Typopo, a single-click online tool to wipe out frequent typos

Brano Sandala
Brano Sandala Posts: 4
in Miscellaneous News
Hi there!

Hoping to post it in the right category. Unfortunately, I guess, at least some of you can share the pain of proofing the copy for typographical errors.

That’s why I’m building Typopo, an online tool that wipes out frequent typos in English, Slovak, Czech and Rusyn language.

Feeling that this tool might be helpful to you, let me share the link where you can try it → http://typopo.tota.sk/ 
(Alternatively, take a look at the feature list at my GitHub account → https://github.com/surfinzap/typopo)

Your feedback on how to make this tool more useful would be much appreciated.
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Comments

  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    Brano Sandala said:

    That’s why I’m building Typopo, an online tool that wipes out frequent typos in English, Slovak, Czech and Rusyn language.
    Not the best advertisement for your tool if it cannot detect an error in your own copy!
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 740
    My feeling is that in English "typos" generally refers to typing errors (liek hiting teh rong kyes) rather than typographic errors.
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    @Bhikkhu Pesala Can you expand. The only thing bugging me is the last character—to my knowledge it should be preceded by a space.

    Yes, "typos" is probably not the best word, as your tool rather changes typed characters into characters that cannot easily be typed. It also corrects some quasi-typos, like using two commas or apostrophes instead of a double quote. But if someone does that it's probably not a typo, just lack of knowledge.
    It is more of an auto correction tool. So far, better than the one in MS Word! (Didn't choke on 'Twas).

    Anyway, interesting project!
  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    edited March 2017
    Yes, Autocorrect is probably a more accurate description of what the tool does. It's not designed to detect a spelling error like Rusyn for Russian, nor common typos like teh for the. 

    An error that you might like to check for is the use of acute accents instead of apostrophes for `quotes`. This often messes up formatting on forums. 

    It does not seem to work for 'single quotes' although it works well enough for "double quotes" and dashes --- you might like to replace -- with en-dash and --- with em-dash. 

    >  English, Slovak, Czech and Rusyn language.

    Should be: 

    English, Slovak, Czech, and Russian. 
  • Kent Lew
    Kent Lew Posts: 937
    Bhikku — It is entirely likely that Brano’s tool is indeed targeted to operate on Rusyn, a Slavic language, given that the other stated targets include Slovak and Czech.
  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    Kent Lew said:
    Bhikkhu — It is entirely likely that Brano’s tool is indeed targeted to operate on Rusyn, a Slavic language, given that the other stated targets include Slovak and Czech.
    No doubt that you're right. It would still be better with the extra comma, and without the word language, or it should be "languages."

    > English, Slovak, and Rusyn. 

    or 

    > English, Slovak, and Rusyn languages. 
  • Kent Lew
    Kent Lew Posts: 937
    Well, now, that would be more a matter of copy-editing, not proof-reading for typos.

    (I don’t think there’s any value in getting into the age-old debate about the serial comma here.)
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,983
    I guess Adam was referring to this when he said a space was missing before the last character:

    BTW, the language editor of a scientific journals trained me to set off such an «e.g.» with two commas: «Some examples, e.g., apples, oranges, ...». I'm not sure how universal that sentiment is, though.
  • Kent Lew
    Kent Lew Posts: 937
    Christian — I believe most English style guides would advise similarly. It should be punctuated in the same manner as would the translated phrase it abbreviates: “for example.”
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    edited March 2017
    Once again about the word 'typo': surprisingly, my mobile dictionary (Advanced English Dictionary on Windows Phone 8.1) lists 'typo' as 'a mistake in printing resulting from mechanical failure of some kind'. Following this lead I found out that 'typo' is derived directly from 'typographical error' and some dictionaries treat it as a synonym of the original phrase, which in turn means (according to Wiktionary)
    1. a mistake made while typing (caused by a slip of the fingers)—what clicked in Simon's head, the typical meaning associated with the contraction 'typo',
    2. a mistake made during the process of typesetting—I think quote misuse and the likes qualify? So the original post was, if somewhat misleading, not very far from truth.

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