Rewrite text on any website

The actions change with what you selected, so the toolbar never shows you something that cannot work.

• Editable text you selected: Improve, Fix grammar, Shorter and Tone on the toolbar. The menu adds Simplify, Continue writing, Longer and Translate.
• An empty email, post or chat field: a reply action suited to the field, such as Reply to this email, plus Ask.
• Text you cannot edit, such as an article: Explain, Summarize, Translate and Ask on the toolbar, with Key points in the menu.
• Your own quick actions: save a prompt you reuse and it shows up under My quick actions. You manage them in the extension settings under Quick actions.

Translate here works on the text you selected and offers twelve languages. To translate an entire page instead, see page translation.

The risk with any rewriting tool is that it quietly changes your meaning: a hedge becomes a claim, a number moves, a name is swapped for a synonym. The Changes view exists so you can see that before you apply anything.

Every run is kept as a version. The panel shows which version you are on, for example 1 of 3, and you can step between them, so trying a more formal tone does not cost you the plainer one. After you apply a result, the field shows Replaced with an Undo link for six seconds.

Two guardrails are built in. If your text changed while the AI was writing, the panel does not overwrite it; it tells you the text changed and offers Copy instead. And if you ask for Shorter on text that is already tight, it says so rather than pretending: Already concise: this is about as short as it gets.

If you prefer menus, right-click selected text and choose Copilotly. The submenu has Summarize, Rewrite, Draft a reply, Explain and Translate to English. These open the answer in the Copilotly sidebar chat (Alt+C opens it any time) rather than replacing text in place, which makes them better for questions about the text than edits to it.

Use the in-place toolbar when the output belongs back in the field you selected. Use the chat when you want to talk it through, or when you want your instructions and memory applied. For longer rewrites of a whole document, paste it into chat or try the free paraphrasing tool and the tone changer.

Rewrites run on the model you have selected in the picker, so the usual plan rules for that model apply: on Free, premium models such as Claude or GPT are limited to 10 messages a day, and on Pro they are unlimited. Fast models are not counted. Requests on your own API key are never metered. The panel can show an approximate credit cost, and if you run out of allowance it says so and links to the plans.

Be realistic about the web. Some sites build their own rich-text editors, and in those a Replace may not be accepted. When that happens you get Copy instead of a silent failure. If the toolbar gets in your way on a particular site, use Hide on this site in the menu. Do not select passwords or card numbers: selected text is sent to the AI model to produce the result.

The actions overlap on purpose, so it helps to know what each is for. Whichever you pick, read the Changes view before you apply it.

Improve or Fix grammar?

Fix grammar is the conservative choice when your wording is fine and you want typos and slips gone. Improve is a broader edit that can reorder and tighten sentences. If the diff shows more red and green than you wanted, undo and use Fix grammar instead.

Shorter, Longer and Simplify

Shorter trims; Longer expands; Simplify (in the menu) aims for plainer words. They are useful for different jobs: Shorter for a message that rambles, Simplify for text a reader found dense. Plain-language guidance such as the US federal plain language guidelines is a good yardstick for deciding when a sentence is too heavy.

Choosing a tone

The tone picker offers Professional, Friendly, Concise, Confident and Casual. Pick the one nearest to the relationship: Professional for a client, Friendly for a colleague you know, Casual for a chat. If you want a long text pushed through a tone with more control, the free tone changer takes up to 6,000 characters.

You want to...	Start with	Then check
Remove typos and slips only	Fix grammar	Diff shows few changes
Make a rambling message tighter	Shorter	Nothing important was dropped
Change how it sounds to the reader	Tone	Names, numbers and dates unchanged
Say the same thing in different words	Improve, or the paraphrasing tool	Meaning is the same
Answer a message	Reply action on an empty field	The reply matches your facts

In an email or chat field

Write the rough version of a message, select it, and run Improve or Tone. On an empty reply box the toolbar offers a reply action suited to the field. Read any drafted reply before sending: it is only as good as the context it had.

In a form, CMS or document editor

Rewriting works in plain text boxes best. Rich editors such as page builders and some online document tools handle programmatic edits differently, so a Replace can be refused. You then get Copy, and you paste the result in yourself. That is the one trade-off of working in someone else's page: the extension runs as a content script inside the site, and the site decides what it accepts, as the Chrome extension documentation on content scripts describes.

On a page you cannot edit

Select a paragraph of an article and the toolbar switches to Explain, Summarize, Translate and Ask. For a whole page, use page translation; for a long video, the YouTube summary; for text inside a file, chat with the file.

When you need your own voice

Tone pickers give you a register, not a voice. If you want replies that sound like you, set up My Voice and your saved instructions in memory and personalization. Students and anyone rewording a source should also read a university guide such as the Purdue OWL page on paraphrasing: rewording a source does not remove the need to cite it.

Only the text you select, and only when you run an action, goes to the model that writes the result. That is why the advice is simple: do not select passwords, card numbers or anything you would not paste into an email to a stranger.

The model you run it on is the one in your picker, so you can pick a different provider for sensitive wording, or use your own API key so requests go on your account. If you do not want the toolbar on a particular site at all, use Hide on this site.

The keys worth learning

Key	What it does
Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac)	Opens the full action menu on a selection
Enter	Replace the selection with the result
Ctrl+Enter	Insert the result below the selection
Alt+C	Open the Copilotly sidebar chat

Saving a prompt you use every week

If you keep typing the same instruction, such as 'make this a polite decline, two sentences', save it as a quick action. It then appears under My quick actions in the toolbar menu, and you can edit or delete it under Quick actions in the extension settings. This is the fastest way to get a consistent house style across a team, without a template doc.

Stepping through versions

Each run is a version. Run Shorter, then Friendly, then step back to the first one if the second drifted. When you apply a result, the original is not lost for the six seconds Undo stays on screen, so decide quickly or copy the original somewhere first.