Typing Assistant (English)

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on October 05, 2009

Typing Assistant provides the ability to autocomplete words and save time. With a minimum of frills and an impressively large dictionary, this program will shave minutes off writing.

This program's interface reminded us of the word-completing software present in text messaging, but still required a visit to the Help file's simple instructions for the basics. While its functionality proved to be initially distracting, we quickly grew to anticipate it. Once we wrote a few letters (for example, "Arr") a small screen popped up, providing a list of possible solutions (this example ranged from Arrack, Arrange, Array, and more). We either kept typing our word or scrolled through the choices and chose the correct one. Happily, the word we needed was usually toward the top and required less than a second to pick. The time saved using this program depended heavily on its best feature, an adjustable delay. When we wanted instant help we set no delay, but when we only wanted help if we were stuck on a spelling, we set the program to a longer delay before the screen appeared. No matter how we set it, this was a fantastic option for avoiding the word processor's spelling helper and has the ability to shave minutes from projects.

Typing Assistant comes with a 21-day trial. This program installs desktop icons without asking permission and leaves Start menu items and folders behind after uninstall.