Microsoft Word is getting a plagiarism-checking tool bundled with the AI-powered Microsoft Editor. The ‘Similarity Checker’ feature is available in Office preview builds for Microsoft 365 EDU A3 and A5 customers. It will, however, be available to all Microsoft Word users in the coming months, said Microsoft on Monday.
“Powered by Bing Search, the Similarity checker can identify and help writers with originality in their writing and learn more about appropriate attribution through tools that facilitate the easy insertion of relevant citations”, Mike Tholfsen, Principal Product Manager for Microsoft Education, said in an official blog post on Monday. “This can aid writers in focusing less on the mechanics of writing, and more on the content”, he said.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is planning to make the tool available to all Microsoft 365 customers from next month. While Education customers will get it in July itself, Enterprise and retail users will get it later in the year. To start off, it will only be available in English. However, according to Bleeping Computer, support for other languages will come sooner rather than later.
In case you don’t know it already, Microsoft Editor is a new writing virtual assistant in Microsoft 365. It can be accessed across both Word and Outlook. It is also available as a browser extension for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. The software claims to offer ‘Intelligent Writing Assistance’ with spelling check, basic grammar corrections and punctuation-proofing for free. The premium version also offers “advanced grammar checking on clarity, conciseness, formality, vocabulary and much more”.
