When you start using Acrolinx, you'll get a guidance package. This package includes standard writing guidance, but you can customize it. After we set up your guidance, you can still modify it with style guides.
Tip
We regularly update our guidelines to improve the guidance package. This includes editing help texts for more support and guidance. So, no need to panic if you can’t find a guideline. After an update, you’ll receive the same guidance package as before, but some guideline names may have changed.
Here, you'll find the most important changes and updates to the guidance package. Want to update your guidance package? Get in touch with Acrolinx Support to get started.
Grammatical Error Correction (GEC) is a grammar error corrector based on machine learning. It works well with the traditional Acrolinx rule-based checking system. GEC offers more accuracy and faster improvements in Japanese grammar checking while staying aligned with Acrolinx's guidance.
New Consistency guideline "Could you remove the end punctuation from the title?" for English (22 January 2025)
"Could you remove the end punctuation from the title?" checks for all end punctuation in titles. You can also configure this guideline contextually (for example, to check for subtitles). The guideline is disabled by default. To use it, make sure to enable it in the relevant style guides.
Updated the English Consistency guideline “Could you review the spaces around slashes?” (21 January 2025)
We've added the new setting “Don’t use a space (Chicago).” To avoid confusion, we've also renamed the setting “Don’t use a space.” to “Don’t use a space (AP).”
The new setting addresses the way slashes that separate multiword compounds are handled. The Chicago Manual of Style specifically recommends that you use a space on both sides of the slash (for example, soy sauce / apple cider vinegar) with multiword compounds. It doesn't recommend spaces before slashes in any other case.
The functionality of the setting “Don’t use a space (AP),” formerly named “Don’t use a space,” hasn’t changed.
We've changed how we display the Clarity guideline "Could you use an easier word?" in the Sidebar.
There used to be only one issue card per sentence with a subcard for each word. Now, every word Acrolinx finds will have its own issue card in the Sidebar.
This change will make it easier to identify specific words that you might want to exclude from a check. These changes only affect the way issues are presented, so the score will remain unaffected.
Replaced "Did you mean to use a different word?" with guidelines that use Grammatical Error Correction (GEC) (25 December 2024)
The guideline "Did you mean to use a different word?" was replaced by some guidelines that use the GEC model. That's why we've removed from the standard English guidance.
However, we've added the following two guidelines with an additional GEC component:
Did you mean “affect” or “effect”?
Did you mean “loose” or “lose”?
We’ve updated the English and German guidelines, “Could you use the types of dashes consistently?” and "Verwenden Sie Gedankenstriche bzw. Bindestriche einheitlich?"
English:
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We've renamed the guideline, "Could you use the types of dashes consistently?" to, "Could you use dashes as separators consistently?" Note that this guideline only checks the use of dashes between words and not between numbers.
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New setting: Use em dash (AP & Chicago). The settings Dynamically show inconsistencies, Use en dash and Use hyphen will continue to be available.
German:
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We've changed the guideline name from, "Verwenden Sie Gedankenstriche bzw. Bindestriche einheitlich?" to "Verwenden Sie als Gedankenstriche einheitlich Halbgeviertstriche bzw. Bindestriche?"
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The setting Gedankenstrich verwenden is now named Halbgeviertstrich verwenden.
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The guideline now finds em dashes in your content.
The following 2 guidelines had similar names:
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Clarity > Sentence Length: "Could you shorten this list item?"
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Scannability > Lists: "Could you shorten the list items?"
The Clarity guideline counts the words within a sentence. The Scannability guideline counts the words in each list item, regardless of the number of sentences.
To reflect these differences clearly, the guideline names are now:
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Clarity: "Could you shorten this phrase or sentence in this list item?"
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Scannability: "Could you keep each list item as short as possible?"
New settings for the English guideline "Is the use of numerals, spelled-out numbers, and ordinals consistent?" (20 November 2024)
We added 3 new settings for the guideline, "Is the use of numerals, spelled-out numbers, and ordinals consistent?" in Consistency > Numbers.
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AP: Follows the Associated Press style book recommendations for the usage of numerals and spelled-out numbers. It recommends that you spell out numbers one through nine, and use numerals for 10 and above, with some exceptions.
