April 9, 2012
Automated AP style-checking software StyleGuard now widely available
Equiom Linguistic Labs Inc. today announced the general launch of software technology that automates the
proofing process for Associated Press style. The plug-in software, AP StyleGuard, powered by Equiom, is
similar in functionality to Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar-proofing tools and checks Word documents
for AP Stylebook’s fundamental spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style guidelines.
“We are excited that many of our beta customers, including writers, editors and a judge, found StyleGuard
worthwhile for their daily editing and final documentation checks,” said Peter Mau, co-founder of Equiom
Linguistic Labs. “Many customer suggestions have been incorporated into the upcoming release.”
Equiom and The Associated Press launched StyleGuard in a limited beta in December and more than a thousand
early adopters helped to dramatically improve the product. For example, Equiom programmed more than
500 new style rules, improved usability with better multidocument support and style-checking information, and
enhanced the installation process to make it easier for corporate users with computers behind proxy servers
that require authentication.
“We developed AP StyleGuard as a Microsoft Office enhancement, by integrating AP
Stylebook to allow authors to interactively validate the quality and consistency
of news articles, press releases and documents," said Bassam Saliba, co-founder
of Equiom Linguistic Labs and an expert in Microsoft technologies.
The most common request was for a Mac-compatible version of StyleGuard, and Equiom is developing a Macintosh
tool for a June beta launch.
“We are so grateful to AP Stylebook fans for their invaluable feedback on StyleGuard,” said Colleen Newvine, product
manager of the AP Stylebook. “They took an already good product and made it better by offering suggestions on
how StyleGuard could help them more with their writing and editing. Stylebook users are a passionate crowd
and that makes them the perfect beta testing audience.”
Equiom Linguistic Labs Inc. will regularly offer free software updates to subscribers who purchase the
plug-in software to ensure AP StyleGuard reflects the latest AP Stylebook additions and changes.
“We spent more than a year to implement a user-friendly decision rule engine,” Mau added. “The AP Stylebook
collection consists of more than 6,000 decision rules highly tuned to provide the authors with timely and
useful information and corrections, with minimal false-positive distractions.”
AP StyleGuard operates on Windows XP and higher and on Microsoft Office 2007 and higher; no additional
hardware or software is needed (Internet connection is optional). StyleGuard is currently a PC product and
is not compatible with Macs.
Updated regularly since its initial print publication in 1953, The AP Stylebook is a must-have reference for
writers, editors, students and professionals. The AP Stylebook is used daily by news organizations and
communications professionals around the world and is considered by many to be the definitive resource for
journalists.
About Equiom Linguistic Labs Inc. Equiom Linguistic Labs, headquartered in
Bellevue, Wash., is a software company dedicated to the creation of “All You Need
to Write It Right” language tools. Its flagship product, StyleGuard, allows users
to interactively validate the quality and consistency of documents against leading
writing styles, including the AP Stylebook. Its patent-holding founders are Microsoft
veterans with deep technology knowledge and extensive startup experience. The development
team collectively helped ship more than 50 successful commercial products including
Microsoft Office, Visual Basic for Applications and Microsoft Speech Server. More
about Equiom Linguistic Labs at www.style-guard.com.
About The AP The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering
fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.
Founded in 1846, AP today is the largest and most trusted source of independent
news and information. On any given day, more than half the world’s population sees
news from AP. On the Net: www.ap.org
For further information:
For Equiom Linguistic Labs Inc.:
Peter Mau
425.749.4167
For AP:
Erin Madigan
212.621.7005
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AP StyleGuard
- Helps you avoid using redundant words or over-used words
- Helps you catch capitalization and punctuation issues
- Catches issues that escape the spell and grammar checkers in Microsoft Word and Outlook
- Helps you identify issues such as "Should this be one word, two words, or
hyphenated"
- Provides common unit conversions within the document
- Provides possible abbreviations and checks for correct abbreviation rules
To purchase AP StyleGuard, visit www.apstylebook.com
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