LTeX: grammar/spell checker on steroids for VS Code
Published on in Cool tools, English and VS Code
Doesn't only look for typos but for grammar and style issues as well. Not to be confused with LaTeX.
Table of contents
About LTeX
LTeX is a grammar/spell checker for VS Code. It uses LanguageTool under the hood and supports LaTeX, Markdown and more.
I have been using LTeX for half a year now. It's great!
Note that LTeX is not the same as LaTeX, the "document preparation system."
Check out the LTeX extension for VS Code
Pros
- Checks for spelling issues (typos)
- Checks for grammar issues
- Checks for style issues
- Example: "Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Consider rewording the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym." I get this often when starting too many sentences with the word "I" (maybe I love myself too much)
- Explains why things are (or might be) wrong instead of just complaining
- Works offline
- Is privacy-friendly (because works offline)
- Is easy to set up: install the VS Code extension and the rest will be auto-installed
- Provides quick fixes (Meta+.)
- Doesn't slow down VS Code (at least not on my machine; some other spell checker extensions have been horribly slow)
- Works even if you split sentences to multiple lines
Cons
- Doesn't support Finnish
- Doesn't support disabling checking for a single document/file
- There's "LTeX: Clear Diagnostics in Current Document" in VS Code's Command Palette, but the extension runs again when you type or erase even a single letter
- Sometimes leaves stray Java processes behind
- It might be a good idea to manually terminate the stray processes from time to time, especially if you are low on RAM