Revise Blog - Building a post-AI word processor
The best tools for editing a thesis or manuscript yourself
Academic editors, AI add-ins, and word processors compared on the jobs a long academic document needs
Artur Sapek, Founder of Revise11 min read
Many people searching for thesis or manuscript editing want a human editor, and professional editing services are a separate option this guide doesn’t compare. This guide is about software you can use yourself to tighten language, fix errors, and check consistency across a long academic document before it goes to a supervisor, committee, or journal.
I have spent the past year building Revise, a word processor with an AI editing agent that appears on this list. Prices and features below come from each vendor’s own pages, linked in the sources at the end, and were checked on October 4, 2026.
Thesis and manuscript editing tools at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Free plan | Paid from | AI capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paperpal | Academic edits plus journal submission checks | Yes (200 grammar edits a month) | $12/mo (Prime) | Academic grammar and consistency edits, reference checks, and 30+ journal submission checks |
| Revise | Whole-document AI edits as tracked changes, a choice of models | Yes (daily AI limit) | $8/mo (Plus) | Agent proposes text and formatting edits as suggestions. Header, footer, and page-layout changes apply directly |
| Trinka | Proofreading a thesis file returned with tracked changes | Yes (5,000 words a month, read-only file proofreading) | $4/mo (Premium) | Academic grammar and style checks (APA, AMA, ACS, AGU, IEEE), file proofreading returned with tracked changes, citation checks |
| Writefull | Language feedback in Word and Overleaf | Yes (limited free quota) | $12.50/mo (Premium) | Checks a whole document or paragraph and shows each edit as a diff on a suggestion card, paraphrasing, abstract generation |
| Claude for Word | Claude's edits as tracked changes inside Word | No (Pro plan or higher) | $20/mo (Claude Pro) | Cites sections, edits selections, works comment threads, tracked changes when on |
| Grammarly | Checks as you write across apps | Yes (100 AI prompts a month) | $12/mo (Pro) | Grammar, tone, and sentence rewrites as inline suggestions, AI detection |
| Microsoft Word | Built-in Editor and Copilot in the file you already use | Yes (Word for the web) | $9.99/mo (Microsoft 365 Personal) | Copilot drafts, rewrites, and summarizes, edits in place with highlight and undo. Track Changes edits in a business preview |
| ChatGPT | Feedback and rewrites on sections, in chat or Word | Yes (3 file uploads a day, 27K-token Instant context) | $8/mo (ChatGPT Go) | Writing blocks for revising a draft or selection, reads uploaded DOCX and PDF |
| Tool | Works in | How edits appear | Academic-specific features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paperpal | Word add-in, Google Docs, Overleaf, web | Suggestion cards. Manuscript check returns a file with changes to accept or reject | Reference checks, 30+ journal submission checks |
| Revise | Its own browser editor, imports and exports .docx | Tracked changes, exported to Word. Layout and header changes apply directly | No dedicated journal-submission checker documented |
| Trinka | Web, Word app | Inline suggestions. Uploaded files returned with tracked changes on paid plans | Citation checks, style corrections (APA, AMA, ACS, AGU, IEEE) |
| Writefull | Word 2016 and later, Overleaf | Suggestion cards that show each edit as a diff | Academic language feedback, abstract generation |
| Claude for Word | Word (Claude Pro and up) | Word tracked changes when the mode is on | Follows citation-style instructions. No dedicated journal-submission checker documented |
| Grammarly | Word, browsers, desktop, mobile | Inline suggestions | Plagiarism check on Pro |
| Microsoft Word | Word | Editor suggestions. Copilot edits, which Microsoft 365 Copilot documents recording with Track Changes | Similarity checking and citation tools |
| ChatGPT | Web, desktop, mobile, Word add-in | Revised text in chat or a writing block, or edits in Word through the add-in | No dedicated journal-submission checker documented |
To try whole-document AI editing on a chapter, paste it or import a .docx below. It opens as a separate document in Revise. One request with GPT-6 Luna needs no account, and other model families need a paid plan.
How we evaluated them
We use Microsoft Word as the baseline for the .docx workflows compared here. We compared each tool on five questions:
- Does it work where the document lives: Word, Overleaf, or Google Docs?
