A browser shortcut for checking selected text

You are reading a Japanese page, a forum reply or a message in a web mail window, and one sentence looks off. Maybe it is a draft a colleague shared, maybe your own text in a form you are about to submit. Copying it, opening a new tab, going to the checker and pasting is four steps. This page shows how to cut that down to one or two, using things every desktop browser already has.

There are two methods. The bookmarklet is the quickest when you can select text with the mouse. The address-bar shortcut suits people who prefer the keyboard. Both open the checker on the front page with your text already in the box.

Method one: the bookmarklet

A bookmarklet is a bookmark that runs a small script. Ours takes whatever text you have selected on the page, or, if nothing is selected, the contents of the text box your cursor is in, and opens the checker in a new tab with that text loaded.

Setting it up takes one drag, and it is described step by step on the page about checking text from a blog editor, which also has the button to drag. That page covers the cases where a bookmarklet cannot see your text, such as editors drawn inside a frame, so read it once if you write in a CMS.

In daily use: select, click the bookmark, read. Nothing else to remember.

Method two: an address-bar shortcut

Browsers let you define your own search shortcuts: you type a short keyword in the address bar, then a space, then some text, and the browser drops that text into an address you chose in advance. Normally this is used for site searches. It works just as well for the checker, because the checker reads text from the part of its address after #t=.

The address to use is:

https://japaneseproofreader.com/#t=%s

The %s is a placeholder. Every browser that supports custom shortcuts replaces it with whatever you type after the keyword, encoded so that it is safe in an address. A short keyword that does not clash with anything else is best. The examples below use jp.

In Chromium-based browsers

Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and other browsers built on Chromium all have this feature, although each one names and places the menu a little differently, and the wording shifts between releases. In general terms:

1. Open the browser's settings and find the section about the search engine or the address bar.
2. Look for an option to manage search engines. Inside it there is usually a list for site search or other search engines, with an Add button.
3. Fill in the three fields. Name: anything you like, such as Japanese checker. Shortcut or keyword: jp. URL: the address above, with %s at the end.
4. Save.

To use it, click the address bar (or press Ctrl+L, or Cmd+L on a Mac), type jp, then press Space or Tab. The address bar changes to show that you are now in the shortcut's mode. Paste or type your text and press Enter.

In Firefox

Firefox has long supported keywords on bookmarks, and this is the most dependable way to do it there:

1. Open the bookmarks manager (the Library window) and create a new bookmark.
2. Give it a name, and put the address above, with %s, in the URL field.
3. In the Keyword field, type jp.
4. Save.

To use it, type jp, a space and your text in the address bar, then press Enter. Some versions of Firefox also let you add a custom search engine from the search settings; if yours does, the same address and keyword work there, but the keyword bookmark is the method that has stayed the same for the longest.

Safari and others

Safari does not offer custom keyword searches in its settings. Use the bookmarklet, or paste into the checker. The same goes for any browser where you cannot find a way to add a search shortcut.

The keyboard-only routine

With the shortcut in place, checking a sentence you see on any page goes like this:

1. Select the text and copy it (Ctrl+C, or Cmd+C).
2. Jump to the address bar (Ctrl+L, or Cmd+L).
3. Type jp and a space (or Tab, in Chromium-based browsers).
4. Paste (Ctrl+V, or Cmd+V) and press Enter.

The checker opens with your text and runs. If you prefer the result in a new tab rather than replacing the page you were on, hold Alt (Option on a Mac) or Ctrl/Cmd while pressing Enter; which modifier does what depends on the browser, so try them once and remember the one that works.

How long a text can you send this way?

The address bar is meant for a line of text, not for a document, and it shows.

First, line breaks. The address bar is a one-line field, so line breaks in what you paste are dropped or turned into spaces. The checker will see everything as one long line, which makes the line numbers in the results less useful and can trigger the long-sentence warning where there are really several short paragraphs.

Second, encoding. In an address, every kana or kanji becomes nine characters: three bytes in UTF-8, each written as a percent sign and two hex digits. A 200-character Japanese paragraph turns into an address of nearly 2,000 characters. Browsers accept addresses far longer than that, but the address bar itself is not built for pasting large blocks, and very long pastes can make it slow or awkward to edit.

Third, the checker's own limit of about 10,000 characters per check still applies, whatever route the text takes.

In practice: use the address-bar shortcut for a sentence, a heading or a short paragraph. For anything longer, use the bookmarklet, or paste into the checker box, which keeps your line breaks intact. The guide to using the checker has more on reading the results and on what the checks can and cannot tell you.

Privacy, briefly

Whichever method you use, the text sits in the address after the #. That part of an address, the fragment, is never sent to a web server when the browser loads a page, so our server only sees a plain request for the front page. The checker reads the fragment in your browser and runs there.

The address bar has one extra wrinkle. Depending on your settings, many browsers send what you type in the address bar to their search provider to offer suggestions while you type. Whether that happens in keyword mode varies between browsers. For anything confidential, skip the address bar: use the bookmarklet, or open the checker and paste. And remember that the full address, text included, lands in your browser history.

On phones and tablets

Mobile browsers rarely have a bookmarks bar, and few let you edit search shortcuts. Some will run a bookmarklet if you type the bookmark's name into the address bar and tap it in the list of suggestions, which is worth a try. Otherwise, long-press to select, copy, open the checker and paste: on a small screen that is often just as fast.