Maybe I’m looking for love in all the wrong places. When I first read about WhiteSmoke Writer T-Gen, I was excited. Here is a text checker that exceeds the capabilities of my word processing program. However, my PC became funky after installing Writer T-Gen. That’s funky as in “send me a technician NOW!” Since PCs are such complicated things, I’m giving Writer T-Gen the benefit of the doubt and saying that the PC‘s strange behavior is coincidental to the installation of Writer T-Gen, and not a complementary virus included with the demo.
“T-Gen” is shortened “Text Genome,” which WhiteSmoke claims to have cracked. Based on the way people write, errors made, and correct grammar, T-Gen is allegedly the ultimate spelling and grammar checker. It will also translate from one language to another; now I know that “meerrettich” is German for "horseradish" (hey, it was the first word that popped into my head when I was testing the translator). My favorite feature is that it checks for words that are used repetitiously (not common ones like “an” and “the”); that can be a problem when I am editing a particular sentence without evaluating its context. Who wants to put “phenomenally” in three consecutive sentences?
Writer T-Gen proofreads text in a variety of situations, including e-mail. It suggests corrections for spelling and grammar, although it operates in a more formal world of grammar than I’ve entered and sometimes makes suggestions that are laughably ungrammatical (Word makes similar suggestions). It counts words and sentences and arrives at an average word per sentence statistic. It also reports the percentages of passive verbs, negative sentences, informal expressions, and complex words. This paragraph, for example, contains 15% complex words and produced no alerts for correction. I received a score of nine out of ten, “very good” on the WhiteSmoke Writing Index for this passage, and was advised to use simpler words to improve readability.
In addition to its checking and translating functions, Writer T-Gen also includes a generous collection of templates for social and business correspondence. They cover many situations and are perfect when you need a jump-start to clear away the fog. I wouldn’t advise using them verbatim, since I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of 20 sympathy notes that say the exact same thing. Actually, I don’t want to be on the receiving end of any sympathy notes. Nor do I wish to be the subject of any.
Since this is such an advanced proofreading tool (they’ve cracked the text genome!), I paused to wonder when I discovered a typo on one of the first installation pages. Not a good sign. When I began working with the program, I had a few questions (apparently not frequently asked) that I referred to White Smoke. Since I was only allowed a seven-day preview, I needed to get the information quickly. It’s been five days with no response. Today is my seventh day with the product…tick…tick…tick…
Article comments
1 - FCEtier
Your homophonic!! I new it! I gnu it!!!
2 - Miss Bob Etier
Their yew go!
3 - barbara barnett
I have White Smoke (I really didn't like using it at all). The interface is clunky and for the 500 page manuscript I was editing, it was useless in the long run. Great idea--terrible execution. Worse customer service.
4 - Vicki M.
I agree completely. I had a dismal experience with Whitesmoke. The program does not work as well as Word's spellcheck and grammar proofing and is clunky as all get out. It added commas in the wrong places, missed errors and marked every name and technical term as a misspelling. Worse, the company started inundating me with popups that appeared when I was working -- several times a day. Wasting $84 was bad enough, but the popups drove me crazy. I finally uninstalled the program. Don't buy it, and please, spread the word. This company is bad, bad news.
5 - Chet Chaulagai
I subscribed whitesmoke writer executive version almost a year ago. As the English is not my native language, I always used to be worried about sentence structure of my professional write up. Though this software has eaten up my hours of work numerous times, it helped me a lot to detect the errors which force me to change the structure. In most cases, it suggests an option. It has helped me a lot. This was the best purchase I ever made in terms of value for money.
6 - Mark B
It's a clunky, bug-infested POS. Miss Bob Etier's review is much kinder than this hunk of junk deserves, so I hope this gives an indication of just how rotten this pseudo-software really is. Normally, I don't speak harshly of any software, but the fact that this company continues to offer up this software on it's website, knowing that it's trash, tells me they must be scam artists. Had it on my machine about a half day before I uninstalled. Do yourself a favor and steer clear.
7 - Shashi
They have bad support. I am not happy the way it is working. I used on gmail and it worked but then it disable my cursor. I had to close internet and restart it. It does not check grammar even though I bought executive version.
8 - sandip
It is head fucking software i ever used,
had a dismal experience with Whitesmoke. The interface is clunky and for the 500 page manuscript I was editing, it was useless in the long run. Great idea--terrible execution. Worse customer service.
9 - Tom
The software requires contact with the central server to work. About half the time, the server seems to be down now. This makes it useless.
To add insult to injury, there is absolutely no support now. I got disgusted and ask for a refund, but of course they never responded to that either.
I am writing this to warn people. I am not the type to run around looking for something to wine about. STAY AWAY from their products!
10 - Patrick
I made the mistake of buying WS. it will fix some errors but it's only slightly better than Word. what's annoying, however, is that the WS makers will spam you relentlessly with new offers and promotions. WS also only works after accessing its servers, which are often down so it won't work. Sometimes WS crashes, crashing whatever software you were using with it in the process. very frusfrating sofware that I do not recommend to anyone (use word instead).