Antidote 9

Antidote 9 is a suite of software reference tools for writing in French. Antidote offers a spellcheck and grammar check, dictionaries and linguistic guides - now in French or English! (You choose the language upon installation - for both, you must purchase an additional module). It has an advanced grammar checker which now corrects the whole text at once instead of one sentence at a time. Five great tools that integrate directly and seamlessly into most major word processors and email programs. If you can read French reasonably well, you can use the dictionary, the synonyms, the conjugator and the grammar book to improve your skills. It was designed as a tool for native French speakers and corrects 800 types of mistakes. The grammar checker now has a setting for non-native French speakers.

A Corrector With Style

Antidote 9 brings a new dimension to its corrections: the Style view. It has been carefully calibrated to flag instances of repetition, awkward constructions and poor vocabulary choices. It can now correct the format of numbers and spot missing periods at the end of a paragraph. Dialogues in a text can now be identified and treated differently, with the option to ignore certain detections within them. The corrector will remember any ignored detections, allowing you to pick up exactly where you left off when working with a long document.

Richer, More Connected Dictionaries

As soon as you open the dictionaries, the new details panel to the right of the definitions is sure to catch your eye. It is both more concise and more comprehensive, comprising three elements: Details, Difficulty and More. Under Details you will find inflected forms, word frequency, etymology and indispensable phonetic information. The Difficulty section, present in 30,000 French entries, tackles the trickier aspects of the language such as past participle agreement for reflexive verbs. Instances of phonetic liaison are indicated for all words that feature it, for example the “t” sound in the expression grand homme. The More section provides direct access to powerful external resources like Le grand dictionnaire terminologique and Termium; you can even add your own favourite sites.

Eleven thousand Web links lead to maps and satellite images of countries, cities and World Heritage sites. More than 15,000 new words have been added, such as claquade, égoportrait and vapoter, along with 4000 expressions, 5000 synonyms, 39,000 combinations and 600,000 new links in the semantic fields. The semantic fields now extend to proper nouns, painting a fascinating picture of famous people, cities and countries. The history dictionary shows etymologically related words for every entry, revealing some surprising links, such as tueur and tuteur, both descended from the Latin word tueri. Also on offer are three new search criteria and two new ways to search as you type.

After French Comes English

For the first time, Antidote is lending its science to another language. An optional module adds a corrector, dictionaries and language guides for English—all with the same level of richness and quality as their French counterparts. The corrector can pinpoint 13,000 types of error through its three correction views and its two-hundred revision, statistics and inspection filters; the dictionaries cover 102,000 words, 1.4 million synonyms, 71,000 etymologies 153,000 phonetic transcriptions, 700,000 combinations and 2.3 million semantic field links; and the ten guides contain 350 detailed articles on grammar and business writing. All the settings are tailored to English and English words can be added to the personal dictionaries. Anti-Oops! protects English emails against mistakes and missing attachments.

Antidote takes special care to ensure that both languages coexist effortlessly. The same three-button menu bar will open resources in either language from your word processor or email application—Antidote chooses the appropriate language according to the context. Whenever necessary, the corrector alternates between French and English in the same document and displays its results accordingly. The dictionaries and guides can also switch fluidly between languages: search fluidement and you will see results in the French dictionary; search fluidly and the English dictionary will take its place.

In the end, your Antidote becomes as complete and efficient in English as in French, with both languages coexisting seamlessly, and you can switch easily from one to the other, as you may do in real life.