- Can you review each edit, ideally as Word tracked changes?
- How does it handle a document of tens of thousands of words?
- Does it have academic checks, such as references or journal requirements?
- What subscription and usage limits affect repeated editing passes?
We did not run a controlled test of these apps. Our ErrataBench benchmark measures seeded-error correction by individual AI model configurations in 2,000-word chunks of English text. It doesn’t test these apps or thesis-wide consistency (full results).
The order is an editorial recommendation based on documented workflows, not a ranking of editing accuracy. Paperpal leads for its submission checks. Revise follows for model choice and reviewable edits across whole chapters, and Trinka for proofreading a finished file. Writefull is the pick for Overleaf. Claude for Word ranks below them because it needs a paid Claude plan and has no academic-specific checks, and Grammarly, Word, and ChatGPT are general tools many writers already have.
The 8 best thesis and manuscript editing tools
1. Paperpal: Best for academic edits and submission checks
- Free plan: Yes, 200 edits/mo
- Paid from: $12/mo
- Built-in AI: Paperpal
Paperpal is an academic writing assistant with a Word add-in and support for Google Docs and Overleaf. Its manuscript check runs more than 30 journal submission checks across language, references, structure, figures and tables, disclosures, and metadata, and returns an edited file with changes you accept or reject.
The free plan includes 200 grammar edits a month. Prime ($12 a month billed yearly, $25 month to month) includes 20,000 grammar and consistency edits and 10,000 words of reference checks a month. Free and Prime include a lite Journal Fit report, and Pro ($29 a month billed yearly, $59 month to month) includes the full report and unlimited Journal Fit checks. Paperpal’s help center notes that applying suggestions from the Word add-in with Track Changes on can fail.
Pick it if you are preparing a paper for journal submission. Skip it if you need the Word add-in to apply suggestions reliably with Track Changes on.
2. Revise: Best for whole-document AI edits you review
- Free plan: Yes, daily AI limit
- Paid from: $8/mo
- Built-in AI: Revise Agent
Revise is a browser word processor whose AI agent works through a document in sections and proposes text and formatting edits as tracked changes. You choose GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, or Muse models, and pending suggestions export to Word as tracked changes. Header, footer, and page-layout changes apply directly. It keeps the tracked changes, comments, footnotes, and other Word features it documents, though cross-reference fields don’t update inside Revise.
The free plan runs GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5 under a daily AI limit. Plus ($8 a month) adds Claude Sonnet and the other model families, and the most capable models need Pro. It has no citation or journal checks, and it is a separate editor rather than a Word add-in.
Pick it if you want an AI pass over whole chapters with text and formatting edits proposed as suggestions. Skip it if you need reference or journal-requirement checks.
3. Trinka: Best for proofreading a thesis file
- Free plan: Yes, 5,000 words/mo
- Paid from: $4/mo
- Built-in AI: Trinka
Trinka checks academic grammar and style, with corrections for APA, AMA, ACS, AGU, and IEEE styles, a citation checker, and a journal finder. Its Proofread File feature takes a .docx or LaTeX file and, on paid plans, returns it with tracked changes. LaTeX files also come back with a Word file of the changes.
The free plan covers 5,000 words a month, with read-only file proofreading. Premium is $48 a year (a sale price, normally $80) or $20 month to month, with 10 shared credits a month, and file proofreading uses one credit per 5,000 words. One pass over a 60,000-word thesis uses 12 credits, more than Premium includes before any other credit-based checks.
Pick it if you want a whole thesis file checked and returned as tracked changes. Skip it if you need several full passes over a long thesis each month on Premium’s credits.
4. Writefull: Best for Word and Overleaf users
- Free plan: Yes, limited quota
- Paid from: $12.50/mo
- Built-in AI: Writefull
Writefull gives academic language feedback in Word 2016 and later and in Overleaf. In Word it checks the whole document or one paragraph and shows each edit on a card, with a diff of the change. It also paraphrases and generates abstracts. Writefull’s Word guide warns that footnotes, references, and special characters become plain text when you copyedit or paraphrase them.
The free plan has a limited quota, and Premium is $21 a month or $150 a year. Some university licenses include Premium features.
