Reviewed 18 August 2026 · next review 17 February 2027
A free alternative to technical writing software
Most teams do not need an authoring suite to fix the documents people complain about. They need to see which sentences fail, and why. That part is free here, with no account.
Last updated · Written and reviewed by Jonatan Tensetti · Tensetti Tools
Method 1.0.0 · reviewed 18 August 2026 · next review 17 February 2027
| Category | Good at | Not the right tool for |
|---|---|---|
| Grammar and general style tools | Typos, agreement, tone, general business prose. | Documentation-specific failures: actorless steps, multi-action instructions, term drift. |
| Enterprise authoring and CCMS suites | Topic reuse, versioning, translation workflow, multi-channel publishing. | Teams with a handful of documents and no publishing pipeline; the cost is in the process, not the licence. |
| Controlled-language checkers | Enforcing an approved dictionary where a sector requires it. | Teams without a mandate; the governance overhead outweighs the gain. |
| This clarity checker | 22 deterministic documentation checks with exact spans, reasons and neutral edit instructions, run locally. | Content management, publishing, translation memory, or judging technical accuracy. |
What you get without paying anything
- Up to 1000 words per document, with no account and no card.
- An overall indicator plus five category indicators.
- Exact highlighted spans, the first ten findings, counts by category.
- A reason, a neutral edit instruction and a false-positive note per finding.
- Mark reviewed or dismiss per document. Findings already computed are never hidden behind a paywall.
- Analysis entirely in your browser.
When paying makes sense
Pro adds larger local documents, the full findings list, opening TXT, MD and DOCX files locally, a personal termbase and report export. Team adds five users, a shared termbase and style profile, a batch queue and history. If you review documents weekly, that pays for itself in review rounds; if you review twice a year, stay on free.
What no tool in this category can do
None of them can tell you whether a torque figure is right, whether a warning meets a legal requirement, or whether a procedure is safe. This one flags safety language for review — it never labels content unsafe and never rewrites it. Technical accuracy stays with the people who know the product.
Questions
- Is the free version limited to a trial period?
- No. The free check has a word limit per document, not a time limit. There is no account, no card and no expiry.
- Does it replace a component content management system?
- No. It checks the clarity of text you already have. Reuse, versioning, publishing pipelines and translation management are what an authoring suite is for.
- How is it different from a grammar checker?
- Grammar tools judge correctness and general style. This tool checks documentation-specific signals: missing actors, multi-action steps, ambiguous references, inconsistent terms and safety wording order.
- What happens to my text?
- Free analysis runs in your browser in a Web Worker. Source text, findings and termbase entries are not sent to our server, to analytics or to logs.
ClearSpec uses an independent proprietary clarity method. It is not affiliated with ASD/STEMG, is not an ASD-STE100 checker or certification service, and does not certify ISO 24495-1 conformance.
References
Checked 18 August 2026. Referenced for context only; no standard text or dictionary content is reproduced.
- ISO 24495-1:2023 Plain language — Part 1 — ISO. Official standard information page. Context only; the standard is not reproduced or certified.
- Official ASD-STE100 site — ASD Simplified Technical English Maintenance Group. Ownership, current resources and trademark context. ClearSpec is not affiliated with ASD/STEMG.
- ASD-STE100 official downloads and AI white paper — ASD STEMG. Official materials. Copyright and stated limitations respected; no dictionary content is copied.
- Clear content objective — W3C WAI. Accessibility-oriented clear-content guidance informing general principles.
- Writing for web accessibility — W3C WAI. First-party accessibility writing tips informing general principles.
22 checks, no account, and the text is analysed in your browser.
ClearSpec reports automated heuristics from method version 1.0.0. The clarity indicator is not a measure of technical accuracy, usability, legal sufficiency, safety or standards conformance. A competent person must decide the final wording, especially for safety content.