Using The Clerk in Microsoft Word

Open The Clerk in Word

1. Windows: on the Home tab, click The Clerk (hosted), its name in Word's list of add-ins too.
2. Mac: open a document, click Add-ins on the Home tab, then The Clerk (hosted).
3. The Clerk opens in a task pane beside your document. At the top of the pane are Help, Settings and More; the tool list groups the tools under Check, Research and Prepare.
4. Not on the Home tab? Close every Word window and open Word again: Word only finds The Clerk when it starts. More in If it did not work.

Your access code

The access code from your pilot invitation lets the pane use this site's own AI keys. The pane asks for it first: until it has an access code or a key of your own, it opens on its entry screen, “Enter your access code”. In the screen's words: “This site's own AI keys need the access code from your pilot invitation. Enter it to open The Clerk. It stays in this browser and is sent only to this site.”

1. Enter it. Paste the code into the Access code field and click Open The Clerk. This site checks the code first. Once it is accepted, the pane saves it in this browser and opens. If it is not, the screen says “This site did not accept that code. Check it against your pilot invitation and try again.” and nothing is saved.
2. See it, and when it expires. The saved code is in Settings, under Access code, after Data backup. In the pane's words: “The access code saved in this browser, from your pilot invitation. Here you can see whether this site accepts it, when it expires and today's allowance, or replace it: enter the new code and click Save. It stays in this browser and is sent only to this site. Not needed for your own keys.” Below the field it shows the date the code expires and the days left.
3. Replace it. Put the new code in the same field and click Save.
4. Remove it. Clear the field: the button then reads Remove. Click it. Without a code or a key of your own, the pane returns to the entry screen.
5. When it expires. A code lasts 30 days from the first time this site accepts it. In its last three days the pane shows a warning under its bar, with the date. Once it has expired, the pane returns to the entry screen, which says “Your access code has expired. Enter a new code to open The Clerk, or use your own API key instead.” Your own key never expires here.

Once the code is accepted, and while no key of your own for a model provider is saved, this site chooses the model and there is nothing to choose: the pane shows no model picker. Under AI model in Settings it reads ⚙ Automatic and “This site chooses the model while you use its access code. To choose a model yourself, add your own key under Your own API keys.” Today's allowance on this site's keys resets at midnight UTC; Settings → Access code shows what is left.

With your own key instead: on the entry screen, Use my own API key instead opens Your own API keys in Settings. With a key saved there, no code is needed and you get the full model choice (see Settings: the model). The same holds with a code saved too: saving your own key for a model provider brings the model picker back, and a model from that provider runs on your own key. A key for Pangram alone pays for detection only, so it does not change the model arrangement.

With neither a code nor your own key, the pane shows the entry screen. A check run before either is saved (after Use my own API key instead, say) answers: “This site needs an access code to use its own AI keys. Enter your code on The Clerk's entry screen, or add your own key under Settings → Your own API keys.”

Choose what to check

• A selection. Select a passage in Word. It appears in the pane's Selected text box: “Highlight any sentence or paragraph in Word — it will appear here automatically.” If you turn off Auto-pick up Word selection (no Refresh click needed) in Settings, click ↺ Refresh after selecting. The checks under Run a check work on the selection only: “Selection-only by default — use Sweep to scan a section.”
• A section or the whole document. Section sweep checks paragraph by paragraph: choose Selection, Section or Document.
• For the detector. Detector check reads the Selection or the Whole document.
• Whole-document tools. Acronyms & terms tracker (under More): “Reads your entire document and flags acronyms used before they're defined, defined twice with different expansions, and defined but never used.” Journal Audit: “Whole-document readiness check”.

The checks

Under Run a check, the checks come in three groups. Each is named as the pane names it, with its line from the pane.

Detector check sits at the foot of the Pre-submission group; it has its own section below. The check modes on The Clerk page describes each check.

Read the findings

• The verdict. The result opens on Feedback. It starts with the check's verdict, a short sentence, and, for the checks that rate them, Grammar, Clarity or Meaning risk, each Low, Medium or High. Reviewer Lens and AI Tell-Signs show their own result in its place.
• The issues. Under Issues found, each issue is tagged with its kind (for example Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Clarity or Citation), with its reason and, where there is one, a Suggested edit.
• The corrected passage. The Minimal edit tab offers the whole passage with the fixes made.
• What has changed. Nothing in your document changes until you apply an edit. An issue you have applied is marked ✓ Applied.

Apply a suggestion, or leave it

• Apply this fix, under an issue: “Replace this span in the bookmarked selection. Ctrl+Z to undo. EndNote citation fields are protected.” It asks once before replacing; the pane then says “Applied. Ctrl+Z to undo.”
• Review and apply…, on the Minimal edit tab, where each edit is marked “Proposed, not applied”: it shows your original and the edit together, to edit, accept and apply, or reject. An applied edit can be reverted from its card, or with Ctrl+Z in Word.
• Insert as comment, where the result offers it, adds the feedback as a Word comment instead.
• Leave it. There is no button for this, and none is needed: a suggestion you don't apply changes nothing, and your text stays as it is.

