When writing Outlook emails on your phone, writing aids like predictive text, spelling and grammar correction, save time and effort, and improve your English. Enable them and use them.
You have writing aids on your phone, but are they enabled and are you using them? Some or all of the features may be turned off or you simply don’t know that they are there. It is likely that you are using some writing aids, but not all of them, so here we will look at them and see how they are enabled and used. They improve the standard of your email messages, which makes you look better in the eyes of the recipient.
There are some questions that need answering and the first is, what type of phone do you have? Some phones have more writing aids than others and an up-to-date Samsung phone has Grammarly built into it.
You may not have realized it, but you have one of the most popular grammar and spelling checkers already on your phone. Are you using it? For anyone that does not have a Samsung phone, or has an old model without Grammarly, you can install the Grammarly app in the Google Play Store. Basic features are free and are sufficient for most people.
Outlook is the popular email app from Microsoft and it contains its own writing aids. It can predict what you want to type before you type it, it can fix spelling errors and it can highlight grammar and other errors in your emails before you send them. Sending grammatically correct and error-free emails is essential for business, and is nice to have even when just emailing friends.
Get Microsoft Editor
Microsoft Editor is a tool that checks spelling, grammar and other problems with your writing and it does it on the fly as you write. It is available in various ways, even the free Microsoft Office web apps like Word. Use Word at the office.com or OneDrive website and Editor will check your writing.
Some features are built into Edge browser, but there is an Edge extension that adds more features, and there is a Microsoft Editor Chrome extension for users of that browser. Everyone can use Microsoft Editor.
Let’s see what it can do in the Outlook app on a phone. There are no extras to install and you just need an up-to-date Outlook app.
Microsoft Editor in Outlook email
I have to say, it is a little bit confusing having so many writing aids and it can sometimes be difficult to tell which aid is responsible for which feature. However, I think I have got it right.
Create a new email or reply in the Outlook app on your phone. As you can see from the two examples in the screenshots above, the app predicts what you are going to type next and it appears as a suggestion in gray. At the end of the suggested text is Swipe. Swipe your finger over it to accept the suggestion, and keep typing to ignore the suggestion.
Sometimes a word is suggested, but sometimes a whole sentence or phrase is suggested. There is some artificial intelligence here and the suggestions are often spot on. It knows what you are talking about and makes intelligent guesses as to what you will say next. Emails can sometimes almost write themselves.
Don’t worry about my bad spelling and English in the screenshots, mistakes are deliberate in order to demonstrate the features of Microsoft Editor in Outlook.
Spelling mistakes are highlighted with a wiggly red underline. Tap a misspelt word and the correct word is shown below. Tap it to replace the mistake. Grammatical problems are also highlighted, like the wrong use of ‘you’re’ and ‘your’, ‘it’s’ and ‘its’, wrong word usage, plurals and singular, and other problems.
Grammar errors are underlined with a wiggly blue line. Tap a highlighted problem and an explanation and correction is shown below. Tap the suggestion to replace the word. Other problems are highlighted, such as accidental double spaces between words.
Samsung keyboard and Grammarly
All phones have writing aids, like spelling correction and suggested words, and here I look at the features on a Samsung phone. It is a fairly cheap one, but it is up to date with Android and Samsung updates. If you have a different make of phone, you may find similar features, but if not, install the Grammarly app from the Google Play Store.
Open the Settings app on the phone and then tap General Management followed by Samsung Keyboard Settings. I have highlighted three settings that are important, but there are even more if you swipe up.
The first thing to do is to enable Predictive text because this enables several other features. Tap Auto replace and turn it on because it suggests words as you type. Also turn on Suggest text corrections, which is powered by Grammarly.
Now when you are typing an email in Outlook you have both Microsoft Editor and Samsung keyboard features, including Grammarly. It is hard to make a mistake! I deliberately made a few to see what would happen.
In the screenshot on the left are some misspelled words. These were automatically corrected while typing. Corrected words are underlined and if they are tapped, the original spelling you typed is shown. If you really wanted the word the way you typed it, tap the original word to put it back or press Delete to delete it.
Notice that above the keyboard are word suggestions and these can be tapped to replace the word. At the right-hand side of the word suggestions above the keyboard are three dots. There is also a green dot above it, which means that Grammarly, built into Samsung Keyboard, has a suggestion.
Press the three dots and Grammarly indicates problems in the text. In the screenshot, a word is missing and a correction is suggested. Tap it to replace the typed text with the correction.
Samsung keyboard and Grammarly suggest corrections wherever you type, but when combined with Microsoft Editor in Outlook, they enable you to write great emails. Well, maybe not great emails and you can still be dull, boring or irritating, but at least there will not be any mistakes in the English.
