Quick start

Writespect connects the AI assistant you already use to Microsoft Word, so you can revise the document in front of you by describing the change in plain language. This page takes you from a fresh install to your first edit.

Before you start

  • Windows with Microsoft Word, open, with the document you want to work on.
  • A supported assistant: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cowork, ChatGPT Work, ChatGPT Codex, or another MCP client. See Connecting your AI assistant.
  • Writespect installed and running: look for its icon in the system tray. See Install & setup.

1. Connect your assistant (one-time)

Writespect registers itself with the assistants on your machine when it first runs; if an assistant is missing, add it from the tray’s Connect menu. Once connected, your assistant gains a set of Word tools; you never call them yourself, you just ask in plain language. Per-client steps are in Connecting your AI assistant.

2. Open your document

Writespect attaches to the Word you already have open; it never launches a hidden copy. Open the document before you ask for anything.

If you have several documents open, say which one you mean; give the assistant the file path or ask it to list the open documents first. With more than one open and no document named, Writespect refuses rather than guessing, because an edit landing in the wrong file is expensive.

3. Make your first edit

Describe the change in plain language. For example:

In the “Project schedule” section, the sentence beginning “The review period” says ten business days. Change it to fifteen business days, make it a tracked change, and check whether the old period appears anywhere else.

The assistant reads the document, finds the passage, makes the change, and reports back where it edited. If tracked changes are on, the edit arrives as a Word revision you can accept or reject like a colleague’s.

4. Review it

Look at the revision marks in Word. Accept or reject each one exactly as you would any other reviewer’s. If you want the change undone entirely, ask the assistant to undo it, or press Ctrl+Z; most instructions land as a single entry on Word’s undo stack, so one press reverses one instruction. Header and footer changes may require several presses.

A few things worth knowing up front

These behaviors are intentional:

  • Use stable document anchors. Name the heading, section, clause, list item, or table you mean and quote the opening words of the passage. Do not rely only on a paragraph’s position (see Prompting).
  • Tracked changes need the document open in Word. Writespect can also edit a saved .docx that isn’t open, but Word itself is what records revisions, so a tracked edit on a closed file is refused rather than silently made untracked.
  • A snapshot is taken before every change. It is the undo of last resort, and it lives on your machine. See Tracked changes & review.
  • You stay in control. Writespect does not file, send, or share anything. It edits the document and stops.

The single biggest thing you can do for quality is learn how to ask well; see Prompting for quality.