethical.
Here's what I have noticed in using Grammarly.
1. It doesn't seem to distinguish URLs from other text. This is mostly a problem for the readability scoring and statistics. The elements of the URL are treated like like individual weird words.
2. I can't teach it to ignore names. Example: It always tells me to capitalize the a in "agile Teams", the name of one of my publications. I use a little a on purpose (my About page explains why). And we can't add two-word terms to our personal dictionaries in Grammarly. So it will never stop making this annoying suggestion.
3. It doesn't recognize capitalized company names or product names as singular. "Readability Formulas" is a company and tool name. The verb that follows needs to be singular.
4. Not all of its suggestions are valid. Some of them are just a matter of style and I don't want to change mine. And I haven't seen a way to globally turn off an annoying rule, like you can with MS Word.
5. It mostly handles rich text formatting, but sometimes it chokes. When I paste rich text from Substack into Grammarly, I usually see weird errors after formatted texts. Example: the space between a word in italics and the following word gets lost, and Grammarly flags the non-word that results from mashing the two words together. (If you're just editing directly in Grammarly, not pasting, this probably won't affect you.)
I do wish Grammarly had a way to ignore all quotations. When authors are quoting someone with text inside double quotes, we should *not* be advised to change the quoted words 🙂.
Aside from the ethics and data gaps, the frequent popups prompting to upgrade to premium are annoying. In general, I rated their functionality and usability as good otherwise. If you're ok with their use of your content for training their AI, it could be a solid choice for editing. Best of luck in finding a writing tool that works for you! If you write about it, please let me know (tag me) :)
Thank you so much, Karen for this really detailed perspective. This helps me a ton. The quirks in Grammarly with all the pop-up suggestions didn’t seem to bother me as they are pretty easy to dismiss for me. The fact it didn’t recognize names and there’s no way to globally ignore similar errors is annoying though. I did not know they have no privacy rules on your writing and that’s unfortunate. I assumed Google Docs had none either, so that’s why I’ve historically shied away from anything of theirs… for the first few months, I typed directly in the Substack editor and liked the ease of it. Plus I use lots of images and the copy/paste from another editor with photos into Substack isn't reliable. The fatal error though is that the Substack error has no consistent grammatical or spell-check features. Sometimes I will have the red underline on a misspelled word, but it's very inconsistent and unreliable to the point I don't trust it. In that sense, I need another more reliable editor, unfortunately. I guess the search continues, but thank you so much for this detailed answer! I'll check out your other resources and keep looking. Google Docs has been recommended a few times to me so maybe that's just the best route.
Yes, there aren't any great options (yet ;). I would definitely assume that Google Docs uses your file contents, and MS too if you are storing your files in their cloud. (I use Word with local files only.) Zoho might not?
I've found that pasting between Google Docs and the Substack editor can be a bit flaky, especially with footnotes. Some other things to look out for:
1. When I try to copy from Substack into some other doc, the editor often won't let me copy the whole post, even using keyboard shortcuts to go to beginning and end of page. Certain widgets or buttons seem to disrupt the copy, and I have to copy in sections to get the whole post into the doc.
2. If I @ somebody or a publication, bogus line breaks are always inserted before and after the @ text when I paste it into Word or Google Docs or some other browser-based tool.
Both of these are probably Substack bugs. I avoid them by staying in the Substack editor most of the time.
I actually get a lot of red squiggles for spelling in Firefox when editing in the Substack editor. Being able to right-click and "Add to Dictionary" in the browser helps. Firefox isn't much help on grammar, though. I haven't looked for a Firefox extension for this; there might be one?
Let me know what you come up with, Jacob - I'd like to try it too 🙂
Oh, I guess now that you mention extensions, Grammarly has an extension you can add that works as a grammar and spell-check through browsers and even throughout most apps if you give it permission. Maybe that would be a good fix, using the Substack editor in the browser and utilizing the Grammarly extension to help with spelling and grammar. Hmmm… lots to work through still, I'll let you know if I come up with anything helpful. Thank you again!
How do you tend to like Grammarly for writing posts? I just used it for my last article and it seems to have worked out nicely. I'm still playing around with word processors that work best and haven't decided yet. I don't particularly like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. I like the online cloud saving of Grammarly so I can move between devices, so I'm leaning towards that these days. But, I'm not sure if maybe there is something I'm missing that Grammarly does poorly!
Hi Jacob! Great question. Being able to move between devices with cloud is definitely a plus. I'm not using Grammarly as my editor, though. I write in a Google Doc if I'm on mobile or I am working with a collaborator who isn't yet on Substack. Otherwise, I write directly in the Substack editor on my laptop. Being able to write and edit on mobile is a gap I hope Substack will address soon in their app.
