CreaText

Inspiration

We often find ourselves rewriting the same sentences to sound clearer, friendlier, or more concise — whether it’s an email, a social media post, or a piece of code documentation. The idea behind CreaText came from that everyday struggle: helping people write better, faster, and in their own tone — without leaving their browser.

What it does

CreaText is a Chrome extension that uses the Rewriter API to transform and rephrase text directly inside web pages. It can: • Simplify complex sentences • Adjust tone (formal, casual, or friendly) • Remove redundancies to fit within word limits • Rephrase text to be more constructive or inclusive • Help non-native speakers sound more natural

All with just one click — right from your text box or highlighted selection.

How we built it

We built CreaText using: • HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the UI and popup design • Chrome Extension Manifest V3 for secure background operations • The Rewriter API (Origin Trial) for on-device text rephrasing • Message passing between content scripts and background scripts to handle text input/output efficiently

We integrated the trial token into the manifest and ensured API requests respected Chrome’s extension security model.

Challenges we ran into

• Getting the Rewriter API Origin Trial to work properly with chrome-extension:// origins was tricky.
• Managing content security policies (CSP) under Manifest V3 required restructuring how we injected scripts.
• Ensuring smooth text selection and context menu integration across different web apps (like Gmail, Notion, and Twitter) was challenging due to DOM restrictions.
• Balancing speed and accuracy of rewrites while keeping everything on-device.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Successfully built a fully functional on-device text rewriter using an experimental API.
• Designed a clean, minimal Chrome extension that integrates seamlessly with any webpage.
• Helped users improve their writing flow without leaving their current tab.
• Overcame all Origin Trial and permission hurdles without compromising security.

What we learned

• How to register and integrate Chrome Origin Trials effectively.
• Deep insights into the Chrome Extension architecture (Manifest V3).
• Handling real-time text manipulation in the browser environment.
• The importance of UX when building AI-assisted writing tools.

What's next for CreaText

• Add support for tone customization sliders (formal ↔ casual, concise ↔ detailed).
• Enable multi-language rephrasing for wider accessibility.
• Build a local caching model for offline rewriting.
• Eventually, publish CreaText on the Chrome Web Store with public beta access.