Working from timestamped text means you can quote precisely and jump back to the audio to check wording, instead of scrubbing a recording for the line you half-remember.
Free tools that pair well
with long-form writing.
Four independent tools we built alongside Strut. None of them is part of the writing workspace, and none of them needs a Strut account — they simply solve problems that turn up around a long piece of writing.
A long piece of work rarely stays inside one application. Before the draft there is a recorded interview nobody has typed up. There is a report you have not decided is worth reading. There is an inbox quietly eating the morning you set aside for writing. After the draft there is a length check against the brief, and a hunt for the word you used eleven times.
Strut does not try to be all of that. These are the tools we reach for instead. Each entry says what the tool does, what it costs, and the exact moment in a project where it earns its place.
Transcription and interview research
Visit transcript.you →
transcript.you
Turns recordings, uploads and video links into timestamped, searchable text with speaker labels.
What it is
transcript.you turns spoken material into text you can read, search and quote from. Paste the link to a talk or a podcast episode, or upload an audio or video file. You get back a transcript with timestamps that jump straight to that moment in the recording. Speaker identification labels who is talking, which matters as soon as a recording has more than one voice in it.
It also handles the work that follows a transcript. Summaries, extracted quotations, and recurring themes across a set of interviews. Batch jobs help when a piece rests on a dozen recorded sources rather than one.
What it does
- Paste a video or podcast URL and get a timestamped transcript
- Upload audio or video files in most common formats
- Speaker identification that labels each voice in the recording
- Batch jobs for converting a whole research set in one pass
- AI summaries, notable quotations, and theme extraction across interviews
- Plain-text export on the free tier; document and subtitle formats on paid plans
How it helps a long-form writer
A conference session or a podcast episode becomes ten minutes of reading. You find out whether it belongs in the piece before you have spent an hour on it.
When a piece rests on a series of interviews or public meetings, converting them together turns the whole set into text you can search for a name or a claim.
Useful pages
- Interview transcription — upload a recording and label who is speaking
- Transcribe from a link — paste a video URL, read the transcript
- Bulk transcripts — convert a batch of sources in one job
- Pricing — free tier limits and paid plans
Pairs with: Imported sources in Strut · How to build a second brain for writing
Multi-model AI chat and one-off tools
Visit askai.free →
askai.free
Ask several frontier models the same question in one place, plus single-purpose writing utilities.
What it is
askai.free puts sixteen chat models from several major AI providers behind one interface. You can put the same paragraph to more than one of them without holding separate subscriptions. Alongside the chat sit sixteen single-purpose writing tools: a summarizer, a paraphraser, grammar and tone checkers, an outline generator, a translator, and a question-and-answer mode for an uploaded PDF.
It also generates and edits images, and keeps chat history for signed-in users. Paid plans add a REST API. It is a general-purpose AI portal, not a writing environment. There is no manuscript, no project, and no version history.
What it does
- Sixteen chat models from several providers on one account
- Sixteen writing tools including summarizer, paraphraser and tone checker
- Question and answer over an uploaded PDF
- Image generation plus editing tools such as upscaling and background removal
- Saved chat history and shareable conversation links
- A REST API on paid plans
How it helps a long-form writer
When a critique or a rewrite lands badly, putting the same paragraph to a different model is a cheap way to tell whether the model was wrong or the paragraph was.
Summarize a report or question a PDF to find out whether it deserves a place in your project's sources, rather than importing everything and sorting later.
A pitch email, a cover letter, a translated quotation, a meta description for the published piece. Doing these elsewhere keeps a project's context clean.
Useful pages
- Writing tools — the sixteen single-purpose utilities
- Chat with a PDF — question a document before importing it
- Summarizer — paste and condense, no account for a first try
- Pricing — free, Pro and Max limits
Pairs with: How Strut AI works · Write with AI without losing your voice
Typing speed and free text utilities
Visit typingtest.now →
typingtest.now
Thirty typing tests, structured practice drills, and thirty free text tools that need no account.
What it is
typingtest.now began as a typing-speed test and grew a large set of free text utilities around it. The tests run from fifteen seconds to ten minutes. There are variants for accuracy, punctuation, numbers, code, and your own pasted text. Ten practice drills target specific weaknesses rather than general speed.
