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If you’re considering investing in Grammarly, you may question what it can and can’t do.
Grammarly’s free version improves your writing by finding and fixing grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. Grammarly Pro offers more value by making your writing clear, concise, consistent, and compelling, while ensuring an appropriate tone and the absence of plagiarism.
As a trained proofreader, I can help you discover Grammarly’s capabilities and limitations. I use Grammarly Pro as a final check for blog posts and the documents I proofread and copyedit for clients. I also have a free Grammarly account for researching articles like this one.
What Grammarly Can and Can’t Do for You
1. Can Grammarly be used for free?
Yes, Grammarly can be used for free. For a complete breakdown of Grammarly Free vs. Pro, including prices and features, please see my comparison article.
2. Can you use Grammarly without downloading it?
Yes, if you have a document that you want to check right away, you can copy and paste your text into Grammarly’s free online grammar checker.
3. Can Grammarly check for plagiarism and AI-generated text?
Grammarly Pro can detect plagiarism by checking your writing against billions of web pages and ProQuest’s academic databases to help ensure originality.
Please be aware that small websites may not be included in the plagiarism check.
The plagiarism detector is one reason why Grammarly can be a worthwhile investment for college students.
Grammarly Free doesn’t detect plagiarism or AI-generated text.
However, Grammarly’s website has a plagiarism detector and an AI-generated text detector.
4. Can Grammarly check texts written in languages other than English?
Yes. Grammarly offers suggestions for more than 20 languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Italian.
5. Can Grammarly check a PDF?
Grammarly cannot directly check a PDF; however, you can run Grammarly on anything you can copy and paste.
Whenever I want to run Grammarly Pro on a PDF, I copy and paste its content into Microsoft Word, run Grammarly Pro, and transfer the corrections back to the PDF.
Alternatively, you can copy and paste the text into Grammarly’s free online grammar checker.
6. Can Grammarly check for AP style?
No, Grammarly can’t check whether writing adheres to AP style or any other commonly used style guide.
“At this time, Grammarly does not make recommendations about the formatting of your text. This means that we are unable to enforce a specific writing style such as APA, MLA, or Chicago.”
Source: Grammarly
However, it can detect basic formatting errors with citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago Style, but not AP style.
7. Can Grammarly rewrite sentences?
Yes, Grammarly can rewrite sentences.
Note: Although sentence rewrites are a Grammarly Pro feature, Grammarly Free gives you 100 AI prompts per month that you can use to rewrite, generate, brainstorm, or summarize text.
Grammarly Pro rewrites a sentence if it’s unclear, wordy, dull, or ineffective.
It rewrites sentences in various ways (e.g., changing the word order, using more specific terms, removing unnecessary words).
I’ve been impressed with Grammarly Pro’s ability to rewrite sentences.
Grammarly Pro rewrote the last sentence you see in the screenshot below, taken from one of my articles.
In case the writing in the screenshot is too small to read, here are both versions of the sentence:
My sentence: The ability to stay focused for long blocks of time is also essential.
Grammarly Pro’s rewrite: The ability to stay focused for extended periods is also essential.
Grammarly Pro removed two unnecessary words from my sentence. Concise is nice.
8. Can Grammarly help reduce word count?
Grammarly Pro can help reduce word count.
One way it can do this is through the suggestions it offers, like we just saw. However, these adjustments won’t significantly reduce the word count.
If you need to considerably reduce the number of words in a document, you can use Grammarly’s AI.
9. Can Grammarly paraphrase?
Only Grammarly Pro can paraphrase.
However, you can use the free paraphrasing tool on Grammarly’s website.
Paraphrasing involves using different words to express something another person said or wrote.
I tested the tool by having it paraphrase the sentence above.
Here’s the paraphrased text Grammarly generated:
“Paraphrasing means rephrasing what someone else has expressed through their words.”
How do you think it did?
I think it did a decent job, but it replaced the more specific phrase “said or wrote” with the broader phrase “expressed through their words.” The overall meaning is largely preserved, but the paraphrased version is less precise than the original.
The paraphrasing tool can be helpful, but you should always verify that it hasn’t altered the original meaning or introduced an error.
Also, it’s important to remember to cite your source whenever you’re paraphrasing.
10. Can Grammarly detect passive voice?
Grammarly Pro can detect passive voice.
The active voice is often preferred over the passive one, which is why Grammarly Pro points this out.
But as you probably know, passive voice isn’t wrong—it has its place.
