Enforcing text style with Vale
Prose Police
Maintaining a consistent style can become challenging when multiple individuals contribute to a software project's documentation or a magazine. Vale checks your plain text files and even allows you to create custom style rules.
Vale [1] is an open source command-line tool used to enforce editorial style guidelines in texts. It doesn't work with word processors such as LibreOffice Writer. Instead, it's tailored for documents composed in plain-text markup languages such as Markdown [2], reStructuredText [3], AsciiDoc [4], or HTML. These markup languages are often used in documentation of open source projects, making Vale an ideal tool for enforcing a consistent style in software documentation. The list of Vale users [5] encompasses companies and projects such as Microsoft, Docker, Linode, Red Hat, GitLab, Grafana Labs, Neo4j, Angular, and Fedora.
Of course, Vale isn't restricted to documentation. As long as you write your texts in one of the supported markup languages, Vale can check them. Since I've always written my magazine articles in Markdown, I began to use Vale a few years ago to check them for common language errors, using some custom rules to cater for the preferences of different magazines. I like how Vale provides capabilities for my text files that I'm familiar with from code linters for programming languages.
Installing Vale
The Vale project publishes its source code [6], written in Go, on GitHub under the MIT license. The Vale releases [7] page offers downloadable precompiled binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Some Linux distributions have packaged Vale and offer it through their repositories, but these are often older releases. There are also third-party packages available to install Vale from PyPI or from npm. Docker Hub also hosts Vale as a container image, jdkato/vale [8]. You can find instructions for all installation types [9] in Vale's documentation.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.
-
System76 Refreshes Meerkat Mini PC
If you're looking for a small form factor PC powered by Linux, System76 has exactly what you need in the Meerkat mini PC.
-
Gnome 48 Alpha Ready for Testing
The latest Gnome desktop alpha is now available with plenty of new features and improvements.
-
Wine 10 Includes Plenty to Excite Users
With its latest release, Wine has the usual crop of bug fixes and improvements, along with some exciting new features.
-
Linux Kernel 6.13 Offers Improvements for AMD/Apple Users
The latest Linux kernel is now available, and it includes plenty of improvements, especially for those who use AMD or Apple-based systems.
-
Gnome 48 Debuts New Audio Player
To date, the audio player found within the Gnome desktop has been meh at best, but with the upcoming release that all changes.
-
Plasma 6.3 Ready for Public Beta Testing
Plasma 6.3 will ship with KDE Gear 24.12.1 and KDE Frameworks 6.10, along with some new and exciting features.
-
Budgie 10.10 Scheduled for Q1 2025 with a Surprising Desktop Update
If Budgie is your desktop environment of choice, 2025 is going to be a great year for you.