12 AI Tools for Technical Writers

Technical writing serves as an important tool in converting complex information into user-friendly documentation in the world of ever-changing technology. Tech writers always strive to make their content clear, concise, and interesting. With the development of AI tools, new ways have been discovered that could support their productivity and creativity.

Imagine a situation where a tech writer is asked to author a software manual that needs to be sold in a variety of international markets. While ChatGPT can create content and then provide translations en masse, the technical jargon, cultural context, and industry terminology cannot vary as greatly between languages. DeepL Write and similar resources are tools that can be very helpful here.

Such tools are not only capable of providing high-quality translations but can also offer contextual suggestions to ensure the technical language is conveyed accurately and remains culturally appropriate. With this, the tech writer can create documentation that speaks to a wide array of users, thus ensuring a much better user experience.

In this article, we will introduce some of the lesser-known AI tools for technical writers, beyond the popular and much-discussed ChatGPT and the like. We will introduce a few unique resources that can help enhance your writing process.

Beyond ChatGPT: AI Tools You May Not Know About

Hix AI: Your Writing Companion

Hix AI is a powerful AI writing assistant for technical writers. It is positioned as a ‘free AI search engine,’ and its main function is to use sophisticated machine learning algorithms to make content creation seamless and effective. However, it also has other useful functions. Here’s how Hix AI can help you improve your writing:

• Hix AI – Content Creation. It creates drafts from the given prompts and can, therefore, help someone overcome writer’s block and jumpstart the process of creating original text, which is often much needed. Whether it’s user manuals, API documentation, or product description drafting, Hix AI provides a decent foundation to start with.
• Paraphrasing. Hix AI can be used as a super-versatile rephrasing and rewriting tool offering features such as an Article Rewriter and Paragraph Rewriter.
• Suggestions for Style and Tone. Users can set the modality to any tone they like: professional, formal, childish, academic, friendly, etc. As a result, technical writing acquires the necessary style and tone in communication. Hix AI analyzes your writing and offers suggestions so it aligns with industry standards, ensuring your documents are professional and uniform throughout.
• Inbuilt grammar and clarity checks in Hix AI let writers refine their content, making it more readable and interesting.

Below you can see the result of paraphrasing a passage in Hix AI with the preset ‘Professional’ tone:

In general, Hix AI can be very helpful for technical writers when complex ideas need to be presented in simple terms.

DeepL Write: Precision and Clarity

DeepL Write is yet another powerful AI-powered tool widely adopted by technical writers.  It originated from DeepL Translator and now, in addition to its outstanding translation features, DeepL has expanded into writing services. Here are some ways DeepL Write can help you with your technical writing:

• Contextual Suggestions. DeepL Write allows users to make changes in sentence structure and word usage based on contextual needs. All your writing will be grammatically correct and contextually specific, which is crucial when dealing with technical jargon. The resource offers a set of tones distinct from those available in Hix AI. For example, the settings include tones such as diplomatic, friendly, confident, and even enthusiastic.
• Enhanced Clarity. It assists in breaking down elaborate sentences and phrases into simpler ones that are easier to understand, thereby making complex ideas more accessible. This is particularly important in technical writing, where clarity is essential.

Below is the result of paraphrasing in DeepL Write. As you can see, the advantage of the DeepL editor compared to Hix AI is that all the adjustments are clearly underlined.

Grammarly: All-in-One Writing Assistant

Grammarly is arguably the most well-known AI writing assistant today. For technical writers looking to ensure their documentation is polished and professional, Grammarly is worth checking out.

• Real-time Grammar and Spelling Checks. Grammarly instantly checks for grammatical, punctuation, and spelling mistakes while writing. This feature allows technical writers to correct errors right from the beginning of a document, ensuring that error-free documents are ready at the time of publication or distribution.
• Suggestions for Style and Tone. Grammarly analyzes your writing and makes suggestions on how to improve the text to maintain a consistent voice and meet accepted industry norms.
• Readability scores. Grammarly provides readability scores, showing how well a reader can understand certain content. This is especially important in technical writing and SEO, as concepts should be simplified to the level of understanding required by the audience. It offers insights into sentence length, word choice, and general readability.
• Plagiarism Detection. Grammarly checks against billions of web pages to ensure your document is original. This feature helps technical writers avoid unintentional duplication of content, preserving the integrity of the documentation.

Applying Grammarly’s complete suite of writing tools enhances the productivity of a technical writer, improves the quality of documentation, and ensures clearer communication with the target audience.

QuillBot: Your AI-Powered Paraphrasing and Writing Assistant

QuillBot is a novel AI writing tool designed to help writers enhance their content by effectively paraphrasing and summarizing. Here’s how QuillBot can be particularly useful for technical writers:

• Paraphrasing Capability. This feature helps writers reword sentences and paragraphs without losing the meaning.
• Summarization. The summarizing tool helps users condense any article or document into a concise form.
• Multi-Mode. QuillBot provides different modes of paraphrasing, including Standard, Fluency, and Creative modes. Each of these modes caters to different aspects of writing, allowing tech writers to choose the style that best fits their content requirements.
• Grammar and Spell Check. QuillBot offers grammatical and spell checks that every writer needs to produce error-free documentation.

In the screenshot below, you can see the result of paraphrasing performed by QuillBot. The underlined words and phrases indicate that the output is sometimes questionable and requires further editing. As is often the case with AI tools, paraphrasing is done mechanically, without sufficient attention to context. For example, sentences such as “authors can reword paragraphs and sentences without losing their sense” may appear, where the word “sense” could ambiguously refer to both sentences and authors. Similarly, the use of “succinct” is stylistically out of place, while “summary” does not fit grammatically.

