If you write anything (so that’s a yes) then an in-browser spelling and grammar checker can be handy. Even if all you write is emails!
A checker that is free and good, and easy to use, is LanguageTool. As a bonus, it is open-source too. The open-source version is a bit more technical to set up, and if you don’t want to do that, they have a paid cloud version. However, it isn’t too hard to get going, as we will see below.
1. Install the browser extension
Install the LanguageTool Chrome Extension or Firefox Extension.
This will work as-is, and you can start using the tool to check your spelling on WordPress, Google Docs, Gmail and most other apps.
However, it will be limited to a certain number of words, and certain features.
You can either 1. live with that, 2. upgrade to the paid cloud version, or 3. perform the following steps to run it locally for free.
2. Run a local LanguageTool server
The instructions to do this are here: https://dev.languagetool.org/http-server
If you are lucky enough to use a Mac, there is a simple brew installation. Otherwise, I found the Docker method quite convenient, if you already have Docker installed. (If you don’t it is worth installing Docker Desktop or Rancher, as it is pretty handy for many things, including ephemeral “installations” of software like LanguageTool for example).
The docker images are maintained by different people, so there are a few options. One of these is https://github.com/meyayl/docker-languagetool, which I got working well locally. The command to do so is there, but I will repeat it here:
docker run -d \
--name languagetool \
--restart unless-stopped \
--cap-drop ALL \
--cap-add CAP_CHOWN \
--cap-add CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE \
--cap-add CAP_SETUID \
--cap-add CAP_SETGID \
--security-opt no-new-privileges \
--publish 8081:8081 \
--env download_ngrams_for_langs=en \
--env MAP_UID=783 \
--env MAG_GID=783 \
--read-only \
--tmpfs /tmp \
--volume $PWD/ngrams:/ngrams \
--volume $PWD/fasttext:/fasttext \
meyay/languagetool:latest3. Tell your extension to use the local server
Click the LT logo on your browser. It is either on the toolbar, or nested inside the extensions menu (jigsaw icon). It looks like this:
Click the settings (gear icon), and then scroll down to Advanced settings (only for professional users) and under LanguageTool server, choose Local server and click Save.
4. Try it out
Open your favorite digital parchment, such as Google Docs, Confluence, or Notion, or anything else. For a quick try-out, it works here too: https://www.editpad.org/. Whatever you decide, when you open the page you should see a small blue circle with a tick, somewhere in the bottom right of the editing space.
Type something with an intentional mistake, e.g., “Helo”, and you should see the circle go red, and the mistake is highlighted. You are now being watched! In a good way.