Section sweep

1. Open Section sweep in the tool list (under Check): “check every paragraph from this heading to the next”.
2. Choose Selection, Section or Document.
3. Pick a check. The sweep has its own list: Check Grammar Only; Does This Make Sense?; Make Clearer, Do Not Rewrite; Tighten prose · cut wordiness; Standardise voice · match doc baseline; Check Academic Tone; Check Argument Fit; Calibrate claim strength; Tense consistency · match section convention; AI Tell-Signs Check; Find repeated findings / arguments; Results ↔ Discussion coverage.
4. Under Show changes as, choose Tracked changes “(accept or reject in Word)”, or red added text and struck-through deletions “(a marked-up copy; stays visible, delete struck text yourself later)”.
5. Click Run sweep. Each paragraph gets its own row, with ↗ Jump to paragraph, the original paragraph beside the proposed one with Accept…, Edit and Reject, and Insert as comment where they apply. Tick rows, or Select all proposed, to apply them together after one confirmation; an applied row offers Revert….
6. While it runs, Cancel stops it. The rows already checked stay; paragraphs it had not reached are marked “Skipped (cancelled)”.

Detector check

Detector check: “Shows how this text reads to an AI-text detector (Pangram). A high score is not proof of AI writing. Use it to spot passages worth revising in your own voice.”

1. Choose Selection or Whole document: “Whole document reads every paragraph of the document open in Word.”
2. It returns an Overall: line, then the passages Pangram reads as AI-generated or AI-assisted, each with its score. Clicking a passage selects it in Word.
3. It offers no rewrite. The selected text is sent to Pangram for analysis.

A detector score is a signal for your own review, never proof of how a text was written.

The example

The prerecorded example is in The Clerk in a browser, not in Word's pane. View an example opens it directly, before any access is set up. Without a code or a key of your own, the browser's setup panel also offers Explore an example, beside I have a pilot code and Use my own API key.

It is a sample passage and its Grammar Only feedback, labelled “Example feedback, prerecorded.” In the pane's words, “It was written in advance: nothing was sent to an AI.”

Manuscript context

• Manuscript profiles (under Research): “saved per-project context (terminology, English variant, forbidden phrases)”.
• With a profile active, its name sits in a chip in the pane's header: “its saved context (study title, objective, glossary, protected terms) is driving every AI check. Click to manage / switch.”
• The chip's × is Clear project context: “no profile will drive the AI (transient Settings values apply).”
• Without a profile, Study context in Settings holds Study title, Section title, Paragraph purpose and Research objective (optional). In the pane's words: “Study title and research objective here are used only with no manuscript profile active. With a manuscript active, its own study title and objective go with each check instead, and these are not sent, so one paper's context does not carry into another's. Section title and paragraph purpose always apply.”

Profiles, the reviewer bank and history

• Reviewer bank (under Prepare): “Reviewer comment bank”. Save a reviewer, editor or supervisor comment and check a passage against it with Reviewer Lens.
• Writing helper: “continue an idea or smooth a paragraph using your manuscript profile as context”. Cover letter: “draft a journal-submission letter using your manuscript + journal profiles”.
• History (under More): “Run any check from the home screen and it will appear here — reopen a past result with one click”. Whether checks are saved is set in Settings, under Privacy.

Settings: the model

• On an access code, with no key of your own for a model provider: the pane shows no model picker, and The Clerk runs on ⚙ Automatic: “Automatic — each check uses its recommended model”. Under AI model in Settings, the pane names each check's model.
• On your own key: in the pane's Help, “With your own key, add it under Settings → Your own API keys and click Test; then you can choose any model of that provider.” The model picker at the top of the pane shows the model in use; click it to change. It starts on ⚙ Automatic. In Settings, Default model is the same choice, and Auto-switch to a larger model for long passages lets a long passage go to a larger model while your default stays unchanged.
• To compare the models side by side, see Models.

Data backup and restore

Under Data backup in Settings: “Profiles, reviewer bank, correction matrix, journal profiles, history, and settings all live in Word's local storage — an Office cache clear or update can wipe them. Download a backup before troubleshooting or big revisions.”

1. ⬇ Download backup saves it all as one file; Copy as text puts the same on your clipboard.
2. Restore from file… reads a backup and shows what it replaces, adds and leaves unchanged before anything is written. Restore & reload overwrites your current data for those items and reloads the pane; Cancel leaves everything as it is.
3. “API keys and the access code are never in a backup: enter them again there.” The Clerk in Word and The Clerk in a browser keep separate copies: to move your data, download a backup in one and restore it in the other.

Help in the pane

Help, at the top of the pane, has seven topics: Getting started, Installation, Access and quota errors, Model and key setup, Backup and restore, Release notes, Report a problem. Report a problem shows a diagnostic summary to copy into an email; in its words, “Read it first; nothing is sent from here.”

Installing, checking it worked and removing it: Install The Clerk.