GuidesWWorkspacesTone and style presets
Beginner5 min read

Tone and style presets

The presets InkSpoke ships, what each one actually instructs the model to do, and when to write your own instead.

Presets are just pre-written entries. Adding one drops its text into your workspace, where you can edit it like anything else — there is nothing magic about a preset you cannot reproduce by hand.

The six tone presets

PresetWhat it asks for
ProfessionalFormal and authoritative; no slang or contractions
CasualFriendly and conversational; contractions welcome
NeutralBalanced and plain; no loaded language or flourishes
EmpatheticWarm and supportive; acknowledges feelings
DirectShort sentences, no hedging or filler
AcademicPrecise terminology, objective, scholarly conventions
That is the complete list. There is no "Creative" tone and no "Brand" tone — in particular, there is no feature that derives a tone from a style guide you upload. You can attach a style guide as a domain context or custom instruction entry, which is the closest real equivalent.

Output style presets

Style is about shape, not voice. These come in three groups:

  • Output Style — Concise Paragraphs, Bullet Points, Step-by-Step, Executive Summary, Code-Formatted, Detailed Prompting
  • Output Format — Plain message, Email body, Bullet list
  • Writing Style — Conversational, Polished, Concise
Rule of thumb: if you would describe it with a noun — "bullets", "an email", "a code block" — it is a style. If you would describe it with an adjective — "warm", "blunt" — it is a tone.

Note that "Technical" is not a tone preset. The equivalent is the Code-Formatted output style, which preserves technical terms exactly and wraps code references in backticks.

Domain presets

Eighteen domain presets each add a context entry plus a starter vocabulary list — Software Engineering, Legal, Healthcare, Finance, Marketing, Customer Support, Academic Research, Data Science, Cybersecurity, DevOps and more. These mostly improve transcription accuracy on jargon rather than changing the writing.

When to write your own

Presets cover voice and shape. Specific rules belong in a custom instruction entry:

example · custom instructions
- Never open an email with "I hope this finds you well"
- Close with "Best," on its own line
- Don't apologise unprompted
- Use Oxford commas
!
Contradictions are the usual cause of odd output. If your tone says "casual" and an instruction demands full formal titles, the result is unpredictable. When a workspace misbehaves, disable entries one at a time — that is exactly what the per-entry toggle is for.
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