I've only used Grammarly for scoring readability. And it wasn't my top choice for a readability scoring tool. I wrote about it here https://karensmiley.substack.com/p/14-readability-analysis-tools-better-writing?open=false#%C2%A7grammarly-free-plan and here https://karensmiley.substack.com/p/7-readability-tool-evaluations-better-writing .
My tool selection decision is explained here: https://karensmiley.substack.com/i/145310928/step-analyze-the-findings . In brief, I had 2 main reasons for not choosing Grammarly.
1. Their Performance report only has 1 readability score, and doesn't provide much data or insight into the 'why' behind a score. I wanted more data and more insights.
2. Their policies offer no protection of our data and content (what we put in their site or use with their tools). They don't *sell* our data or content, but it is fair game for them to *use* it to train their AI models. I object to that on principle.
For what I used it for, I mostly liked Grammarly and would probably use it more for quick checks (or even for editing, like you do) if their AI policy was more ethical.
Here's what I have noticed in using Grammarly.
1. It doesn't seem to distinguish URLs from other text. This is mostly a problem for the readability scoring and statistics. The elements of the URL are treated like like individual weird words.
2. I can't teach it to ignore names. Example: It always tells me to capitalize the a in "agile Teams", the name of one of my publications. I use a little a on purpose (my About page explains why). And we can't add two-word terms to our personal dictionaries in Grammarly. So it will never stop making this annoying suggestion.
3. It doesn't recognize capitalized company names or product names as singular. "Readability Formulas" is a company and tool name. The verb that follows needs to be singular.
4. Not all of its suggestions are valid. Some of them are just a matter of style and I don't want to change mine. And I haven't seen a way to globally turn off an annoying rule, like you can with MS Word.
5. It mostly handles rich text formatting, but sometimes it chokes. When I paste rich text from Substack into Grammarly, I usually see weird errors after formatted texts. Example: the space between a word in italics and the following word gets lost, and Grammarly flags the non-word that results from mashing the two words together. (If you're just editing directly in Grammarly, not pasting, this probably won't affect you.)
I do wish Grammarly had a way to ignore all quotations. When authors are quoting someone with text inside double quotes, we should *not* be advised to change the quoted words 🙂.
Aside from the ethics and data gaps, the frequent popups prompting to upgrade to premium are annoying. In general, I rated their functionality and usability as good otherwise. If you're ok with their use of your content for training their AI, it could be a solid choice for editing. Best of luck in finding a writing tool that works for you! If you write about it, please let me know (tag me) :)
Thank you so much, Karen for this really detailed perspective. This helps me a ton. The quirks in Grammarly with all the pop-up suggestions didn’t seem to bother me as they are pretty easy to dismiss for me. The fact it didn’t recognize names and there’s no way to globally ignore similar errors is annoying though. I did not know they have no privacy rules on your writing and that’s unfortunate. I assumed Google Docs had none either, so that’s why I’ve historically shied away from anything of theirs… for the first few months, I typed directly in the Substack editor and liked the ease of it. Plus I use lots of images and the copy/paste from another editor with photos into Substack isn't reliable. The fatal error though is that the Substack error has no consistent grammatical or spell-check features. Sometimes I will have the red underline on a misspelled word, but it's very inconsistent and unreliable to the point I don't trust it. In that sense, I need another more reliable editor, unfortunately. I guess the search continues, but thank you so much for this detailed answer! I'll check out your other resources and keep looking. Google Docs has been recommended a few times to me so maybe that's just the best route.
Yes, there aren't any great options (yet ;). I would definitely assume that Google Docs uses your file contents, and MS too if you are storing your files in their cloud. (I use Word with local files only.) Zoho might not?
I've found that pasting between Google Docs and the Substack editor can be a bit flaky, especially with footnotes. Some other things to look out for:
1. When I try to copy from Substack into some other doc, the editor often won't let me copy the whole post, even using keyboard shortcuts to go to beginning and end of page. Certain widgets or buttons seem to disrupt the copy, and I have to copy in sections to get the whole post into the doc.
2. If I @ somebody or a publication, bogus line breaks are always inserted before and after the @ text when I paste it into Word or Google Docs or some other browser-based tool.
Both of these are probably Substack bugs. I avoid them by staying in the Substack editor most of the time.
I actually get a lot of red squiggles for spelling in Firefox when editing in the Substack editor. Being able to right-click and "Add to Dictionary" in the browser helps. Firefox isn't much help on grammar, though. I haven't looked for a Firefox extension for this; there might be one?
Let me know what you come up with, Jacob - I'd like to try it too 🙂
Oh, I guess now that you mention extensions, Grammarly has an extension you can add that works as a grammar and spell-check through browsers and even throughout most apps if you give it permission. Maybe that would be a good fix, using the Substack editor in the browser and utilizing the Grammarly extension to help with spelling and grammar. Hmmm… lots to work through still, I'll let you know if I come up with anything helpful. Thank you again!