Google Docs catches up with Word and goes one better

Grammar checking is finally coming to Google Docs and maybe it’ll be better than the long-standing Microsoft Word feature.

We’ve had blue squiggly lines in Microsoft Word for a long time. Google Docs has noticeably not had a similar feature, until now.

Source: Google

According to Google their grammar checking is different.  They don’t mention Word but the comparison is unavoidable:

“To solve grammar corrections, we use a unique machine translation-based approach to recognize errors and suggest corrections on the fly.

Our AI can catch several different types of corrections, from simple grammatical rules like how to use articles in a sentence (like “a” versus “an”), to more complicated grammatical concepts such as how to use subordinate clauses correctly.  “

An AI approach should be more sensitive to the complexities of human language.  Maybe Google’s AI can help those of us who can’t get our apostrophes straight?  The current Word grammar system is little help.

Google Docs won’t have blue squiggly lines, instead a comparatively clumsy pane at top right.

If it works as advertised, maybe Microsoft will have to lift their game and revise the Word grammar checker again.

Grammar Suggestions are now available to Early Adopters will public rollout later in 2018.