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Chicago: Follows the recommendation of spelling out numerals from zero through one hundred.
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Chicago — Alternative rule: Recommends spelling out numerals from zero through nine.
For now, the settings Dynamically show inconsistencies, Always use numerals, and AP & Chicago will remain available. However, we will rename AP &Chicago to AP & Chicago (deprecated).
To make sure it's clear what Acrolinx checks for, we've renamed the following guidelines:
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Consistency: "Is your percent and space usage consistent?" to "Could you review the spacing between the numeral and the percent symbol?"
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Spelling and Grammar: "Did you use trademark symbols the first time you introduced a term?" to "Could you use a trademark symbol when you introduce a term?"
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Clarity: "Careful, embedded sentences can make your sentence complex." to"Could you avoid embedded sentences?"
The guideline “Could you use spaces between numbers and units correctly?” now allows you to choose the type of spaces you want to use. 4 settings are available in the style guides section:
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Dynamically show inconsistencies - Acrolinx checks if the spacing between the numeral and the currency symbol is consistent. If not, it suggests the most frequently used option.
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Use a space - Acrolinx checks if there's a space between the numeral and the currency symbol throughout your content.
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Don’t use a space - Acrolinx checks for spaces between the numeral and the currency symbol and suggests removing them
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Use a non-breaking space - Acrolinx checks if there's a non-breaking space between the numeral and the currency symbol throughout your content.
Tip
If the guideline “Could you use spaces between numbers and units correctly?” is enabled, you'll automatically get the setting “Use a space” when you upgrade.
We've renamed the Correctness guideline “Shouldn’t the first word of the sentence start with a capital letter?” to the friendlier “Could you capitalize the first word of the sentence?”
We've adjusted the behavior of the Correctness guideline "Should this be hyphenated?" to reflect changes to the Associated Press Stylebook and to align with the Chicago Manual of Style recommendations.
These changes only affect compound adjectives written after a noun. Acrolinx no longer asks you to hyphenate these adjectives. Instead, it highlights the hyphenated forms and suggests removing the hyphen.
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Use: She works full time. She’s well aware of the consequences. The play is second rate.
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Don't use: She works full-time. She’s well-aware of the consequences. The play is second-rate.
Notice
These changes are already implemented and might slightly affect content scores.
You can now check Latin American Spanish in addition to European Spanish.
We’ve added the guideline "¿Estás usando la variedad de español adecuada?" so you can make sure that you use the right Spanish for your audience.
To address regional differences in the use of formal and informal speech, we’ve also added new settings to the Tone guideline “¿Qué fórmula de tratamiento estás usando, tú o usted?”
We've added the default guideline "Could you attach the prefix to the related head word?"In this guideline, Acrolinx checks if a space separates a prefix or a prefix-like word (such as "self-" or "wide-") from the main word. It then suggests whether to write the word with or without a hyphen.
We previously distributed this among other guidelines, and Acrolinx couldn't always find the issue.
To align this guideline with your preferred style, select either the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style. Note that there are only a few differences between the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style. For example, "co-author" / "coauthor" and "extra-fine" / "extrafine."
If you use this guideline and the Consistency guideline "Is your hyphenation consistent?", we recommend that you align those settings. In the event that your hyphen preferences don't match the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style, use the Consistency guideline "Dynamically show inconsistencies."
While introducing setting-specific guidance for some of the English Consistency guidelines, we've renamed the following guidelines:
Spacing
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Could you use degree signs and spaces consistently? > Could you review the spacing between numbers and the degree symbol?
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Is the use of currency symbols and spaces consistent? > Could you review the spacing between numerals and currency symbols?
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Is the use of slashes and spaces consistent? > Could you review the spacing around slashes?
Symbols
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Could you use degree signs with temperature units consistently? > Could you review the spacing between the degree symbol and temperature units?
In addition, we’ve moved this last guideline from the group Symbols to the group Spacing.
We've renamed the Clarity guideline “Could you shorten this list of 4 or more nouns?“ to “Could you rewrite this string of 4 or more nouns?“ It now follows the same format as similar guidelines.
