Antidote User Guide

Anti-Oops! technology

Hit the Send button too soon? Now you’ll never have to say “Oops!” again! Anti-Oops! technology vets your emails to ensure you didn’t forget to carefully review them and to add all the attachments you meant to include. It even flags parts of your message that risk being ill received by the recipient.

• Anti-Oops! works with the most popular email clients.
• Remember: Anti-Oops! checks messages written in English (and in French if you’ve purchased the French Module); for those written in another language, you’re on your own!
• You can configure Anti-Oops! settings to specify what it should or should not detect. See the Anti-Oops! Panel section of the Settings chapter.
• If you don’t want Anti-Oops! to check a message, hold down the shift ⇧ key when you click Send.

If Anti-Oops! detects indications of an attachment or an abrasive tone, Antidote displays a warning banner when the corrector launches. Click the Show button to open the Anti-Oops! view and review the flagged passages. Otherwise, click the X at the rightmost end of the banner to close it.

Checking for attachments

When you click Send, Anti-Oops! checks that you haven’t forgotten to include an attachment. If there is no file attached, Anti-Oops! has Antidote analyze your message. If it finds that an attachment is mentioned, Anti-Oops! alerts you by opening a window directly in your email program. You can then stop sending the message and attach the missing file, or go ahead and send it without the attachment.

Anti-Oops! will show you the part of your message that suggests you may have forgotten an attachment. In the example on this page, the clue is “the registration form attached”.

• If the phrase that triggers an alert is a sentence automatically added by your email program, or you don’t think it needs to be corrected, you can tell Antidote to ignore it in the future.

Checking for potentially abrasive tone

Anti-Oops! is on the lookout for language in your emails that might be ill received by the recipient. Punctuation and formatting alone can even carry a degree of emotion that you might want to tone down. Rest assured: Antidote will flag seemingly innocuous but potentially problematic features of your text, like certain emojis and the excessive use of exclamation points or caps lock. Please bear in mind that Antidote will only stop an email from being sent if the message contains a lot of these features or if they are abrasive enough to excuse the interruption. If so, Antidote runs your email through the Anti-Oops! filter, where any potentially abrasive passages are highlighted so you can double-check your wording and adjust it as needed.

• To learn more, read the Abrasive Tone article in the Business Writing language guide.

With subscription The Anti-Oops! view provides suggestions for reformulating your writing in a gentler, more measured way. If you feel a flagged passage is worth rewording, choose the reformulation option that best conveys your point and insert it into your email with a click. Of course, it’s entirely up to you to decide how best to convey your message.

The corrector is ready

Anti-Oops! links your email program to Antidote. When you click Send, it springs into action and makes sure you haven’t forgotten to have Antidote check your message. If necessary, it automatically launches the corrector. Once you’ve corrected your message, just click Antidote’s  icon or Send in your email client.