If you’d like to know more about when it’s preferable to use the passive voice, feel free to check out this article.
Although the free version doesn’t check for passive voice, Grammarly’s website has a free passive voice checker.
11. Can Grammarly read aloud?
No, Grammarly can’t read your text aloud.
However, if you’re using Microsoft Word 2019 or later, you can listen to your writing using the Read Aloud feature (under the Review tab).
Hearing your writing read aloud is a superb proofreading strategy. Our ears often pick up on the mistakes our eyes overlook.
12. Can Grammarly translate?
Grammarly Pro can translate.
However, it isn’t a substitute for a professional translator since AI-based translations can contain errors.
Its translation tool supports over 15 widely spoken languages.
13. Can Grammarly track changes?
No, Grammarly can’t track changes.
Track Changes is a feature in Microsoft Word.
Google Docs has a similar function called the Suggesting feature.
I turn on Track Changes when proofreading a client’s document in Microsoft Word. It’s found under the Review tab.
When I work in MS Word and accept a suggested edit from Grammarly Pro, it’s shown as Track Changes in the same way as edits I make without Grammarly Pro’s help.
14. Can Grammarly outperform Microsoft Editor?
In my testing, Grammarly outperformed Microsoft Editor.
When I tested the free and pro versions of Grammarly against Microsoft Editor on a simple 225-word document, both versions found six errors that Microsoft Editor overlooked.
15. Can Grammarly replace a proofreader or editor?
No, neither version of Grammarly can replace an editor or a proofreader.
Grammarly analyzes your writing using an AI-powered algorithm. Although AI is continually becoming more sophisticated, it can’t completely replace the judgment provided by a human proofreader or editor.
You can check out my article about why proofreaders are still needed if you’d like an in-depth explanation of this topic.
And I wrote an article about how to hire a proofreader if you need a human to polish your prose!
16. Can Grammarly be wrong?
Yes, both versions of Grammarly can be wrong.
Grammarly considers context while reviewing a document but is still prone to missing some errors and making incorrect suggestions.
If you’d like to learn more about Grammarly’s level of precision, I wrote an article called “Is Grammarly Accurate? (a Proofreader Tells All).”
17. Can Grammarly be customized for better accuracy?
Yes, you can customize Grammarly so its performance reflects your preferences.
How You Can Customize Grammarly
| Customization | Grammarly Free | Grammarly Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Select primary language (e.g., English, Spanish) to get tailored recommendations | ✔ | ✔ |
| Select preferred dialect of English (US, UK, AU, CA, IN) * | ✔ | ✔ |
| Add words (technical terms, slang, etc.) to your personal dictionary | ✔ | ✔ |
| Turn off suggestions you don’t want to see | ✔ | |
| Use the plagiarism detector and AI-generated text detector | ✔ |
Selecting the correct English style is essential because grammar, punctuation, and spelling differ between dialects.
For example, we write neighbor in US English, but in UK English, neighbour is correct.
18. Can Grammarly make you a better writer?
Yes, Grammarly can make you a better writer.
Grammarly Free will help you improve your grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and make you aware of the tone of your writing.
Grammarly Pro will benefit you by offering more recommendations, such as tightening your prose, suggesting more lively word choices, and ensuring you’re using inclusive language.
If you’d like to delve deeper into how Grammarly makes you a better writer, this article from Forbes provides more information.
19. Can Grammarly be used on multiple devices?
Yes, Grammarly Pro can be used on up to five different devices.
This article from Grammarly’s support site explains how to access Grammarly Pro on a new device.
20. Can Grammarly be used offline?
No, Grammarly can’t be used offline.
“Grammarly is an online application, which means your computer must be connected to the internet. Grammarly requires a stable internet connection to analyze your text and provide suggestions.”
– Grammarly
21. Can Grammarly be used in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and PowerPoint?
Yes, Grammarly can be used in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and PowerPoint. It also works on many popular social media platforms and applications where you write.
In addition, it has browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.
You can also install a mobile keyboard to use Grammarly on your iOS or Android phone.
In fact, it works in so many places that I wrote a poem about it. 😊
Grammarly works here. Grammarly works there. Grammarly works nearly everywhere.
It works where you do, like Gmail and Yahoo.
It has your back in Apple Mail and Slack.
You can use it on Facebook and even LinkedIn, and for tweeting on X time and again.
That concludes this article about Grammarly’s capabilities and limitations.
I hope it has answered many of your burning questions about what Grammarly can and can’t do!
Best wishes to you!
“If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.”
– Confucius
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