Antidote. The magic potion to write without fail

Last updated on 3 November 2016

Antidote is an excellent software tool to help with the correction and drafting of French. It brings together in a particularly effective all-in-one an advanced proofreader, a part composed of several dictionaries and language guides to check and learn the rules of French.

Antidote presents itself as "the cure for all your words". A nice quote for a software-tool that is particularly well suited for use in an educational context. Antidote from Druide Informatique has just obtained the ‘Recognised pedagogical interest’ mark awarded by the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research.

Antidote which is in its version 9 installs on Mac, Windows and Linux. You will have a great toolbox at your fingertips from your desk, but also inside most of the applications you use to write text, so you can avoid the fault and improve the very style of your writing.

Antidote is first of all a very powerful corrector that will highlight all the mistakes, from the forgotten accent to the difficult chord, from the unwelcome comma to the inappropriate space. You just have to point to an error to have explanations and proposals for correction. One more click and you can approve the proposed correction and thus automatically modify the text. Antidote identifies grammatical, orthographic, semantic errors. It also makes it possible to identify typographical problems. Finally, he ventured into the delicate field of stylistics. It will thus point to repetitions of a word, for example, to encourage people to consult the dictionary of synonyms or to detect sentences that are too long. Real tools to help you get out of the way but also to encourage reflection on the quality of writing. That's great.

Also a great "Anti-Oups" option for your email software. For installing it, I can tell you that this option saved me more than once. When you write an email and send it, Antidote will scan your mail just before it is sent and warn you if there is an error.

The other very interesting part of this all-in-one is the one dedicated to dictionaries.. This part alone deserves investment in Antidote. From the words of your search, you will have access to definitions, synonyms, antonyms, cooccurrences, lexical field and even a historical dictionary or a dictionary of literary quotations containing them. And if that's not enough, you can also use complementary online resources like Wikipedia or Google from Antidote.

Third and last part of the Antidote toolbox: language guides. They allow you to check a rule with many examples and use cases as well as some tips to help you memorise them.

In conclusion, a particularly rich and comprehensive tool that will allow you to improve the quality of your writing. It can also be used by teachers as a point of support to prepare spelling and grammatical learning exercises or vocabulary enrichment.

Needless to say, Antidote is a tool to help with correction. It does not, and does not purport to, replace your author’s gaze. However, it is a formidable weapon to aim for zero fault while helping you and encouraging you to master French better. Beyond the utility, Antidote 9 is also a great tool for all language lovers.

Antidote 9 is marketed in France by Mysoft at the recommended public price of 119 € TTC. It is not given, but quality is at the rendezvous. With a license you can install the software on three workstations. An additional discount is granted to educational institutions. An Antidote 9 version for English is also available.

Link: Antidote 9