WhiteSmoke
Pros
- Good spell checking
- Affordable price
- Very easy to use with no learning curve
- Plagiarism Checker
- Punctuation Checker
- Grammar Checker
Cons
- No free version
- Slow customer service
- The lowest price tier only works within the browser
- Provides some false positives
- Need internet access to work
- Translator feature uses Google Translate
When you post on your site regularly, you know how difficult it can be to ensure that you don’t misspell a word or make grammatical errors. Even one or two mistakes can look unprofessional. Luckily various spell-check tools can help improve your writing. WhiteSmoke is one of them. In this WhiteSmoke review, I will show what this tool offers and compare it with other popular spellcheck tools – Ginger and Grammarly.
WhiteSmoke is an astonishingly easy to use and powerful grammar checker. It is similar to MS Word’s grammar and spell-checks, only in a more advanced version.
WhiteSmoke automatically checks anything you write in Word documents, emails, and on the web. It is also excellent for checking literary works like short stories, essays, and articles. It eliminates grammatical errors or reduces them substantially.
Table of Contents
WhiteSmoke Review Features
WhiteSmoke Grammar and Spell Check Tool comes with a pretty impressive suite of features that help with every aspect of your writing and can work well across many places, including WordPress editor.
Desktop, Browser and Mobile Application
You can download and install WhiteSmoke as a desktop application — working equally well on PC or Mac. It works with any programs you use on your computer, including word processing applications like Microsoft Word.
You can also use the tool on any browsers you run (work with popular web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, and even Microsoft Edge). WhiteSmoke will check the grammar and spelling of any text you write online. That means you can use it with Google Docs, and more importantly, for this WhiteSmoke review, it functions excellent in WordPress.
Additionally, if you do any writing or editing on the go, you’ll love WhiteSmoke’s native mobile app, which ensures that you’ll have excellent grammar and spelling even on your Android or iOS device.
Grammar and Spell Checking
Of course, an essential aspect of this tool is its ability to check grammar and spelling accurately. WhiteSmoke’s spell checker has really impressed me. It has accurately corrected my errors and made the right spelling suggestions most of the times.
It has also done a decent job of understanding the difference between a product name and a spelling error, so you have to spend less time dealing with misfires over company names, technical terms, product names, etc.
The spell-checker employs a special algorithm to weed out misspelled words and parts of speech that are improperly used.
The grammar checker also works very well. It will find most grammatical errors without fail. It does bring up the occasional false-positive, but not frequently enough to detract from the overall good experience.
This comprehensive tool also checks for a variety of grammatical errors, including run-on sentences, fragments, incomplete sentences, subject/verb disagreement, double negatives, shifting tenses, misspellings, punctuation mistakes, capitalizations, object clauses, comma splices, fused sentences, missing words, etc.
Style Checker
The grammar checker also includes a style checker, which lets you know if your work has any problems that make it unpleasant to read. Mistakes like switching tense are a given, but it also checks for monotony and “flow” to ensure that your text is easy to read.
Punctuation Checker
If the difference between colons and semi-colons, dashes and em-dashes, or even hyphens sometimes confuse you, you are not the only one. Fortunately, WhiteSmoke’s punctuation detector can detect and correct such errors for you.
But WhiteSmoke’s punctuation won’t make any changes to your document without alerting you first. WhiteSmoke will highlight the errors first and then suggest substitutions.
Plagiarism Checking
No matter how hard we try, it can be challenging to write something unique when thousands of people write about the same topic online.
This feature will help you keep your writing distinctive and make sure your content is original and unique. You can also check other best plagiarism checker tools if you need WhiteSmoke plagiarism alternative.
Multilingual Translator
WhiteSmoke has a Translator function that can translate content into 55 languages. It also features a full dictionary and thesaurus with side-by-side translations, usage examples, and is compatible with any text editor.
But I don’t see a point of this option as it seems it uses Google Translate to translate content, and we all know that the quality of Google Translate is far from good.
Writing Templates
Even when composing simple letters, a person can be struck with writers’ block. Fortunately, WhiteSmoke has a variety of templates that are designed to stimulate your writing juices.
Software for letter writing can help you become a more efficient and purseful writer. WhiteSmoke gives you access to hundreds of letters and document templates.
Extras
WhiteSmoke has a decent number of product tutorials and videos that explain why certain features work a certain way and the conventions of writing that trigger certain errors. It may not prove helpful for everyone, but tutorials are handy for reducing the number of mistakes.
Sure, you could probably find all of this information online, but it is nice that WhiteSmoke has made it easy to learn and improve writing.
How WhiteSmoke Works?
Start by pasting your text into the WhiteSmoke text editor. However, no more than 10,000 words can be submitted at one time. Once entered, click, Check Text to begin the process.
WhiteSmoke begins to work, checking every corner of your document for mistakes and making corrections and alerting you any that it finds.
WhiteSmoke uses a color-coding system for designating mistakes. Red for spelling, green for grammar, and blue for style issues.
WhiteSmoke vs Grammarly vs Ginger
WhiteSmoke provides all the essential features that you need in grammar and spell checking tool at an affordable cost. As far as I could tell, in most cases it identified spelling and grammar errors with the same level of accuracy as other programs like Grammarly (check Grammarly review) or Ginger (see Ginger review).