Pick it if you write in LaTeX on Overleaf. Skip it if you need to copyedit Word passages with live footnotes or references without converting them to text.
5. Claude for Word: Best for tracked changes inside Word
- Free plan: No, Pro or higher
- Paid from: $20/mo
- Built-in AI: Claude
Claude for Word is Anthropic’s Word add-in. It reads the open document, including comments, footnotes, and tables, and with tracked changes mode on it puts its edits into Word’s review pane. It can also work through comment threads and reply to them.
It is included in Claude Pro ($20 a month, or $200 a year) and higher plans, not the Free plan, and shares Claude’s usage limits.
Pick it if you want AI edits as native Word tracked changes without leaving Word. Skip it if you need a dedicated journal-submission checker or a free option.
6. Grammarly: Best for checks as you write
- Free plan: Yes, 100 AI prompts/mo
- Paid from: $12/mo
- Built-in AI: Grammarly AI
Grammarly underlines issues as you write in Word, browsers, and its apps. Its web editor and uploads take up to 100,000 characters, including spaces, while the Windows and Mac apps have no document-length cap. Usage limits of 50,000 words a day and 150,000 words a month apply. Pro adds plagiarism detection.
The free plan includes 100 AI prompts a month. Pro is $12 a month billed yearly or $30 month to month.
Pick it if you want corrections while you draft. Skip it if you plan to check more than 50,000 words in a day.
7. Microsoft Word: Best for staying in the file you already use
- Free plan: Yes, Word for the web
- Paid from: $9.99/mo
- Built-in AI: Copilot
Word has Editor for spelling and grammar, free at a basic level with refinements on Microsoft 365, plus similarity checking and citation tools. Copilot can rewrite and summarize. Microsoft’s tutorial for Microsoft 365 Copilot license holders documents recording Copilot edits with Track Changes on, and we haven’t confirmed that workflow on consumer plans. Microsoft recommends working on long documents in chunks and says Copilot may give less attention to the middle of a long file.
Copilot in Word comes with Microsoft 365 Personal ($9.99 a month) and higher plans for the subscription owner.
Pick it if your thesis lives in Word and you have Microsoft 365. Skip it if you need a dedicated journal-submission checker.
8. ChatGPT: Best for questions about a section
- Free plan: Yes, 3 uploads/day
- Paid from: $8/mo
- Built-in AI: ChatGPT
ChatGPT reads uploaded .docx and PDF files, with an upload ceiling of 512 MB and 2 million tokens per document, which is an ingestion limit rather than a guarantee that every page gets reviewed. Standard document retrieval extracts the text and discards embedded images. Writing blocks revise a draft in the chat, and the ChatGPT for Word add-in revises selections and adjusts formatting in the document.
The free plan allows up to three file uploads a day, and the Word add-in is available on every plan within its usage limits. ChatGPT Go is $8 a month and Plus $20.
Pick it if you want feedback on a section or help rephrasing. Skip it if you need complex formatting preserved without manual adjustments.
Which tool fits your job
Table 3 matches common thesis and manuscript jobs to the tools above, and notes when Word alone is enough.
| Job | Best fit | When Word still wins |
|---|---|---|
| Preparing a paper for journal submission | Paperpal | The journal provides its own Word template and checklist |
| An AI pass over every chapter, reviewed edit by edit | Revise, Claude for Word | You have Copilot and are happy to work chapter by chapter |
| Proofreading a finished thesis file | Trinka | You only need spelling and grammar checks |
| Writing in LaTeX | Writefull, Paperpal on Overleaf | Not applicable |
| Catching errors while drafting | Grammarly | Word's Editor already covers what you need |
Citation managers and LaTeX
If your thesis uses Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley, citations are live fields that the reference manager updates. Zotero distinguishes these fields from plain-text citations. Editing tools that convert text or paste it back can turn fields into plain text, and we couldn’t confirm how each tool here treats them, so try any tool on a copy of one chapter first and check that the citations still update.
For LaTeX, Overleaf has its own Track Changes on premium and some institutional plans, and Writefull and Paperpal work inside Overleaf.
What Word still does best
- It lets you work directly in a required Word template.
- Track Changes and comments let supervisors review edits in the same file.
