Getting started
Inkcheck runs entirely in your browser. There's no installation, no account, and your manuscript text never leaves your machine. Here's how to get up and running in under two minutes.
Open the editor at inkcheck.io/app. It works in any modern browser — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
Load your manuscript. Drag and drop a
.txt,.md, or.pdffile, or click Paste text directly to type or paste inline.Choose your scan mode — Quick for a fast mechanical pass, Standard for a full analysis including style and rhythm. More on this below.
Click Analyze. All 11 checks run locally in milliseconds. A full 90,000-word novel on Standard scan takes under 2 minutes.
Work through the issues list. Issues are sorted by severity by default. Approve fixes you want to keep, reject anything intentional, and apply them all in one click.
Privacy note: Inkcheck is a single HTML file running in your browser. When you paste your manuscript, it goes into memory — not to a server. You can even download the app.html file and run it with no internet connection at all.
Quick vs Standard scan
Inkcheck has two scan modes accessible from the toolbar at the top of the editor.
Quick scan runs seven mechanical checks — the ones with no false positives and a clear correct answer. Use it when you want a fast tidy-up before sharing a draft, or when you're mid-writing and just want to catch obvious errors without a full critique.
Standard scan adds nine further checks covering style, repetition, and structural rhythm. It takes longer on large manuscripts and will surface more issues — some of which may be intentional. Use it at the end of a revision cycle when you're ready to read through everything carefully.
Standard scan is where most of the value is. Quick scan is for speed. If you have time, always run Standard.
Understanding severity
Every issue in Inkcheck is scored from 1 to 5. This matters — a double space and a 400-word passive-voice paragraph are not the same kind of problem, and they shouldn't compete for your attention equally.
| Level | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmetic — fix automatically | Double spaces, space before punctuation | |
| Minor — worth a look | Filler words, near-duplicate words, repeated punctuation | |
| Moderate — read carefully | Long sentences, unmatched quotes, passive voice | |
| High — likely a real problem | Consecutive repeated words, clichés | |
| Critical — your own banned words | Words on your custom banned list |
The default sort order is by severity — highest first. This means the issues you should deal with first are always at the top of the list. You can switch to Location sort if you prefer to work through the manuscript linearly.
Mechanical checks
These run on both Quick and Standard scan. They catch errors with an objectively correct answer — there's almost never a reason to reject these. Use Approve All Mechanical to accept them all in one click.
Double spaces
Catches two or more consecutive spaces anywhere in the text. Common after copying from PDFs or older word processors. Always safe to fix automatically.
Space before punctuation
Flags a space immediately before a comma, period, semicolon, colon, or exclamation mark. Usually a typo. Fix is to delete the space.
Repeated punctuation
Catches !!, ??, ,,, and similar. Ellipses (...) are intentionally not flagged. If you use !! deliberately, reject it.
Unmatched quotes
If your document has an odd number of double-quote characters, one is probably missing. Flags the last unmatched quote so you can find the pair.
Unmatched parentheses
Finds opening brackets with no close, or closing brackets with no open. Flags the offending character so you can add the missing half.
Consecutive repeated words
Catches the the, of of, and similar adjacent duplicates. Note: had had is sometimes grammatically correct — Inkcheck flags it at low severity.
She walked into the room , sat down the the chair and sighed!!
Style checks
Style checks run on Standard scan only. Unlike mechanical checks, these are advisory — Inkcheck flags them because they're often weak, not because they're always wrong. Read each one carefully and use your judgement.
Passive voice
Flags constructions like was written, were told, is being done. Passive voice isn't wrong, but overuse weakens prose energy. Ask: who is doing this action?
Filler words
Catches words and phrases that rarely add meaning: just, very, that, really, quite, actually, somewhat, and more. Deleting them usually tightens the sentence.
Very long sentences
Flags sentences over 45 words. Long sentences aren't always wrong — Dickens wrote many — but at 45+ words, look for a natural place to break. Short sentences create pace.
Adverb overuse
Flags paragraphs with three or more -ly adverbs. One or two is fine. Clusters suggest the verbs aren't strong enough. She ran quickly → She sprinted.
Weak verbs
Catches over-reliance on was, went, got, said, looked and similar low-energy verbs when stronger alternatives exist. Especially noticeable in action scenes.
Clichés
Flags well-worn phrases: at the end of the day, heart pounding in her chest, time stood still. Clichés are invisible to readers — they skim over them without engaging.
