DocsPlus

November 26, 2024

A person types on a laptop.

Writing Apps have evolved a lot over the past decade. Where previous apps tended to focus on one area of difficulty, most modern writing apps now offer a suite of functions designed to bolster your writing from start to finish. DocsPlus very much fits into the latter category, offering writing support from first draft to polished final product. Let’s take a closer look at these tools and how they could be useful for struggling writers.

Planning

DocsPlus gives you some great tools for planning your document. To start, you can capture your ideas on the fly with the built-in Voice Note tool. Simply press an onscreen button and have your thoughts recorded and played back at any time.

Next, you can organize your ideas with the built-in mind map tool where you can add photos, text, and even voice notes. Then, you can transform your mind map into a Wordbar that will sit at the bottom of the document.

Writing

Once you are ready to start writing your first draft, DocsPlus has some more tools to help you along the way. A contextual word predictor displays on screen as you write, so even if English is your second language, or you simply struggle with writing in general, you’ll have access to a broad vocabulary of contextually accurate words to choose from.

As you write, you’ll continue to see the Wordbar that you generated via mind map. But if you want, you can customize your Wordbar, or, choose from hundreds of pre-made Wordbars that are available for free.

Proofing

After you complete each sentence, the text is automatically read aloud with each word highlighted as it’s spoken, encouraging you to review as you write. You’ll also have access to the proofreading tools that you’d expect, like the built-in spell checker.

Disability Support

This touchscreen-friendly app offers a variety of color overlays as well as options to change font size color, and style, including the Dyslexie font designed specifically for learners with dyslexia. Documents can also be read aloud within the app. For users with fine motor control challenges, the app offers an alternative keyboard input tool call SuperKeys which divides the keyboard into six large clusters of letters rather than individual keys. DocPlus also supports Eye Gaze technology and Switch Access.

DocsPlus offers a variety of subscriptions from single licenses to school-wide programs. To learn more about DocsPlus click here (new window).

This post originally appeared on the AT Help Desk (new window) website.