The questions people ask before they buy
These are the questions we are asked most often by parents, teachers, SENCOs, IT teams, disability advisers and individual buyers, answered plainly, with the detail you need to make a decision. Choose a section below, or work straight down the page.
The three short answers most people want
Trial
Price
Privacy
30 days desktop and 14 days Chrome trial of the full, available version of WordQ.
WordQ Standard from CA$119 a year, Pro CA$149 a year, with volume and site licensing available.
No personal information is collected through the software, and no student data is retained.
01 - CHOOSING WORDQ
Choosing WordQ
Start here if you are still deciding whether WordQ is the right kind of support, and which version fits.
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WordQ combines word prediction, high-quality text-to-speech, speech-to-text, proofreading support and an accessible PDF viewer and editor in one tool. As you type, it suggests words based on the words that came before, reads suggestions and finished passages aloud, and shows usage examples for words that sound alike.
It supports the whole writing process, not just the typing: ThoughtQ helps before writing, prediction and speech help during it, and read-back helps afterwards.
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No. We describe WordQ as intelligent assistance rather than artificial intelligence. It suggests, reads back and prompts, but the writer chooses every word, so the work stays theirs and the skills keep building. Nothing is generated on the writer's behalf. -
Standard is built for elementary, intermediate and secondary students, with age-appropriate vocabulary templates and dictionaries in English and French.
Pro is built for higher education and the workplace, adding a larger associated background dictionary of approximately 30,000 words. The Professional vocabularies are not suitable for young children.
Both include full word prediction, text-to-speech, the proofreading toolkit, the PDF viewer and editor, and ThoughtQ topics.
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On Windows and macOS, WordQ runs as a floating window that works alongside the applications you already use. The Chrome and iPad versions are self-contained editors instead.
Speech recognition is available on Windows and Chrome.
The accessible PDF viewer and editor is available on Windows, macOS and Chrome.
iWordQ for iPad works without an internet connection, which suits learners who move between settings.
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No. WordQ is used by people with learning differences, neurodivergent writers, people with physical or fine-motor difficulties, English and French language learners, and anyone who finds reading and writing a barrier for any reason. Reduced keystrokes help writers who find typing physically tiring as much as they help with spelling.
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Orthographic prediction works from the letters typed. Phonetic prediction works from how a word sounds, so it can find the intended word even when the spelling is well off — useful for writers whose spelling attempts are sound-based.
On Windows, phonetic prediction ships turned off. Turn it on at Options → Prediction → Prediction and tick "Predict words based on phonetic spelling", or tick the box during the New User Setup Wizard. See how prediction types work.
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Yes. Every version includes English and French vocabularies and text-to-speech, and users can switch between them, which suits bilingual settings and language learners. On WordQ for Windows the interface language follows your system language automatically.
For Francophone purchasing, our exclusive French-language distributor is Nureka Technologies.
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WordQ supports a writer in the moment the words they need, read back to them, as they work. Units of Sound teaches the underlying skills, moving a learner in structured steps from a single unit of sound to reading and writing full paragraphs.
Many settings use both. N-HELPP goes further again, adding live teaching through the Nisai Virtual Academy alongside Units of Sound and WordQ.
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Yes. The trial is the same software as the full product; it simply expires after 30 day for Windows and macOS and 14 days for WordQ for Chrome, unless a licence is purchased. If the trial expires before you have made a decision, you can activate it at any point afterwards without reinstalling.
02 - COMPATIBILITY
Compatibility and system requirements
The answers IT teams and individual buyers check first. Requirements below reflect the current published compatibility notes.
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WordQ v6 requires Windows 10 or later, and is supported on Windows 10 (22H2) through Windows 11 (24H2) across desktop and web applications, including the built-in PDF reader and editor. WordQ 5 for Windows covers Windows 10 (22H2) to Windows 11 (23H2), desktop applications only.
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WordQ v6 for macOS requires macOS Big Sur or later. WordQ 5 for macOS covers macOS 10.13.6 to 15.1. Note that installing v6 overwrites an existing v5 installation.
