A few months in the past, we reported on WritingTools, a small open-source app for Home windows that provided Apple Intelligence-like options on Microsoft-made working methods. Quick ahead to now, WritingTools has obtained an enormous replace with new capabilities, a brand new underlying mannequin, some quality-of-life enhancements, and extra.

WritingTools v6 is now obtainable on GitHub with the flexibility to talk about summaries and replica responses as markdown. Chat Mode now has a correct window for conversations (like Copilot or the ChatGPT app) and varied quality-of-life enhancements, equivalent to begin on boot, automated replace checks, a greater UI for settings, and a number of optimizations that halved the scale of the already tiny software. Additionally, WritingTools now makes use of Gemini 2.0 Nano by default (different LLMs can be found in settings).

Word that the replace has some recognized points:

• On some units, Writing Instruments could not work appropriately with the default hotkey. To repair it, merely change the hotkey to ctrl+` or ctrl+j and restart Writing Instruments. PS: If a hotkey is already in use by a program or background course of, Writing Instruments could not be capable of intercept it. The above hotkeys are normally unused.
• The preliminary launch of the Writing Instruments.exe would possibly take unusually lengthy — this appears to be as a result of AV software program extensively scans this new executable earlier than letting it run. As soon as it launches into the background in RAM, it really works immediately as regular.

The developer guarantees to implement extra options and strategies in future updates, equivalent to the flexibility to edit buttons and their prompts, create customized buttons, rearrange them, and extra.

You possibly can obtain WritingTools for Home windows from GitHub. The app is free and open-source, however utilizing it requires a Gemini API key (the app will present you the right way to get it throughout the preliminary launch) and an lively web connection (it doesn’t work offline, sadly).