The guideline "Could you break up this dense block of text?" caused some confusion. We've updated the guideline name and help text for clarity. The new guideline names are:
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Could you avoid too much continuous text?
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Können Sie lange Passagen aus reinem Text vermeiden?
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テキストを視覚的に区切る要素を追加できますか？
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Bryt gärna upp stora textblock med andra element
Note
Note that you might need additional configurations for component-based editors. Elements you use to break text blocks might have to be mapped to the BLOB-BUSTERS context in the respective Content Profiles.
We've extensively reviewed the behavior of the English Clarity guidelines "Did you define the acronym before using it?" and "Did you define the acronym in your content?." Now, the help texts give you more detailed information on the various patterns which Acrolinx accepts as acronym definition.
Acrolinx now recognizes the following forms:
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LehrerInnen
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Lehrer:innen
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Lehrer_innen
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Lehrer.innen
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Lehrer/innen
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Lehrer/-innen
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Lehrer*innen
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Gender-neutral adjectives (for example, schnelle*r, but also schnellem*schneller), pronouns and determiners, and compounds (lehrer*innennah, Lehrer*innenausbildung)
Note
Acrolinx doesn't currently recognize compounds with multiple gendered parts.
Notice
Update: We've reconsidered this change and decided to reverse it. Both guidelines are back.
We used to have two guidelines for missing punctuation at the end of the sentence.
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Correctness: Typo perhaps? Is the end punctuation missing?
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Consistency: Is the end punctuation missing?
Over time, we made improvements to these guidelines and they ended up highlighting the same issues. That's why we merged these two. We removed the one in Consistency and updated the Correctness one.
You'll now find the guideline "Utiliser la ligature « œ » et « æ »" in the Correction goal. It highlights "oe" and "ae" in words where the characters "œ" and "æ'" should be used instead. Think "œuvre" instead of "oeuvre" and "œufs" instead of "oeufs."
Adjusted the Guideline "These words are normally hyphenated or written together." for English (25 April 2023)
Both the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style recommend to not use hyphens if abbreviated units in combination with numerals are used as modifiers.
Previously, the guideline "These words are normally hyphenated or written together." would highlight sentences like "This is a 10 in screen." and suggest 10-in screen.
Acrolinx now only highlights these combinations if the unit is spelled out, for example 10-inch screen.
The default character counts for the existing standard guidelines are now adjustable. For example, you can adjust the counts for the following:
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"Sentence too long" (句子字数过多？) - 50 characters by default
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"Title too long" (标题字数过多？) - 20 characters by default
We’ve added a new guideline to Einheitlichkeit called “Verwenden Sie Leerzeichen vor Prozentzeichen einheitlich?” Acrolinx now checks the consistency of spacing between numerals and the percent sign.
This guideline already existed for English, but we’ve introduced it for German as well.
We’ve changed some guideline names to match our standards. And to give you better guidance, we’ve also improved the Sidebar and browser help texts.
The following guideline names were updated:
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Rechtschreibung: Dieses Wort Kennen wir nicht > Können Sie das unbekannte Wort prüfen?
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Satzbau: Wort entfernen? > Können Sie das doppelte Wort entfernen?
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Verbform: Verwenden Sie die korrekte Verbform? > Können Sie prüfen, ob die Verbform hier passt?
Filters are now Rechtschreibausnahmen. We found that the naming and descriptions of our default filters didn’t tell you much about their purpose. We’ve changed this. You can now set different Ausnahmen for words or phrases that Acrolinx shouldn’t check. This includes Adressen, Anglizismen, or everything in quotation marks.
We constantly improve our help texts in the Sidebar and browser to provide as much support as possible for your writers. This includes changing older guideline names to fit our standards. After an update, you'll still get the exact guidance package that you’re used to.
With this update, we looked at some German guidelines that come with the goal Korrektheit. Under Rechtschreibung, we've improved the help texts and changed the names to the following:
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Wort kleinschreiben? > Muss das Wort kleingeschrieben werden?
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Wort groß > Muss das Wort großgeschrieben werden?
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Wort zusammenschreiben? > Müssen diese Wörter zusammengeschrieben werden?
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Wort getrennt schreiben? > Muss das Wort getrennt geschrieben werden?
