Docs: Grammarly’s new AI writing surface—user guide

Docs is a new AI-powered writing surface designed to help you brainstorm, compose, edit, and refine documents with ease. Whether you’re writing a blog post, crafting a research essay, or preparing a professional report, docs provides a flexible space enriched with Grammarly AI writing agents to support your writing and revision needs.

Admins of Grammarly Enterprise, Grammarly Business, and Grammarly for Education subscriptions can manage their team members’ access to docs by adjusting the settings on the Feature access page. Keep in mind that admins must enable these settings for docs access: Grammarly Editor, Docs with agents, AI assistant, and paragraph-level rewrites.

What you can do in docs

Docs combines Grammarly’s writing support with a modern, intuitive, and agent-enabled editor. Within a document, you can access a variety of AI-powered agents to help you write clearly, confidently, and efficiently:

• AI Chat: Lets you ask questions, conduct research, rewrite content, generate ideas, or refine messaging instantly using conversational AI embedded into the document surface.
• Grammarly: Delivers real-time suggestions to improve grammar, clarity, tone, word choice, and overall correctness as you write.
• Paraphraser: Rewrites your content in a variety of relevant and engaging tones while preserving the original meaning.
• Reader Reactions: Predicts how your selected audience is likely to interpret your content, surfacing potential key takeaways and remaining questions they may ask.
• Humanizer: Transforms your AI writing to sound natural, genuine, and human. It removes robotic phrasing while keeping your voice authentic in emails, proposals, or blog posts.
• Citation Finder: Examines the quality and substance of arguments in a piece of writing and identifies publicly available sources that support, conflict with, or contradict the points being made in the writing, with easy-to-find links and pre-formatted citations in APA, MLA, and other common styles.
• AI Detector: Identifies sections of text that may have been generated by AI, helping maintain transparency and integrity in your writing.
• AI Rewriter: Identifies words and phrases that AI often uses and that can also appear in human writing. Suggests alternatives that AI uses less frequently.
• Plagiarism Checker: Checks your content against academic, web, and professional sources to ensure originality and proper attribution.
• AI Grader: Evaluates writing quality based on predefined inputs based on an instructor and/or rubric—offering a sample “pregrade” and actionable tips for improvement.
• Authorship: Allows you to create a record of your writing process, so you can prove how your text came together.

These tools are built into the docs experience and work seamlessly while you write. You can access them anytime from the agent panel on the right side.

How to create, upload, and download your document

To create a new document:

1. Go to app.grammarly.com

2. Click New doc or Upload at the top of the page.

   

If you don’t see the option to create a new document, it may be because generative AI is not enabled in your account. To enable it, go to the Feature access page.

Note: You can also upload documents in PDF or other text formats.

To export your document:

1. Click the three-dot icon on the document file or in the upper-right corner of the editor.

   

2. Select Print & export.

3. Choose Export to PDF or Export to Word (.docx).

   

Note: Currently, if you upload your document and then export it, certain formatting options and elements will not be preserved: images, charts, graphs, citations, formulas, bookmarks, comments, and text columns.

Document labels

Documents created using the older Grammarly Editor will be marked with a Classic label. New documents created in the current editor will not have this label.

Important: Titles are not added automatically. Be sure to enter a title when you create a document. This helps improve searchability, especially when working with multiple documents.

How to format your text

The new writing surface gives you several options to structure and style your content:

Core capabilities

• Write in plain or styled formats
• Add and customize tables
• Insert elements using slash commands (e.g., /table, /heading)
• Create and nest sections to organize content hierarchically

Keyboard shortcuts

Speed up your workflow with essential shortcuts:

These shortcuts work across most document elements and are especially useful when editing text quickly.

Paragraph styles

You can style your content using predefined formats by selecting the Paragraph style menu in the toolbar or by typing the slash ( / ) command:

• Heading 1 (/h1)
• Heading 2 (/h2)
• Heading 3 (/h3)
• Quote (/quote)
• Code (/code)
• Paragraph (/paragraph)

These styles help structure your document, especially when creating outlines, long-form writing, or instructional content.

Manual text formatting

You can also format your text manually using the toolbar or keyboard shortcuts. Available options include:

• Bold, italic, underline
• Bulleted and numbered lists
• Checkboxes
• Inline code and code blocks

Tip: You can select multiple text blocks and apply the same formatting in bulk. This is useful for applying consistent styling across sections of your document.

Using the slash ( / ) command

The slash command is a versatile tool that lets you insert and format elements without leaving your keyboard. Just type / and a list of available options will appear.

You can use slash commands to:

• Apply formatting, such as /heading, /bullet, or /quote
• Insert content, such as /table or /image
• Quickly search for commands by continuing to type after the slash

This feature is especially helpful for users who prefer a keyboard-first experience and want to avoid switching between mouse and keyboard.

How to check your text

While writing, you’ll notice red underlines appear in your text. These indicate critical suggestions, such as grammar, spelling, or word choice issues. If you’re on a paid plan, you will also likely see blue underlines for more complex clarity and tone suggestions.

To review a suggestion:

1. Click the underline to open the suggestion card.
2. Click the suggestion card to accept or dismiss the suggestion.

For a more comprehensive review, open the Grammarly agent. It will analyze your entire document and present recommendations in dynamic categories that are tailored to your writing context.

This agent is especially useful for in-depth editing, polishing, or preparing your document for publication or sharing.

Using the Free plan? Upgrade to Pro to take advantage of advanced writing suggestions and more. Go to www.grammarly.com/plans to compare what Pro has to offer and choose the plan that works best for you.

Additional features available in docs

From the menu in the upper-right corner, you can also access:

• Outline. View the structure of your document based on headings and sections.
• Word count. Monitor your document’s length in real time.
• Font size. Adjust the text size for improved readability.
• Width. Choose between narrow and wide views, depending on your preference.

These features allow for a more personalized and productive writing environment.

If you have an individual Pro subscription, you can extend the power of advanced features to your teammates by adding more seats to your subscription. This helps your team stay consistent, save time, and focus on high‑value work. Go to the Members page to add your teammates.