Use an AI assistant beside Word, with no add-in to install

Beside Word, not inside it

SideNote Pro is a separate Windows application. While you work it waits as a small leash on the right edge of the display. Press Ctrl+Shift+Space, or click the leash, and the assistant opens on that edge with the document still visible beside it. Esc retracts it again. See the Windows AI sidebar for drawer, multiple-monitor and startup details.

Worked example: tightening a paragraph in a client report

An executive summary has one paragraph that runs long. It needs to be shorter without losing a figure or a name.

1. Select the text in WordDrag across the sentences you want to change, or triple-click the paragraph. Select only what should be replaced.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+QSelection actions opens beside the selection. Its header names the program the text came from, which for Word reads WINWORD, the name of Word's process. Choose Rewrite, or type an instruction such as Shorter, keep every figure and name and choose the Ask row.
3. Read the answer in the popupA small popup shows the answer, headed Rewrite. Your original is still in Word, unchanged, so you can compare the two. A model can change a number or soften a commitment while polishing the prose, so check what matters.
4. Choose Replace selection or Insert afterOnce the answer is complete, Return to Microsoft Word offers both. Replace selection swaps only the text you selected. Insert after keeps your text and adds the answer after it with nothing in between, so check the join: what goes back into the document has the details.
5. Check the result in the documentThe popup closes, and the SideNote Pro window shows Replaced in Microsoft Word. in the conversation. Look at the paragraph around the change. To step back, press Ctrl+Z in Word: in every case checked, one press restored the original text. SideNote Pro never sends an undo of its own, because Word's undo history may hold edits of yours.

Rewrite result, over a report in Word

Give the rewrite your house rules

The built-in Rewrite asks for clearer, more polished text that keeps meaning and tone. For a client report you usually want more than that. A custom action carries the same constraints every time, and can have a shortcut of its own:

Rewrite this paragraph for a client report.
Keep it under 80 words, keep every figure, date and
name exactly as written, and use UK English.

{{selection}}

What goes back into the document

The answer goes into Word through Word's own paste, so it arrives as rich text, not a flat string: bold, italic, bullets and numbering come through as Word formatting. Where it lands decides the rest.

Formatting follows the destination

The answer takes the formatting of the place it lands. Replacing the text of a uniformly formatted paragraph keeps that paragraph's formatting, and a replaced Heading 1 stayed Heading 1. SideNote Pro receives the selection as text, so it does not see fonts, styles, comments or tracked changes.

Mixed formatting can be flattened

Formatting that varies inside the selection is not reliably carried across. In one check an italic phrase inside the replaced sentence was gone from the answer, while bold in the sentence before it was untouched. Reapply a style where you need one.

Answers of several blocks

A bold lead-in, a paragraph, two bullets and two numbered items arrived as five Word paragraphs, with real Word bullets and numbering. Replacing a sentence in the middle of a paragraph split that paragraph around the answer, and the text after it began with a space. Look at the breaks on either side.

Insert after adds no separator

The answer goes directly after your selection, with no space or line break. After a sentence in the middle of a paragraph it ran straight into the next sentence, as in …completes in December.Harbourline Freight delivered…. After a paragraph selected with a triple-click it arrived as a paragraph of its own. When the join matters, use Replace selection, or Copy and paste where you want the answer.

Pasting by hand

If you copy an answer and paste it yourself, Word's own paste option decides how it looks.

What is sent, and when

SideNote Pro captures text from Word only when you press the Selection actions shortcut or an action's own shortcut. It does not read the clipboard in the background and does not watch the document. Capturing the selection alone does not send it to AI: the action you choose decides when it goes.

Ask SideNote, Ctrl+Shift+A by default, captures the selection and waits for your question. Rewrite, Explain, Summarize and Translate send the moment you choose them, and so does a question typed into the menu. Either way the selection goes to the endpoint in your active profile. For a document that should stay off a hosted provider, choose a local model profile before you run a sending action.

Ask about a saved Word document

Attach documents in the composer reads a .docx file on your PC without starting Word. It reads the file as last saved, so edits you have not saved are left out, even while Word has the document open. Up to five files can be attached to one message, and the original is never uploaded. What each format includes has the full list.

A Word file carries no page markers in what is read, so an answer can quote the text or name a heading but not a page number. An older .doc file is refused: save a copy as .docx to attach it. A password-protected document is refused too.

What is read

The body text in order: paragraphs, tables with each row on one line and its cells separated by a vertical bar, hyperlink text, and tracked changes as if you had accepted them, so insertions are in and deletions are out.

Lists

A list that uses Word's direct numbering is read with a bullet in front of each item, numbered lists included, so the numbers are not kept. A paragraph in the List Bullet style is read as plain text with no marker.