For a writer, the more useful half is the tools directory. It holds counters, a readability score, and word-frequency analysis. It also has case conversion, find and replace, and cleaners that repair text pasted out of a PDF or a web page.
What it does
- Thirty typing test variants from fifteen seconds to ten minutes
- Ten practice drills including weak keys, accuracy and one-hand
- Thirty free text tools with no account required
- Word, character, sentence and paragraph counters with reading time
- Readability scoring and word-frequency analysis
- Cleaners for line breaks, stray whitespace and duplicate lines
How it helps a long-form writer
Paste a finished section into the word counter to check it against an editor's brief, then run word frequency to catch the phrase you leaned on eleven times without noticing.
Research pasted from a PDF or a web page arrives with ragged line breaks and stray whitespace. The cleaners fix that in one step before the text becomes a source note.
If you draft daily, typing speed sets the pace of a first draft. A five-minute test measures sustained prose rather than a sprint, and the weak-keys drill targets what is actually costing you accuracy.
Useful pages
- Free text tools — the full directory of thirty utilities
- Word counter — counts plus reading time
- Five-minute test — sustained speed, not a sprint
- Weak-keys practice — drill the keys costing you accuracy
Pairs with: Strut's own free writing tools · Deep work for writers
AI email assistant
Visit word.now →
word.now
Drafts replies in your own style and triages a connected inbox. Despite the name, it is an email tool, not a word processor.
What it is
The domain misleads, so it is worth saying plainly: word.now is an email assistant. It does not create, edit or export documents. What it does is learn how you already write, by analysing your sent mail. Then it drafts replies that sound like you, with controls for tone, goal and length.
Connect a Gmail, Outlook or IMAP account and it also sorts incoming mail into categories. It writes real labels back to the inbox, so the queue is triaged before you open it. It records meetings with speaker labels, and publishes a booking link for scheduling.
What it does
- Free AI reply generator with no account, with tone and length controls
- Inbox triage for Gmail, Outlook and IMAP that writes real labels and folders
- A style profile built from your sent mail so drafts sound like you
- Meeting recording with transcription and speaker labels
- Booking links with weekly availability
- A set of free email tools including a tone checker and follow-up writer
How it helps a long-form writer
The cost of an inbox is not the replies, it is the triage. Having mail sorted and labelled before you look at it means a writing session starts with writing.
Chasing an interview, following up an unanswered pitch, renegotiating a deadline. Ten replies a day are free without an account, so it is genuinely testable before you commit.
A briefing or a commissioning call recorded and transcribed with speaker labels gives you the brief in writing, which is where disagreements about scope usually get settled.
Useful pages
- Email reply generator — the free, no-signup tool
- All free tools — tone checker, follow-ups, meeting notes
- Inbox organizer — connect a mailbox and triage it
- Pricing — free limits and Pro
Pairs with: A weekly review for long-form writers · The real cost of context switching
About these recommendations
Are these sponsored or affiliate links?
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No. There is no affiliate arrangement, no tracking parameter, and no payment involved. Each entry lists the real free limits and prices, including the cases where the free tier is too thin to rely on, because a recommendation that hides the catch is not useful.
Do any of them connect to my Strut workspace?
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No. Each one is a separate product with its own account. Moving work between them means copying text or downloading a file, exactly as it would with any unrelated tool.
Which one should I try first?
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Which tool to try first depends on where your writing stalls. If a piece starts with recorded interviews, transcript.you. If your problem is the inbox eating writing time, word.now. If you want a second model's read on a passage, askai.free. If you just need a word count or to clean up pasted text, the typingtest.now tools directory.
Do I need to pay for any of them?
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Not to try them. typingtest.now is entirely free and only charges to remove ads. word.now gives ten AI replies a day with no account. transcript.you and askai.free both have free tiers, though both are limited enough that heavy use means a paid plan.
Does Strut already do some of this?
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Some of it, deliberately narrowly. Strut records and transcribes voice notes, and runs AI operations on your draft, but it does not pull transcripts from video links, label speakers, manage email, or test your typing. Where the overlap exists it is noted on each card above.
Free to start — no card required
Give your rough notes
somewhere to go.
Projects, notes, versioned drafts, imported sources, and careful AI assistance in one private workspace.