- Product Name
- Vocabulary Suggestion
- Office Extension
- Browser Extension
- Desktop App
- Plagiarism Check
- Proofreader
- Sentence Rephraser
- Upload Documents
- Paste Texts
- Mobile Apps
- Free Version
- Email support
- FAQ
- Telephone support
- Spelling Check
- Grammar Check
- Wordiness Check
- Explanations
- Incorrect Use of Numbers
- Punctuation
- Confusing Modifiers
- Supported Languages
- Price
- GRAMMARLY
- English
- Monthly, Quarterly, Annual PlanMonthly Plan $29.95 per month, Quarterly Plan is billed in one payment of $59.95 and Annual Plan is billed in one payment of $139.95
- GINGER
- English
- Free and Premium planMonthly – $19.99/month Annual – $149.76/year Two Years plan - $239.76
- JETPACK
- English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish
- Free
- WHITESMOKE
- English
- Chrome Extension, Essential, Premium, and Business planDepending on which plan you choose you will have access to more or less features.
I own Grammarly, Ginger, and WhiteSmoke, and from my testing and usage, I highly recommend Grammarly. I use Grammarly PRO every day. Ginger would be in second place and WhiteSmoke third. Be sure to also check WhiteSmoke vs Grammarly comparison.
If you need grammar and spell checker tool that is more intended for academic and technical writing, then check my Trinka AI review.
Another tool worth checking is ProWritingAid. For more info be sure to check my ProWritingAid review.
WhiteSmoke vs Ginger vs Grammarly Text Comparison
I have taken the same text and used it in each grammar tool to see which will find most mistakes.
| WHITESMOKE ESSENTIAL PLAN TEXT ANALYSIS (higher plans have more options)
WhiteSmoke found three spelling, five grammar, and one style error. But it is showing:
|
| GRAMMARLY PRO PLAN TEXT ANALYSIS
|
| GINGER PREMIUM PLAN TEXT ANALYSIS
Ginger, in this test, didn’t perform well and found all mistakes. |
WhiteSmoke Advantages and Disadvantages
Here are the advantages and disadvantages of using WhiteSmoke:
WhiteSmoke Pros
- Good spell checking.
- Works well in the browser, and with the WordPress editor.
- The mobile application is an excellent option if you need a spell check on the go.
- The style checker and plagiarism checker ensures that your writing is fresh, original, and enjoyable to read.
- Affordable price.
WhiteSmoke Cons
- It provides some false positives when it comes to grammar checking.
- The lowest price tier only works within the browser.
- No free plan.
- Slow customer service.
- The mobile application comes at an additional cost (although it is only $1 a month).
- Need internet access to work.
- WhiteSmoke’s Windows application has a limit of 10,000 characters at a time. That’s not 10,000 words. It’s 10,000 characters. That means every letter, punctuation mark, and space. However, this issue does not apply to their web-based application.
- The translator feature uses Google Translate, so it doesn’t have any sense to use it.
- Hard to navigate through the WhiteSmoke site.
WhiteSmoke Pricing
Unfortunately, WhiteSmoke doesn’t offer a free version. They do offer a free trial that gives you an idea of what the tool can do for you. If you decide to purchase a full version, you have four different options available.
WhiteSmoke comes in four pricing tiers: Chrome Extension, Essential, Premium, and Business. Chrome Extension plan costs $8.33 and includes Grammar Checker, Spell Checker, and Punctuation Checker. Essential costs $10 per month, and this tier only works in the browser or on the mobile app if you chose to use it.
The next tier, Premium, costs $13.33 monthly. It gives you all of the options of the Essential tier, plus it works on all desktop computers, including Microsoft Office products, within the Google Suite of tools, and offers one-click instant proofreading.
The final tier, Business, will cost you $22.99 monthly. This option gives you all the features of Premium and comes with phone support and an extended warranty. This option really only makes sense if you run a business with multiple users.
If you wish to download and use the mobile application, however, you will need to add an additional dollar to your monthly fee, regardless of your subscription tier.
WhiteSmoke Review Conclusion
I like the WhiteSmoke Grammar and Spell Check Tool. The interface looks clean, and I found it very easy to use.
Most WordPress users will find the Essential tier more than adequate for their needs, and for $10/month, it has basic features that could be enough for most users. I feel that WhiteSmoke provides everything a WordPress user needs to ensure that their site has no grammatical or spelling errors, without costing an arm and a leg.
WhiteSmoke works seamlessly during the writing and editing process. It can save time and frustration and improve the quality of the writing. I hope you liked this WhiteSmoke review and got lot of useful info. Overall, I would recommend WhiteSmoke, but I still think that Grammarly and Ginger are far better options for grammar and spellcheck.
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There is a bug with Whitesmoke! I reported to support but never paid any attention to it.
The issue is; after grammar checks and making all edits to correct errors and when you are ready to replace the test with MS Word, Outlook, Gmail, notepad, or other text-writing apps, this task wiped out the original text and also lost the text; disappeared from the Whitesmoke grammar check window. I was fortunate Word has the undo feature that allows for recovering lost text. However, all your grammar edits and corrections were lost, has to redo the grammar check and correct it again, I make sure to make a copy of the edited text before replacing the corrected text, don’t want to lose the text again.
The best solution is to compare them both personally
Hi David,
Yes, that is true. You get the best insights when you personally compare products as each of us has different needs and preferences.
I have purchased the lifetime license of this software but every time when I faced any technical issue, they would fix it in a day or two. Recently, I contacted them reporting a similar problem ( Not being able to log IN to the online version) I received a very unprofessional and confused reply from its team. I made a follow-up but still no response.
Hi Sayed,
Thank you for sharing your experience with WhiteSmoke. Yes, it has its bugs and a few issues.
WhitesSmoke is a total disaster, and don’t expect a response from customer service. Instead of this program, buy a hammer and bash your fingers for a while. It’s basically the same experience, only cheaper.
This was funny sharing of experience with using WhiteSmoke. Sorry to hear support was unresponsive in your case.