Many people rely on Microsoft’s AI-powered writing assistant, Microsoft Editor, to identify typos, spelling errors, and grammatical issues. It’s free in Word for the web, Outlook online, and as a browser extension for Chrome and Edge. But just how much faith can you really put in this tool?

The Pros of Microsoft Editor

As someone who uses Editor every day in my roles as a writer and an academic proofreader, I can vouch for its reliability in many situations.

It Picks Up on Most of the Essentials

Microsoft Editor will reliably help you out with some fundamental errors that can easily happen if you’ve spent all day in front of your computer screen. In the example below, it has identified a repeated word, an accidental double-space, a grammatical error, a punctuation error, and a US-UK spelling issue.

When I click any of the underlined words, Editor launches a menu of alternatives for me to choose from. Alternatively, for more information on why Editor has highlighted these as issues, and to see more correction options, I can click “Editor” in the Review tab.

This launches the Editor pane, where I can review the issues and suggestions.

It Helps You to Write Inclusively

Microsoft Editor helps you avoid language that might cause offense—especially useful if you intend to distribute your document to lots of people. Here, Editor suggests replacing “craftsmanship” with “artisanry” (to avoid gender bias), “blacklist” with “blocked list” (to avoid racial bias), “oriental” with “Asian” (to avoid geopolitical bias), “mankind” with “humankind” (to avoid gender bias), and “crippled man” with “man with disabilities” (to avoid ableist bias).

Of course, these are just suggestions. If you’re happy with what you’ve typed, you can ignore the suggestions altogether. Either way, it’s good to know that you can rely on Editor to give you a nudge in these circumstances.

It Supports Many Languages

Microsoft Editor isn’t just available for people typing in English. In fact, as well as spellchecking in around 90 languages, Editor offers grammar and refinement tips in around 20 languages (as of December 2024). To briefly test Editor’s language reliability, I typed a sentence in Spanish containing two errors. As you can see, Editor correctly identified that the word “mas” in Spanish should have an acute accent (“más”), and the word “color” should be in the plural form (“colores”).

It Spots When You’ve Used Too Many Words

Whether you want to express yourself more clearly or reduce your word count, Editor is good at suggesting how you can be more concise. Indeed, this is one of Editor’s capabilities that, in my experience, works the best. For example, in the sentences below, it suggested that I change “In spite of the fact that” to “Although,” and “in order to” to “to.”

The Cons of Microsoft Editor

On the other hand, Microsoft Editor has some flaws that place a big question mark over its reliability.

It’s Not Infallible

Despite picking up on many fundamental errors as I discussed earlier, it doesn’t always identify some things that you would expect it might. Here, Editor failed to notice that “simple error” should either be “a simple error” or “simple errors.” It also didn’t highlight the lack of a period between the first two sentences, and it didn’t pick up on an American English spelling, even though the document’s language is set to English (UK).

Conversely, Editor sometimes marks correct items as incorrect based on hard-set rules when, in fact, you have typed something deliberately for stylistic purposes or to emphasize a key point. In this example, Editor’s suggested change from “not unhappy” to “happy” conveys a slightly different tone in the sentence.

Its Scoring System Is Flawed

Microsoft Editor gives your work a percentage score based on how correct, consistent, and concise it deems your work to be. In this example, it gave me a score of 65% because there are some spelling errors that I haven’t addressed.

However, when I clicked “Ignore Once” or “Add To Dictionary” on each of the errors it identified, the score rose to 100%.

As a result, while Editor’s scoring system can helpfully give you an idea of how correct, consistent, and concise your work is, it shouldn’t be relied upon as a definitive rating.

Conciseness Suggestions Can Change the Meaning

Earlier, I discussed the benefits of writing concisely. However, Microsoft Editor’s keenness to help you with this isn’t always helpful. In this example, Editor is suggesting that adding certainty to the sentence by removing “nearly” would make it more impactful. However, there’s a big difference between “nearly always” and “always,” so implementing this suggested change would alter my intended meaning.

Dictionaries Are Limited

This is not strictly a criticism of Microsoft Editor, but rather, a simple fact about dictionaries more generally. The fact that language evolves and that some dictionaries avoid certain words (like expletives or complex scientific jargon) means it’s impossible to ever have a fully comprehensive dictionary. This is also true of Microsoft Editor’s dictionary. As a result, Editor might identify words you know are correct as incorrect. This adds another layer of unreliability to Editor, especially if you’re creating a document with lots of unusual words or acronyms.

In this case, after checking the spelling of the word with another source, add it to Editor’s dictionary by right-clicking the highlighted word, and selecting Spelling > Add To Dictionary. From this point, the word won’t be labeled as incorrect.

It Can Fail to Recognize a Change You’ve Made

This is an annoying software glitch that I’ve experienced many times over the years. Sometimes, even after I’ve corrected a typo, Microsoft Editor will fail to remove the red, squiggly line from under the word. To some, this might be inconsequential—after all, you know the word is correct, so you can just ignore that Editor has highlighted an error. On the other hand, if you’re slightly obsessive like me, it’ll bother you that it’s incorrectly labeled an issue with your writing, and you’ll waste time and energy retyping the word, thinking of a synonym, or just being annoyed.

So, Is Editor Reliable?

Whether you can deem Microsoft Editor reliable depends on what you expect it to do and how you work with it. If you want it to act as a safety net for typos, spelling errors, and non-inclusive language, it’ll do the trick pretty well and help you improve your writing. Also, if you need help making your writing more concise, it usually offers handy suggestions—though you should always check those suggestions carefully to make sure they don’t alter your intended meaning. Finally, Editor works reasonably well in many languages.

On the other hand, if you expect it to pick up every single error or rewrite your work for you, then you’ll be left disappointed. It also doesn’t offer comprehensive tools in certain languages, so it’s worth checking this before you upgrade to a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Ultimately, when used alongside human diligence and other reviewing features in Word like Read Aloud, Microsoft Editor can be a supportive tool. However, Microsoft Editor is not a substitute for human proofing.