Acrolinx is a marketing writing tool that captures the way an enterprise communicates and its guidelines, and aligns content with guidelines, using automation to shorten the editorial process.
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Shorthand
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Shorthand enables the user to create interactive multimedia stories for any online audience — all with no code. The vendor boasts that Shorthand is used by hundreds of publishers, brands, non-profits, and more — including the BBC, Honda, Business Insider, and Doctors Without Borders.
I have used Acrolinx as an integrated tool with Microsoft Office. I use Office tools on a regular basis and need new formatting options for not only presentations slides but also for document creation, email templates, etc., and here is where Acrolinx helps me on a daily basis. Acrolinx, however, suffers from some frequent unavailability of the tool, which results in some disturbance, but overall the experience is great with the software.
Shorthand is ideally suited to visual stories where you have a good number of images and/or embeds or video to include. It is well-suited to long-form stories, where you wish to keep the readers' attention longer than usual. It can help to differentiate particularly important or intriguing stories from others on your website - and for this reason, it could be used as a premium content tool, perhaps for subscribers. It can also be used to showcase stories about awards you've organised, giving them special treatment. It is less suited to breaking news, or very time-sensitive news stories, as it can take some time to prepare, post or update shorthand stories. And it doesn't work well for stories with strong accompanying imagery
Additional flexibility in how text is overlaid on pictures would be welcome so that there are more choices on what images to use with particular layouts
Enabling users to control the path of text - for example, enabling runaround - could enable some excellent designs
Adding additional section templates could speed up design
More flexibility in caption placement would be helpful
I have never known it to be down during my use of it. All you require is an internet connection to log in and you can use it on multiple devices. Adding ease of accessibility, there are simple ways to log in. I've also never known a Shorthand story to go down once live on our site.
Due to the integration with our content management software, there is a short delay on our site while it loads, which may cause some readers to drift away. However, I've seen other sites where it instantly loads articles, so I believe this to be down to the content management software behind our site more than Shorthand itself. Once that brief initial period is over, it doesn't require additional loading time.
As a web-based service, it is easy for users to log into from anywhere. Content can easily be shared, as you can set up teams that enable access to each other's work as required. And content can be reviewed by others before publication using the sharing function. You can also view how an article will look on different devices.
I haven't calculated the exact financial benefits, but indeed Acrolinx has contributed greatly to the quality of the content my company has been producing
With enhanced formatting, themes, and organization of the documents, emails, and presentations, we have been able to attract new customers, resulting in more business
With the offerings Acrolinx have, team's productivity has increased manifolds
