Les nouveaux outils de correction linguistique de Microsoft

New French proofing tools were recently made available to Microsoft Office 2003 users. A new spell-checker and a new grammar checker make it possible to improve the document creation process. Based on recent external evaluations, we present specific aspects of these improved tools and discuss the more fundamental issue of how to evaluate proofing tools (What do we need to evaluate? Which criteria should be applied? Why develop a new version?). Current language changes including the spelling reform, and such innovations as feminine job titles are among the themes we discuss in this paper.