On the whole, though far from ideal, QuillBot can assist technical writers in enhancing clarity, originality, and quality in their content. This platform helps stimulate creativity and efficiency for authors by enabling them to focus on effectively communicating with their audiences.

Reverso: Translation and Contextual Writing Assistance

Reverso is an AI-powered tool that offers a variety of writing and translation capabilities, among other features, specifically designed for technical writers. Some of the platform’s unique selling points include contextual translation and language learning capabilities. Below is a brief overview of how Reverso can improve your technical writing:

• Contextual Translations. Reverso provides contextualized translations, including examples of how words or phrases are actually used. This is especially important for technical writers working with specialized terminology that may not have a direct translation. By offering contextual examples, Reverso helps ensure the intended meaning is preserved across languages.
• Writing Assistance. In addition to translation assistance, Reverso provides writing suggestions, which are highly useful for improving sentences and choosing proper words. When drafting complex technical documents, it helps maintain clarity and coherence.
• Grammar and Spell Checks. Reverso enables writers to check grammar and spelling, helping them edit their work effectively.

Below is an example of a grammar check performed by Reverso (the checker highlights the omission of the indefinite article):

As clarity and efficiency in technical documentation continue to be in high demand, AI tools prove invaluable for technical writers. By embracing such technologies, technical writers can devote more time to creativity and innovation, producing superior content that best meets the needs of their target audiences.

Other Notable AI Tools for Tech Writers

Besides Grammarly, QuillBot, and all the tools mentioned above, a number of other AI tools can significantly improve the writing job of tech writers. Below are some notable options:

• ChatGPT by OpenAI. ChatGPT is an AI language model designed for generating ideas, drafting content, and providing feedback on writing. Its conversational capabilities make it an excellent tool for brainstorming. 
• Bard. An AI-powered writing assistant created by Google that helps users generate quality text using the company’s advanced natural language processing technology. It can be utilized for content creation, editing, and adding contextual information during technical writing. 
• Perplexity AI: This tool helps users locate answers and create content based on advanced queries. What Perplexity AI excels at is explaining complex topics—often through detailed summaries that are invaluable when conveying difficult concepts to an audience.
• Claude AI by Anthropic: An advanced conversational agent developed by Anthropic, Claude assists with writing tasks, answering questions, and providing insights into technical topics. With a strong emphasis on safety and reliability, it is a trusted tool for technical writers. 
• Sudowrite. This platform is designed for creative writing, using AI to help writers overcome blocks that prevent them from starting. While primarily oriented toward narrative writing, many of its features can be leveraged by technical writers to enhance storytelling elements in documentation.

By exploring these AI technologies, technical writers can find tools that best meet their needs, improving their writing process, boosting productivity, and creating high-quality documentation that communicates complex information clearly and effectively.

Using AI in ClickHelp: WriteAssist and Answer Genius

ClickHelp is a feature-rich software documentation tool that enhances the capabilities of technical writers through the use of AI. Two salient features of ClickHelp, WriteAssist and Answer Genius, are specifically designed to accelerate the document preparation process.

WriteAssist

WriteAssist is an inbuilt AI-driven writing assistant within ClickHelp that enables users to create clear and concise documentation. Here’s how WriteAssist can assist technical writers:

• Smart Suggestions. WriteAssist analyzes the created content and provides intelligent suggestions to improve clarity, grammatical accuracy, and style. It helps writers produce professional-quality text that meets industry standards.
• Contextual Help. The AI identifies and leverages context to offer more relevant and effective suggestions. This contextual awareness allows technical writers to create documentation that better meets the needs of their target audiences.
• Greater Efficiency. With real-time feedback and suggestions, WriteAssist reduces the time writers spend on editing. This efficiency enables technical writers to focus more on creating content rather than getting bogged down in revisions.

Answer Genius

Answer Genius is another ClickHelp AI feature that facilitates the documentation process by providing intelligent answers to user queries. Here’s how Answer Genius supports technical writers:

• Instant Answers. Answer Genius uses AI to analyze user questions and provide instantaneous, relevant responses directly from the documentation. This improves the user experience by allowing readers to quickly access the information they need without navigating through lengthy content.
• Content Suggestions. AI can suggest updates or additions to the content based on users’ frequently asked questions. This helps technical writers identify gaps in their documentation and address them effectively.
• Improved User Engagement. By delivering direct and accurate answers, Answer Genius increases user engagement with the documentation. This is invaluable in technical writing, where users often seek quick solutions to complex problems.

ClickHelp empowers technical writers to produce top-quality documentation in record time by leveraging its integrated AI capabilities, such as WriteAssist and Answer Genius. These tools enhance not only the creation process but also improve accessibility and clarity for end-users. By adopting ClickHelp and its AI-driven features, technical writers can achieve better communication and streamline their documentation workflow.

Conclusion

With the growing demand for clear, concise, and well-written technical documentation, AI has become an indispensable tool for technical writers. Tools such as Hix AI, DeepL Write, Grammarly, and QuillBot make the writing process more efficient, helping writers enhance productivity, clarity, and adherence to high standards. By leveraging these technologies, technical writers can adopt an innovative approach, allowing them to be more creative with their content and deliver optimal results to their audiences. 

Good luck with your technical writing!

ClickHelp Team

Author, host and deliver documentation across platforms and devices