Clear Text Limits the Ability to Write the 1000 Most Common Words in English
Mac: Last year, Randall Monroe of XKCD released Simple Writer , a web application that limited your writing to the 1000 most common words in English. If you’re not interested in web apps, Cleartext is a free Mac app that does the same.
Plaintext follows the same principle as Simple Writer: when you are trying to explain something complex, you want to use a common language so that more people understand it. When you write (unfortunately, Cleartext does not support pasting text), Cleartext highlights any word that is not in the top 1000 most used words to help you simplify what you are trying to say. This can be useful when you’re preparing a presentation for someone outside your field, a large memo, or if you’re working on any other block of text you’re trying to make readable. If you work in an industry where there is a lot of jargon, it can be helpful to highlight that jargon so you can come up with words that everyone understands. As an application, Cleartext is a simple text editor, but it supports a variety of fonts and text sizes along with full screen mode. However, Cleartext is not a tool that you will use all the time, but it is nevertheless useful to keep it close at hand.
Free Text (Free) | Github