Same facts, half the words
Paste a paragraph and choose what should change: simpler, shorter, more formal, more casual, more detailed or more persuasive. You get the rewritten text, the list of edits it made and the word count before and after - and three alternative first sentences, because the opening is the part worth arguing about.
The AI Text Rewriter rewrites a passage so it reads differently, shorter, more formal, simpler or clearer, while keeping the meaning. You choose how far the rewrite goes and who will read it, and the result is editable text.
Watch one sentence lose eighteen words
This is the same instruction at four levels of editing. Nothing was removed that the reader needed; what was removed was the distance between the writer's thought and the reader's understanding - the passive voice, the nominalisation, the phrase that exists to sound careful.
In order to be able to ensure that the process is completed in a timely manner, it is necessary that all of the relevant documentation is submitted beforehand.
27To finish on time, send all the documents first.
10Send the documents first so the process finishes on time.
11Send the documents first. Then it finishes on time.
9The same instruction, three rewrites, 27 words down to 9. Nothing was lost: the passive voice, the two nominalisations and the padding were.
Most business writing is not badly written, it is unfinished. The first draft is written for the person who has to approve it, which is why it hedges. The rewrite is written for the person who has to act on it, which is why it does not.
A rewrite is a decision about a reader
Synonym replacement is the version of rewriting that a thesaurus can do, and it is the version that makes text worse. \"Utilise\" becomes \"use\", the sentence keeps its shape, and the reason it was hard to read is untouched. The hard part is not the word, it is the sentence that carries three qualifications before it makes a claim.
A real rewrite asks who is reading and what they need to do next. A colleague skimming on a phone needs the ask in the first line. A customer deciding whether to trust you needs the evidence before the adjective. A regulator needs the qualifier that a marketing editor would delete. Same paragraph, three different rewrites, and none of them is the \"correct\" one - which is why the tool asks for the reader, and why \"simpler\" and \"more persuasive\" are separate buttons.
This is also the reason to distrust any rewrite you have not read. The model can remove the hedging without noticing that the hedge was a legal requirement, or shorten a sentence by deleting the condition that made it true. The changes list is there so you can check what left the room.
Six modes, and what each one is actually for
| Mode | Use it when | It should | It must not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simpler | readers bounce off the second sentence | split long sentences, replace abstractions | drop technical terms the reader needs |
| Shorter | a bio, a form, a listing with a limit | keep one argument and all the facts | cut the caveat that makes the claim true |
| More detail | the text is right but thin | add an example for each point | invent numbers or examples that did not happen |
| More formal | it goes outside the company | complete sentences, no contractions | add legal certainty you do not have |
| More casual | it reads like a memo to a friend | contractions, shorter clauses | lose the information in the slang |
| More persuasive | the argument is buried | claim first, evidence second | add a promise the product cannot keep |
The strength control is the second decision. A light touch keeps your voice and fixes what is unclear; a full rewrite is for text you inherited and would not defend. If you are rewriting your own writing, start light - a heavy rewrite of your own voice produces something correct and anonymous, which is the one outcome worse than a clumsy sentence.
The four steps that keep it honest
Choose from the problem
If the complaint is length, choose shorter. If the complaint is \"I do not understand\", simpler. Same text, different fix.
Start light
Read the light version before asking for a full rewrite. Half the time the light version is the one you wanted.
Read the changes list
Four bullets, each naming an edit. Anything that removed a fact, a number or a condition is your decision, not the model's.
Rewrite the opening yourself
Take one of the three alternatives and make it yours. The first sentence is where a reader decides to continue.
Three ways a rewrite goes wrong
The text says the service is fast; the rewrite says it is the fastest. Nothing in the prompt asked for that - it is what happens when a model is told to make something more persuasive and the source has no argument to sharpen. Compare the numbers in the input with the numbers in the output; if a figure appears that you did not write, delete it.
The same failure shows up as invented examples: a rewrite of \"we reduced costs\" becomes \"we cut costs by 30%\". The tool is instructed to keep every fact and add none, and it mostly does; the check takes ten seconds and belongs in the workflow anyway.
A heavy rewrite of a distinctive text produces something that could have been written by anybody. That is fine for a policy page and wrong for a newsletter. If the voice is the product, use the light touch and fix only the sentences you cannot defend.