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Google Chrome browser version 86 or higher, a Google-associated email address, and an internet connection to open and activate the app. Third-party cookies must be enabled for 1q4all.com, our secure hosting site for the Chrome app.
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WordQ for Windows and macOS run completely offline once activated; a connection is needed only for activation and licence renewal. That matters for students without reliable internet at home.
WordQ for Chrome needs a connection to open and start, after which most features keep working if the connection drops temporarily. iWordQ for iPad works without a connection.
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Yes, with our desktop versions but you must first switch on the accessibility support settings in Docs: Tools → Accessibility, then enable screen reader, Braille and screen magnifier support. Without that, prediction will not appear. WordQ for Chrome works only in Google Docs and the same accessibility settings need to be applied.
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Yes. In WordQ 6, go to Options → Open User…, choose Legacy WordQ User File (.wdq) as the file type in the Open dialog, and select the profile you want. WordQ for Windows v6 also imports previous WordQ 5 user profiles.
03 - LICENCES AND PRICING
Licences and pricing
Prices shown are the published Canadian store prices; with additional pricing available in GBP and USD for UK and US markets. Your reseller may quote in local currency.
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WordQ is licensed on a subscription basis, typically for one year (365 days), with multi-year commitments available on request. Speak to us directly about multi-year agreements, pro-rata licences aligned to a budget cycle or academic year, or using surplus year-end budget to cover future access. -
WordQ Standard and Pro for Windows and for macOS start from CA$119.00 for a one-year subscription. WordQ Standard is CA$119.00 a year and WordQ Pro is CA$149.00 a year. WordQ for Google Chrome is CA$119.00 for a one-year subscription..
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Under the end-user licence agreement you may install and use two copies of the software on two computers, unless we have granted written permission for more. A single licence may not be shared or used at the same time on different computers or by different users, and one copy may be kept for backup or archival purposes.
The full terms are in the end-user licence agreement.
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Individual licences — where support is needed for one person.
Volume licences — where more than five users are supported in one setting. WordQ for Chrome includes a Customer Admin Portal so you can manage your own licences.
School, institution or district-wide licences — made available based on student population and deployed by domain, which makes rollout much simpler for technical teams.
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Individual copies are available from our online store. For volume, school and site licences, Quillsoft can support by either supplying direct or when needed, directing you to a local reseller. These include Nisai Learning in the UK, Nureka Technologies in Quebec for all Francophone products, Compu.Ed in Australia, DTSL in New Zealand, and Minerva Education Solutions in India, and several resellers in the USA.
See the full reseller list with contact details.
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iWordQ must be purchased through the Apple App Store rather than from us directly. Education buyers can claim the education discount on blocks of 20 through Apple School Manager.
04 - INSTALLATION
Installation and getting started
What happens after purchase, and the two or three things that most often need a setting changed.
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Download the installer, run it, and activate with the licence details you were sent — activation needs an internet connection, after which the desktop versions run offline. Step-by-step single-installation guides for WordQ 6 for Windows, WordQ 5 for Windows and WordQ for Chrome are on the resources and support page.
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You may store the software on a network server and use it to install or run the software on computers over an internal network, but you must hold a distinct licence for each user. The software may not be installed on a single computer and a network server at the same time without a separate licence for each installation.
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Under the end-user licence agreement you may install and use two copies of the software on two computers, unless we have granted written permission for more. A single licence may not be shared or used at the same time on different computers or by different users, and one copy may be kept for backup or archival purposes.
The full terms are in the end-user licence agreement.
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Individual licences — where support is needed for one person.
Volume licences — where more than five users are supported in one setting. WordQ for Chrome includes a Customer Admin Portal so you can manage your own licences.
School, institution or district-wide licences — made available based on student population and deployed by domain, which makes rollout much simpler for technical teams.
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Individual copies are available from our online store. For volume, school and site licences, Quillsoft can support by either supplying direct or when needed, directing you to a local reseller. These include Nisai Learning in the UK, Nureka Technologies in Quebec for all Francophone products, Compu.Ed in Australia, DTSL in New Zealand, and Minerva Education Solutions in India, and several resellers in the USA.
