FAQ

What happened to the blog?

We decided to retire the blog, so there was one place for all information about Rewordify.com--on Rewordify.com itself. Visit the site and click on "help" at the top to learn more.

Why are a lot of hard words not being rewordified?

Make sure that you don't have the rewordifying level set to a high value, like Level 4 or Level 5. High levels like that only rewordify very low-frequency (difficult) words.

Make sure that Rewordify.com is set to Level 1 or Maximum, to ensure that it rewordifies as many difficult words as possible. Here's more information about how to change the rewordifying level.

Can I rewordify a scanned image/picture/PDF file?

Rewordify.com can't convert a scanned image, picture of text, or a PDF file to text. It can only rewordify text input. There are online services that can convert document scans and PDF files to text. Do a search for "online OCR" and try it out. You upload the image or PDF to one of those sites, get the text, and copy-paste the text into Rewordify.com

Remember that you can permanently save and share anything you rewordify. Once you rewordify a block of text, click the "Save & Share" button. The text will then be permanently saved, and you can share the text with readers around the world.

Where can I set the reading level?

When you rewordify text, you'll see a panel below the rewordified text called "Text information and options." Click a different reading level to set the output text to different reading levels. You can change the default rewordifying level if you want. There's more information on our help page.

You probably won't be able to get exactly the reading level you want. See the next FAQ entry for more information.

Why won't the site simplify my text to the grade level I want?

Rewordify.com does a great job of simplifying over 40,000 words and phrases, but as amazing as that is, it's still a computer program that cannot read or understand.

No computer in the world can read a text passage, understand it, and completely rewrite it to a particular grade level by:

• Breaking long sentences down to shorter ones
• Omitting unnecessary details
• Clarifying metaphor, irony, idioms, and other literary devices
• Clarifying poorly-written or ambiguous text

To do this, you need a human being. Hooray for teachers around the world!

Rewordify.com cannot help with basic reading skills, and it can't do much to reword passages that contain mostly high-frequency words. It's for people who already can read English at a basic level, but who want a new way to build vocabulary and understand text with lots of difficult words.

Why doesn't [whatever website] display correctly when it's rewordified?

The way that our computers rewordify websites makes it impossible for them to display every single feature of every single website and also provide a high-speed translation.

Here are some common reasons why Rewordify.com can't display parts of a web site or an entire web site:

• Web sites with frames don't render correctly
• We can't render websites that show their content securely through https://.
• We can't rewordify (or display) some content on some pages if that content is loaded using some Javascript functions. (Web programmers: explicitly state the URL of your resources' locations, rather than using Javascript document.location, window.location, etc.) 

If a site doesn't display correctly, let us know and we'll try to fix it--but we might not be able to. If a web page isn't appearing right, bring up the web page in your browser, highlight the text you want to rewordify, and copy-paste it into our bottom box. That will work every time!

On a rewordified web page, when I click on a link, or do a search, it doesn't take me to a rewordified page. Why?

Rewordify.com does not display secure pages that are transmitted via https://.  If the link on a rewordified page is to a secure page, the secure page is displayed without being rewordified. Also, if you do a search within a rewordified web page, the search results page will not be rewordified.

Finally, we want advertising links on rewordified pages to go straight to advertisers' pages without being rewordified. Our computers try to figure out which are the advertisers' links that shouldn't be rewordified. Of course, this is just an educated guessing game and many times it doesn't work right.

Why do some characters from other languages (like á and Ñ) appear like English characters (like a and N) in rewordified web pages?

Our "Rewordifying Engine" (the computer program that does the translation) only has English characters in it. To help it work as quickly as possible, we convert all characters from world languages into the closest English equivalent and then do the translation.

This means that names like Simón Bolívar and words like résumé will look like Simon Bolivar and resume. We apologize for this. We're working on ways to preserve characters from world languages in our web page translation and will post on our blog when we've been successful.

Why are pretty-looking printers' quotes (“ ”), em dashes ( — ) and other fancy characters replaced with plain quotes (" ") and regular dashes ( -- ) in rewordified web pages?

See the answer for the above question about characters from world languages. For now, we have to replace pretty, fancy characters to boring, regular ones to provide a high-speed translation. We're working on preserving these characters in the rewordification. We'll post on the blog when we're successful.

Can I get a "rewordify" app?

Rewordify.com is already an app—a web app! The site is designed to work super-fast on any computer, tablet, smartphone, or operating system. This saves you time because there's nothing to download or install. Plus, when we improve our site (which we're doing all the time), you get the better version automatically—without having to download any updates.

Why would a whole paragraph be not rewordified?

Please let us know the URL and about where the paragraph is and we'll try to fix it.

Why don't you rewordify the word [whatever word]?

First, make sure that the word you're asking about was spelled correctly by the original author. Our computers do not correct spelling. (A user asked us why were weren't rewordifying the word bourgeoning. That's because it's spelled burgeoning. Another example: a news article said prime minster rather than prime minister.)

We do not rewordify words THAT ARE IN ALL CAPS.

If you're sure a word that should be rewordified is spelled right, please tell us about the word, and what you think the word should be rewordified to. We want to add as many words as possible, and we'll try to add it to our Rewordifying Engine. We'll also try to communicate back with you and let you know the status of your request.