A useful test: read the rewrite out loud. If you would not say it in that rhythm, it is not your voice, and the reader who subscribes for the voice will notice before you do.
\"Usually ships in two days\" becomes \"ships in two days\". \"In most cases\" disappears. The sentence gets stronger and stops being true, and the person who has to answer the support ticket is you. Shortening is the mode where this happens most, because the qualifier looks like the padding.
Keep the conditions and cut the rest. A shorter sentence with a qualifier is still shorter, and it is the version you can stand behind.
How to edit a text you did not write
Read it once without a pen
The first read is for the argument: what is this text trying to make me do, and does it? Most texts that feel bad to read fail here rather than at the sentence level - the ask is in the fourth paragraph, the evidence is in the appendix, the conclusion contradicts the opening. Rewriting the sentences of a text with this problem produces a well-written text that still does not work.
Say the argument out loud in one sentence. If you cannot, that is the edit: decide what the text is for before touching a word.
Then find the sentences that carry it
In a text of 800 words there are usually four sentences doing the work, and everything else is either support for them or a habit. Mark them. A good rewrite moves those four to where a reader will meet them early and cuts the rest until it earns its place. This is why \"shorter\" so often reads better even when the information is identical: the reader reaches the point sooner.
Decide who is reading, in one word
\"Customers\" is not a reader. \"Someone who already bought it and wants to know how to return it\" is a reader, and that person needs the steps in the first line, not the mission statement. Every register decision - contractions, technical vocabulary, how much you explain - follows from this, and none of them can be made without it.
The tool takes the reader as an optional field because it changes the output more than any other control. Leave it empty and you get the safe middle; fill it in and the same text comes back written for somebody.
Keep a copy of the original
Rewriting is not reversible. Keep the source in the same document, above the rewrite, and when somebody asks why a sentence changed, the diff is the answer. This matters most in the texts that get reviewed by other people: a rewrite that cannot be justified line by line is a rewrite that will be reverted.
What to do with the alternative openings
Three first sentences are three different promises. The first is usually the safest, the second is usually the most interesting, and the third is usually the one that should be the second. Pick one, then rewrite it by hand so the rest of the document does not have to catch up with a voice it does not share.
If none of the three works, the problem is the paragraph after it. An opening cannot promise something the text does not deliver, and that is a structural problem no rewrite of one sentence can solve.
The check before you send it
Four things: every number is one you supplied, every condition survived, the first sentence contains the point, and you would say the whole thing out loud to the person who is going to read it. The last one catches more than the other three combined, and it takes less time than reading the changes list.
Then send it. A text that has been rewritten twice and never sent has done less work than one that was rewritten once and answered.
Practical questions
Will it keep my voice?expand_more
Can it shorten a text to an exact limit?expand_more
Does it work in other languages?expand_more
What does the changes list contain?expand_more
Is the text I paste stored?expand_more
Rewrite the paragraph you keep postponing
Paste it, pick what should change and read the four edits before you send it.
fact_checkQuick facts
- A rewrite that only swaps synonyms is detectable; changing the sentence structure is what actually makes a text different.
- Changing the reader changes the rewrite more than changing the words: the same paragraph for an expert and a beginner is not a synonym swap.
- A language model reads text in tokens, and one token is roughly four characters of English, so a 300-word answer is about 400 tokens.menu_bookOpenAI Cookbook
- The output depends on the prompt: the same request with a different tone or length instruction produces a different text, not a different answer quality.menu_bookOpenAI Cookbook
- A single emoji can be several code points joined together, so “count the characters” gives a different number from “count what you see”.menu_bookUnicode Consortium
helpQuestions people ask
How do I rewrite a paragraph in simpler words?expand_more
Is it okay to rewrite someone else’s text with AI?expand_more
Does rewriting change the meaning?expand_more
hubWhat this page is about
- Large language modelopen_in_new
A model that predicts the next token of a text; the site sends the prompt to a hosted model and returns its answer.
- Unicodeopen_in_new
The standard that gives every character of every script a code point, and defines what counts as one user-perceived character.
library_booksOfficial sources cited on this page
- How to count tokens with tiktokenOpenAI Cookbook
- The Unicode StandardUnicode Consortium
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