See the full reseller list with contact details.
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iWordQ must be purchased through the Apple App Store rather than from us directly. Education buyers can claim the education discount on blocks of 20 through Apple School Manager.
05 - SCHOOLS AND DEPLOYMENT
Schools, districts and multi academy trusts
For SENCOs, inclusion leads, heads of service and the IT teams who have to deploy it.
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School, institution and district-wide licences are made available based on student population and deployed by domain, so technical teams can push WordQ to every machine rather than managing licences per user. Admin notes and installation guides are available for technical teams, and WordQ for Chrome includes a Customer Admin Portal for self-managed licensing.
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No. Volume, school and district licences can be set up without individual user email addresses. Where a licence administrator does enter student email addresses in our client licence management portal, they are encrypted immediately and visible only to authorised licence administrators.
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Yes — School-wide licensing is designed to give access at school and at home, so support does not stop at the school gate. Because the Windows and macOS versions work offline once activated, students without reliable home internet are not left without support.
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Access arrangements are decided by your exam board or awarding body, and normally require that the support is the student's normal way of working. WordQ can be configured to restrict features for assessment conditions — our article on exam mode explains the approach, and we are happy to talk it through with your exams officer.
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Written resources, user guides, PDF tutorials and video walk-throughs are all published openly, including teacher-focused material on proofreading, PDF editing, pre-writing and topics for research. Outcomes are consistently strongest where school-wide implementation is paired with ongoing teacher training, so we would rather plan that with you than leave it to chance.
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A tutor carries out the Reading and Spelling Placement, which sets the student's starting points for reading, spelling, memory and dictation. After a few guided sessions students work largely independently while the tutor monitors progress and runs reading checks every few weeks. Recommended engagement is three 25-minute sessions a week.
Licences cover a number of users at any one time, and schools decide which students have access through the Units of Sound Portal.
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Yes. We offer pro-rata licences aligned to a budget cycle or academic year, multi-year commitments to reduce uncertainty, and ways to use surplus year-end budget to cover future access. Talk to us about the arrangement you need.
06 - ACCESS ABD INCLUSION
Access and Inclusion
How WordQ behaves alongside other assistive technology, and what it needs to be fully accessible itself.
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WordQ features such as word prediction, speech feedback and abbreviation expansion are not supported when using onscreen keyboards, eye-gaze systems, system speech recognition or screen reader software but WordQ does not interfere with those tools. If a student depends on one of them, plan WordQ around it rather than expecting the two to combine.
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Sometimes. WordQ interacts with the physical keyboard buffer, and not every onscreen keyboard interacts with that system function; operating system updates change this behaviour regularly. WordQ may or may not work with a given onscreen keyboard, so test with the specific combination before committing.
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Yes, provided the PDF is accessible, meaning it has underlying readable text. A PDF produced by scanning has none unless the scanner or copier was set to create searchable text, so switch that option on when scanning. Students can also fill in forms, annotate and mark up accessible PDFs with full WordQ support.
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Indirectly. Scan the pages with a scanner that has optical character recognition, which converts the image into text, then open the resulting file in a word processor and use WordQ's read feature.
Does it help English and French language learners specifically?
Is the Quillsoft website itself accessible?
07 — Privacy
Privacy and data protection
The answers procurement, data protection officers and safeguarding leads ask for. Our full policy was last updated on 20 May 2024.
What data does the software collect?Do you hold any student data?Will you contact our students directly?How do you handle data about children?What happens to payment details?Which privacy legislation do you work to?
08 — Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
The fixes we give most often. If none of these solves it, our support team will pick it up from the support form.
Word prediction is not appearing in Google DocsTyping numbers keeps selecting a predicted wordThe toolbar button labels have disappearedWordQ will not read a particular PDFOur trial expired before we finished evaluating"Third-party cookies and data storage aren't enabled in your browser"Nothing happens when we try to use WordQ for ChromeSomething looks wrong on a second monitorNone of this fixes it — how do we reach a person?
