Neovim is a text editor designed to be able to use either a command-line interface or a graphical user interface. I use it to write nearly everything (mainly Python, markdown and LaTeX files). Many plugins are available to add handy features to Neovim (including the ones designed for Vim). Basically, it is an enhanced Vim, see the Neovim about page for more details. After writing, automatic checks are useful and help you to save some time. In this post I share my Neovim configuration and usage.

Spell-Checking

To do simple spell-checking, you have to add in your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim file the following lines:

" spell languages
set spelllang=en
nnoremap <silent> <C-s> :set spell!<cr>
inoremap <silent> <C-s> <C-O>:set spell!<cr>

Usage

In Neovim press Ctrl+S to highlight the misspelled words, then repress Ctrl+S to hide the highlighted misspelled words. To select a word suggestion in Insert mode, press Ctrl+X then S to select a suggestion. In Normal mode press z= to see the word suggestions.

Remark: I know that my configuration inhibits the Ctrl+S user signal and it is my point to avoid unwanted behavior while typing.

Grammar Checking

To check my writing I use LanguageTool suite. It is available for free, have an offline mode using its open-source software (it is the main reason I’m using it). Here I will help you to install it and how to use it with Neovim.

LanguageTool installation

LanguageTool requires java runtime. Here I will install OpenJDK and curl:

On Fedora

sudo dnf -y install java curl

On Ubuntu

sudo apt -y install default-jre curl

Then, on both distributions

The following commands download LanguageTool and install it in /usr/local.

curl https://languagetool.org/download/LanguageTool-stable.zip > /tmp/LanguageTool-stable.zip
sudo unzip /tmp/LanguageTool-stable.zip -d /usr/local/LanguageTool
sudo mv /usr/local/LanguageTool/LanguageTool-*/* /usr/local/LanguageTool/
rm /tmp/LanguageTool-stable.zip

Neovim configuration

I use vim-plug plugin manager in Neovim. It is why I use it to install the LanguageTool plugin from vigoux (but other choices are possible). Before I continue, I recommend you to have a recent version of Neovim (≥ 0.4.2) to use this plugin (as it use recent changes in Neovim).

In your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim between the call plug#begin(<plugging_folderpath>) and call plug#end() you have to add the following lines:

" Language tool integration
Plug 'vigoux/LanguageTool.nvim'

Then, outside the vim-plug calls you have to add:

" grammar checking
autocmd Filetype markdown LanguageToolSetUp
autocmd Filetype tex LanguageToolSetUp
let g:languagetool_server_jar='/usr/local/LanguageTool/languagetool-server.jar'

Usage

To use this plugin you first have to call :LanguageToolSetUp in Normal mode to start the LanguageTool server (which is automatically launched for tex files and markdown files).

Then, the plugin proposes the following useful commands:

:LanguageToolCheck: to highlight writing mistakes, you have to recall it when you change your code/text.
:LanguageToolSummary: to show details on highlighted errors in a split.
:LanguageToolClear: to clear LanguageTool displays.

To see more options look at the plugin page.

16 August 2020 update

I recently switched to Antidote 10 to replace LanguageTool. I tend to avoid using LanguageTool (except for Python files) as it has many flows compared to Antidote (but you have to pay for it). This improved my writing and save me a lot of time.

Hope it helps some of you. If you have a better setup or want to improve mine feel free to contribute or comment.

Cheers, Vincent.