Spelling and readability

Spelling suggestions, a dictionary for the project, and readability help when you want it.

Spelling

Bakspace uses your Mac's own spellchecker, which works out the language as you write. Words it does not know get a red underline. Right-click one for the Mac's suggestions; choose one to put it in.

Right-clicking a misspelled word: wealthy and wealthier suggested, then Add to dictionary

Spellcheck can be switched off under Settings > Editor.

The project's dictionary

Add to dictionary stops a word being underlined in this project. The words are kept in the project folder, in project.json, so they travel with the book to your other computers. They are never added to the Mac's own dictionary, so another project or another app can still call the word a mistake. There is no list of them in Settings yet; to take a word out again, remove it from dictionary in project.json.

The names of your characters and places, and their other names, are never underlined in the first place. See Characters and places.

Look Up

Right-click a word and choose Look Up for the Mac's dictionary entry: meaning, thesaurus and more.

Readability help

Readability help marks what makes a sentence hard to read, as you write. It suits non-fiction, theses, reports and technical writing best, where a plain sentence is nearly always the better one. In fiction a long sentence or an adverb is often a choice, so treat its marks as questions rather than corrections. It does not check grammar.

It is off until you switch it on, under Settings > Editor or with View > Readability Help. Four checks sit under the switch, each on or off by itself:

Settings, Editor: the Readability help switch and its four checks

Long sentences: a yellow wash behind a sentence that is hard to read, red behind one that is very hard. A sentence of under fourteen words is never marked.
Reading grade: in the inspector, the school grade a reader needs to follow the document comfortably. Lower reads more easily.
Adverbs and passive voice: a blue line under adverbs, green under passive verbs such as was sold.
Simpler words: a dotted purple line under a word or phrase with a plainer alternative, such as utilise for use or in order to for to.

A paragraph with hard and very hard sentences washed in yellow and red, and adverbs, passive verbs and wordy phrases underlined

Point at a mark, or put the cursor in it, and a card says what it is and what to try.

The card over a very hard sentence: 31 words, reading grade 17, split it or cut what it can lose

How it decides

The grade is the Automated Readability Index, worked out from the length of the words and of the sentences. A sentence of fourteen words or more is hard at grade 10 to 13 and very hard from 14. These follow the Hemingway Editor's thresholds, as others have measured them.
An adverb is a word ending in -ly, leaving out everyday words that only look like one, such as only, early and family.
A passive verb is a form of be followed by a past participle: was sold, were burned, has been written.
The simpler words come from the US Government's plain language guidelines, with the ones that are ordinary in fiction left out and British spellings added.

It reads English only, and it all happens on your Mac: nothing you write is sent anywhere to be checked. Focus mode hides the marks.