Still deciding? Ask us the awkward question
If your question is not here — a specific device, an unusual licensing arrangement, a procurement form that needs completing — we would rather answer it properly before you buy than after.
Useful next steps
Compare the four WordQ versions on the products page.
Find your route by audience on Who we support.
Buying from outside Canada? Start with the reseller list.
Technical detail lives on the resources and support page.
Quillsoft Ltd, Toronto
Answers drawn from the published product, support, licensing and privacy pages on quillsoft.ca. Draft layout for review — please confirm prices and version numbers before publishing.
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Yes. Both languages are built in on every platform with switchable vocabularies, homonym usage examples show how close-sounding words are used in context, and usage examples can be displayed in any language on WordQ for Windows. Vocabulary levels run from early literacy through to an adult professional dictionary.
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We apply WCAG guidelines to our digital spaces, include accessibility in our mission statement, and appoint an internal accessibility advocate to keep our design and development practice current. Our stated goal is to meet or exceed WCAG 2.2. Feedback is welcome through our online accessibility commitment.
07 - PRIVACY
Privacy and data protection
The answers procurement, data protection officers and safeguarding leads ask for. Our full policy was last updated on 20 May 2024.
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No personal information is collected through use of the software. Your email or domain address is transmitted securely to our licensing server to confirm that a licence is valid, or that you are on a trial and for how long. WordQ does not collect usage data from a user.
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No. We do not collect or retain student data through the use of our products. Where products are bought by volume for a school, group of schools or a district, student email addresses used for licensing are entered by your own licence administrator in our client licence management portal and encrypted immediately, visible only to authorised administrators.
Where licensing is by domain, the domain is entered in our licensing manager and email addresses are used only to verify that an account belongs to that domain, stored encrypted against the registered licence.
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No. There is no contact between Quillsoft and individual students licensed under a school, group of schools or district, apart from the automatic background check that a licence is still valid.
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We take extra precautions with children's privacy and do not knowingly collect, use or disclose personal information from children under 13, or the equivalent minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction, without verifiable parental consent. If we learn that we have, we delete it.
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Payment information is used only to process the payment and is never shared.
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Our policy is framed around PIPEDA, Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and applies equivalent minimum-age rules by jurisdiction. Because the desktop versions run offline other than licence activation and renewal, they suit settings with strict data-privacy requirements. The full text is in our privacy policy, also available in French.
08 - TROUBLESHOOTING
Troubleshooting
The fixes we give most often. If none of these solves it, our support team will pick it up from the support form.
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In Google Docs, go to Tools → Accessibility and turn on screen reader, Braille and screen magnifier support. Prediction will not display in Docs, Slides or Forms until those settings are enabled.
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There are three ways round it:
Use the numeric keypad, which types numbers rather than selecting words. At Options → Prediction → Selection you can reverse this if you prefer.
Press F9 to pause prediction, type the numbers, then press F9 again.
Turn off selection by number at Options → Prediction → Selection and pick words with the mouse or arrow keys instead.
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Labels are hidden by default. Switch them back on at Options → Preferences → Show labels on toolbar buttons. Keep them visible if the user needs full keyboard accessibility.
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The PDF almost certainly has no underlying text, which happens when a document has been scanned without searchable text turned on. Re-scan it with the searchable-text option enabled on the scanner or copier and it will become readable.
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That is not a problem. The trial is the full product with a 30-day limit, and an expired trial can be activated at any time afterwards once you have a licence there is no need to reinstall or start again.
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Third-party cookies must be enabled for 1q4all.com, our secure hosting site, for WordQ for Chrome to run. Enable them for that site and reload.
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Check that all permissions were accepted during installation — if any were declined, the app cannot run as intended. If you see an authentication failure instead, make sure Google Sync is enabled on the account.
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Scaling on a secondary monitor whose display settings differ from the primary one was addressed in a recent WordQ for Windows update, so check you are on the current release before investigating further. Release notes and current version numbers are published on the support page.