Do you speak Czech? Because Acrolinx does, too. With the new guidance package, you get support for the Czech language in Targets mode. You can now check Czech with the Words and Phrases goal.
With 2022.03, we’ve made it possible for you to adjust some Japanese voice guidelines to meet your exact needs. In the Targets section of the Dashboard, you can now select parameters for the following guidelines:
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文を指定字数以下にできますか？
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連続したひらがなを書き換えられますか？
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連続したカタカナを書き換えられますか？
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連続した漢字を書き換えられますか？
For this to work, we’ve changed the name of one guideline to match the functionality. 文を 50 字以下にできますか？is now 文を指定字数以下にできますか？.
("Could you shorten the sentence to 50 characters long or shorter?" is now "Could you shorten the sentence to the specified length or shorter?")
We’ve improved a guideline for Targets and added “Können Sie „der“, „die“ oder „das“ am Anfang von kurzen Aufforderungen vermeiden?” to the standard Clarity guidelines for German. To improve clarity, this guideline prevents you from adding unnecessary articles to short imperative sentences.
We've added functionality to the default guidelines of the guideline group "Acronyms" in Clarity. With these guidelines, Acrolinx checks if the definition of an acronym exists and is introduced correctly. Now, you can choose if the definition should be "strict" (exact match for letters and case) or "relaxed" (case not considered). This option is enabled for English and German.
There’s a new choice for the consistency in character width (全角と半角の統一) guidelines in Japanese. You can now select the option "全角も半角も使用しない" (meaning: don't use full width or half width) for all character-width guidelines.
We’ve decided to standardize some popular English custom guidelines. Custom guidelines are usually added to the guidance package by request only. But some are useful for everyone. That’s why we've included highly requested guidelines for the goals Clarity and Consistency. If you’re using Targets and update your guidance package, some new guidelines might pop up for you to activate.
We’re happy to announce that you can now add the Inclusive Language goal to your Targets in Japanese. This goal covers guidelines for Respectful Language and Accessibility.
With Respectful Language, you can check your content for a wide range of issues involving sexual orientation, gender, disabilities, and offensive expressions. The Accessibility guidelines for Japanese are similar to those for English. Acrolinx looks at certain elements of the content such as links, alt texts, and headers. You’ll also get suggestions to make your content screen reader friendly.
We’ve decided to standardize some popular German custom guidelines. Custom guidelines are usually added to the guidance package by request only. But it looks like some are useful for everyone. We've included highly requested guidelines for the goals Clarity (Verständlichkeit), Consistency (Einheiltlichkeit), and Tone (Ton). If you’re using Targets and update your guidance package, some new guidelines might pop up for you to activate.
For example, aguideline that highlights the so-called “Schachtelsätze,” which are long, complicated sentences with several subordinate clauses, a very well-known issue in German content.
Looking to make your content more accessible to screen reader users? We've expanded our Inclusive Language guidelines to include new guidelines for accessibility.
The guidelines will help you add and optimize alt text, and Acrolinx will let you know if certain aspects of your formatting are unclear. Read more about our accessibility guidelines in the Inclusive Language goal.
Simplified Technical English Issue 8 (27 May 2021)Simplified Technical English Issue 8 (27 May 2021)
We’re happy to announce that we support the newly released Issue 8 of ASD-STE100. You can check ASD-STE Simplified Technical English (STE) Issue 8 if you've enabled Targets or if you still use Guidance Profiles.
In the Targets section, you can now choose Issue 8 and Issue 8 + from your STE presets. Connect with to your Acrolinx contact for a separate Writing Guide if you haven't enabled Targets yet.
Good news! If you're a Cloud customer, Acrolinx now has more sophisticated article and word confusion guidelines for English. You can use these by default in Targets mode only.
The refined guidelines will help your writers with commonly confused words like "affect" or "effect" and "than" or "then". Acrolinx will also let you know if it looks like a sentence is missing an article.
New Consistency Guidelines (16 February 2021)
Acrolinx can now check for stylistic inconsistencies. For example, Acrolinx can identify where you used the serial comma and where you didn't in your content. Acrolinx also finds inconsistencies with things like hyphenation. You'll find these guidelines in our new goal Consistency.