Text boxes

A text box can be read twice and joined to the paragraph it is anchored to, so its words may repeat and run into the surrounding sentence. Check an answer that depends on one.

What is not read

Formatting, pictures and charts. Headers, footers, footnotes and comments, which sit outside the body.

Questions that suit it

• List the action items in this report and who owns each.
• Which sections mention the budget, and do the figures agree with the table in section 3?
• Summarize this report in five bullets for someone who has not read it.
• Is the tone of the conclusion consistent with the executive summary?

How this differs from Copilot and Word add-ins

An assistant built into Word, such as Copilot, or installed into it as an add-in, works inside the document. It can be given the document itself to read and, depending on the product, to change. If that is what you want, it is the right kind of tool, and SideNote Pro is not a substitute for it.

SideNote Pro works from outside. It sees only what you hand it, and it changes nothing unless you click. What you get in return:

Nothing installed in Word

There is no add-in to deploy and nothing in your documents changes when you ask a question.

Your own provider and model

SideNote Pro connects to the endpoint you configure, with a key if it requires one. Hosted providers may charge for requests, and the licence does not include AI usage. A local model has no API charge.

One assistant beside everything

The same shortcuts and the same local history work beside Word, Excel, the browser and the PDF reader.

When the answer offers only Copy

SideNote Pro offers Replace selection and Insert after only when it can confirm that the selection is still exactly where you left it. Otherwise the answer offers Copy. Every Copy-only case shows the same message, SideNote Pro can't return text to Microsoft Word for this selection. Use Copy instead., so it does not say which reason applies.

Checked in Word

A manual line break

A paragraph that holds one, the kind Shift+Enter inserts, is Copy only, with or without its paragraph mark in the selection.

Several paragraphs that stop before the last paragraph's mark

Copy only. Select a smaller range, or one paragraph at a time.

Several paragraphs that reach the document's final mark

Two paragraphs ending at the final paragraph mark were Copy only. A single last paragraph selected with its final mark was offered, replaced correctly and undone by one Ctrl+Z.

A very long selection

A selection of 60,000 characters was offered. One of 60,001 was Copy only.

A change in between

If the selection moves or the text is edited between the answer and your click, SideNote Pro changes nothing and says Microsoft Word wasn't changed. The selection in Microsoft Word has changed. Select the original text again, or use Copy. Once the document is closed the return is no longer offered.

Not checked in Word

These come from how SideNote Pro is built and from its developer's own measurements, and have not been run again in Word 16.0.20326:

Thirty minutes

A return offer lasts 30 minutes. After that, select the original text again and run the action again.

Word as administrator

If Word runs as administrator and SideNote Pro does not, Windows blocks the copy. Nothing is sent, and SideNote Pro says so.

An unconfirmed paste

SideNote Pro says it could not confirm the change in Microsoft Word, asks you to check the document, and leaves the answer on the clipboard.

The 65,000-character read limit

Word reads no more than 65,000 characters of a range, which is why the cap sits at 60,000.

Word shortcuts that SideNote Pro's default keys can take over

SideNote Pro's global shortcuts are registered with Windows, so while one is registered it works in every application and Word does not receive it. Each of its eight default global shortcuts is also assigned to a Word command in the Word build checked. Microsoft's list of Word keyboard shortcuts does not include Ctrl+Shift+R or Ctrl+Shift+X, which Word still assigns.

Which ones apply to you

A clash only happens while the shortcut is registered, so it depends on which shortcuts SideNote Pro has active and on how your copy of Word is set up. The Ctrl+Shift+Q and Ctrl+Shift+X shortcuts are optional and can be cleared. If you use any of these keys in Word, change the summon shortcut in Settings, Keyboard and the action shortcuts in Settings, Actions and prompts, where clearing a box removes the shortcut and leaves the action in the Selection actions menu. Ctrl+Shift+E for change tracking is the one most likely to matter in a review. Pause global shortcuts in the tray icon menu hands every key back to Word until you resume them.

Ctrl+Shift+N, which applies the Normal style in Word, is not in the table: it opens Active Notes only while the SideNote Pro window has focus, so Word keeps it.

How this was checked

SideNote Pro 1.16.3 was checked against Microsoft Word 16.0 (build 16.0.20326) on Windows 11, with a test document and fixed sample answers in place of a model. The selection shortcut was set to a different combination for those checks, so the default Ctrl+Shift+Q itself was not pressed in Word. It runs the same code path. Everything marked Not checked in Word, and the refusal of a .doc or password-protected file and the five-file limit, comes from SideNote Pro's own design instead.