- Reference manager plug-ins for Zotero, EndNote, and Mendeley run in Word.
- Editor offers spelling and grammar checks inside Word.
What each costs
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | Monthly | Per year | AI on that plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paperpal | Prime (billed yearly ($144), $25 month to month) | $12/mo | $144 | 20,000 grammar and consistency edits, 10,000 words of reference checks a month, and a lite Journal Fit report |
| Revise | Plus (or $72/yr billed annually) | $8/mo | $72 | Monthly AI limit, no daily limit. GPT-6 Sol, GPT-6 Astra, Gemini 4 Argon, Muse Wonder, and Claude Opus 5.5 need Pro |
| Trinka | Premium (billed yearly ($48, promotional, normally $80 a year), $20 month to month) | $4/mo | $48 | Editable file proofreading with tracked changes, 1 credit per 5,000 words, 10 credits a month, 25 AI writing requests a month |
| Writefull | Premium (billed yearly ($150), $21 month to month) | $12.50/mo | $150 | Premium features in Word and Overleaf |
| Claude for Word | Claude Pro (or $17/mo billed annually) | $20/mo | $200 | Included in Pro |
| Grammarly | Pro (billed annually, $30 month to month) | $12/mo | $144 | 2,000 AI prompts a month |
| Microsoft Word | Microsoft 365 Personal (or $99.99/yr billed annually) | $9.99/mo | $99.99 | Eligible Microsoft 365 plans, with limits. Personal/Family AI benefits are for the owner |
| ChatGPT | ChatGPT Go (monthly billing, may include ads) | $8/mo | $96 | More messages, uploads, and memory than Free |
A workflow for editing a long document
- Keep a clean copy of the full document before any tool touches it.
- Edit one chapter at a time. Chapter-sized passes make changes easier to review.
- Ask for edits as tracked changes or suggestions, and review each one rather than accepting everything.
- Check names, numbers, quotations, and citations yourself. A wrong fix in a fact is worse than a typo.
- Check your institution’s policy on AI tools before using them on assessed work.
The bottom line
For a paper headed to a journal, Paperpal runs more than 30 submission checks. For a whole thesis, Revise, in a separate browser editor, and Claude for Word, on paid Claude plans, propose AI edits as tracked changes you review one at a time, and Trinka returns a proofread file the same way. Writefull suits Overleaf, and Grammarly, Word, and ChatGPT cover general editing. Whichever you use, review every change, especially citations and figures.
Sources
Prices and plan details were checked against each vendor’s own pages on October 16, 2026. Prices are in US dollars as each vendor lists them, and some include local tax. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on the linked page before you buy.
- Paperpal: Pricing, Manuscript check, Word add-in with Track Changes
- Revise: Pricing, Supported models, Agent capabilities, Word compatibility, Import and export, MCP server, Suggesting mode, AI usage limits, Sharing and collaboration, Revision history
- Trinka: Pricing, Proofread File
- Writefull: Plans, Writefull for Word, Writefull for Overleaf
- Claude for Word: Claude for Word, Pricing
- Grammarly: Usage and document limits, Languages, Desktop app, Browser extension, Grammarly Docs, Grammarly Docs user guide, Plans, Grammarly for Word, Pro pricing, How much Pro costs
- Microsoft Word: AI capabilities and access, Previous versions, Track Changes, Navigation pane, Real-time co-authoring, Save as PDF, Compare documents (legal blackline), Microsoft 365 plans, Word for the web, Revise's AI review test, Copilot in Word, Track Changes in Word for the web, Word options: General, Print a document, Office for the web in OneDrive, Microsoft 365 mobile apps, Removed Windows features (WordPad), Word for the web service description, Similarity checking, Editing with Copilot and Track Changes (Microsoft 365 Copilot), Copilot and document length, Copilot in Word: Track Changes preview (Frontier), When you need a Microsoft 365 subscription
- ChatGPT: Pricing, What is ChatGPT Go?, Free tier FAQ, File uploads FAQ, Writing blocks, ChatGPT for Word, Capabilities overview, Creating documents with ChatGPT Work, Google Drive app, Google app data controls, Supported file types, ChatGPT for Google Sheets