Dialogue punctuation
Checks that dialogue is correctly punctuated — comma before a closing quote when followed by a speech tag, period when it ends a sentence. Common source of copy-edit notes.
Monotone sentence rhythm
Flags four or more consecutive sentences of nearly identical length. Varied rhythm keeps prose moving. Mix short punchy sentences with longer flowing ones to create natural pace.
On passive voice: Passive voice is a tool, not a mistake. It's useful when the subject is unknown (the letter was found), when you want to emphasise the object, or in certain genres. Inkcheck flags it so you can make a conscious choice — not so you feel obliged to change it.
Repetition checks
Repetition is one of the hardest problems to catch yourself — after hours of writing, your brain stops seeing the words and starts seeing the meaning. These checks catch what your eye misses.
Near-duplicate words
Catches words of four or more letters that appear twice within the same sentence. Different from the consecutive repeat check — this one catches "the sound of the crowd was the sound of chaos" style repetition.
Consecutive repeated words
Also in the mechanical category — the the, and and. Listed here too because in longer prose they're often a sign of an accidental cut-and-paste splice.
The sound of the crowd filled the hall, the sound rising until she couldn't hear herself think.
Custom word lists
The My Words tab in the right panel lets you build two personal word lists that persist across sessions and apply to every analysis.
Banned words are words you never want to use. They're flagged at severity 5 — the highest level — so they always appear at the top of your issues list. Good candidates: words your beta readers flagged, genre clichés specific to your work, words you overuse in every manuscript.
Watch words are flagged at low severity — they're words you want to notice but might choose to keep. Good candidates: words you're consciously trying to use less, filter words like felt, saw, heard, or character-specific verbal tics you want to audit.
Tip: Build your word lists before you analyze. Both lists are saved automatically in your browser and will apply the next time you open Inkcheck — even if you clear the editor.
Recommended workflow
Here's how to get the most out of Inkcheck on a full manuscript revision.
Add your custom words first. Open the My Words tab and add any banned or watch words before you analyze. They'll be factored into the issue count from the start.
Run Standard scan on the full manuscript. Don't start chapter by chapter — run the whole thing so you can see patterns across the whole document.
Approve all mechanical issues at once. Click "✓ All Mechanical" in the action bar. These have no false positives. Get them out of the way first.
Switch to Location sort and work linearly. Change the sort to Location and work through the manuscript page by page. This is usually faster than jumping around by severity after the first pass.
Reject anything intentional. Passive voice in a deliberate construction, a cliché used ironically, a long sentence building tension — reject it so it doesn't distract you on re-analysis.
Apply all approved fixes. Click "Apply approved fixes" to commit all accepted changes in one operation. Inkcheck handles overlapping fixes gracefully.
Take a Snapshot, then re-analyze. Save the current state as a named Snapshot (Pro/Editor), then run Standard scan again. Your issue count should be much lower. Compare to the first snapshot to see how far you've come.
Want a printable record of your first pass? The Editor's Report generates a formatted PDF-ready summary of every issue, with stats and a personal note to the author. Ready in under two minutes on a full novel.
See Editor tier →Pro tips
Use the Flesch-Kincaid score as a calibration tool
The FK readability score in the stats bar (0–100, higher = easier to read) isn't a target — it's a calibration tool. Literary fiction tends to score in the 40–60 range. Thriller and commercial fiction often sits higher. If your score is wildly different from what you're aiming for, it's a clue about average sentence length and vocabulary density.
Compare drafts to catch unintentional regressions
The Compare Drafts tool (Editor tier) shows a word-level diff between any two versions of your manuscript. Use it after a major revision pass to catch places where you accidentally deleted a sentence, introduced new typos, or reverted good changes. It's faster than reading both versions side by side.
Export to CSV to track manuscript health over time
The CSV export (Pro tier) gives you every flagged issue as a spreadsheet row — category, severity, title, snippet, and character position. Import it into a spreadsheet tool to build a dashboard of your manuscript's health across drafts. Track whether your passive voice count is genuinely going down, or just moving around.
Run a chapter at a time when you're revising mid-draft
Inkcheck works on any length of text. If you're mid-draft and want to check a single chapter before moving on, paste just that chapter. You'll get a tighter issue list and faster analysis. You don't have to wait until the whole manuscript is finished.
The editor remembers your last session
Inkcheck autosaves your manuscript text to your browser's local storage every few seconds. If you close the tab and come back, you'll see a "Restore last session" link at the bottom of the drop zone. Your custom word lists are also saved automatically.