Optimize

Optimize rewrites and improves your text — for clarity, grammar, tone, and more — using a template. The window is titled Text Optimization.

Note

Optimize needs an AI provider set up first. See AI Providers.

How Optimize differs from asking Pia in a chat

You could paste text into an Assistant chat and ask Pia to fix it. Optimize is the same idea turned into a one-keystroke tool, and it differs from a chat in four ways that matter day to day:

• It has no conversation. Optimize takes one piece of text in and gives one rewrite back. There is no history to carry, so it never drifts and never asks a follow-up question.
• The instruction is saved, not retyped. The rewrite style lives in an optimize template you pick from a dropdown, instead of a sentence you type again every time.
• It works in other applications. The Optimize hotkey and Fast Path take the text you have selected in Word, Outlook, a browser or anywhere else, and can put the result straight back. A chat cannot reach outside Pia.
• It gives you a side-by-side diff and an Accept step. You see Original and Optimized next to each other and decide, rather than reading a reply and copying part of it out.

Use a chat when you want to discuss the text, ask why, or iterate. Use Optimize when you already know the style you want and just want the rewrite.

Optimize does not use personas, and Assistant chats do not use optimize templates — the two are separate systems.

Optimizing Text in the App

1. Type, paste, or dictate your text
2. Pick a Template (the default is Clarity & Grammar)
3. Choose your Output language
4. Click Optimize (or press Ctrl+Enter)
5. Compare the Original and Optimized panels
6. Choose what to do with the result:
   • Accept — apply the result
   • Reject — discard it
   • Copy — copy it to your clipboard
   • Send to… — send it to the Assistant

You can also attach a file or record your voice as input. See the Attachments and Speech guides.

Fast Path: Optimize From Any App

A global keyboard shortcut lets you optimize text from any app in one keystroke.

1. Open Settings and look for Fast Path (“Capture, optimize and apply in one keystroke”)
2. Set your shortcut
3. In any app, select some text
4. Press the shortcut

Pia captures the selection, optimizes it, and applies it back.

Tip

If nothing is selected, you’ll see: “Nothing to optimize. Select text first, then press the fast-path hotkey.”

What Accept does, and where the result can go

Accept hands the optimized text to whatever you chose as the Output Action under Settings → Optimize. That setting is what decides where an accepted result ends up:

Output Action	Where the optimized text goes
Copy to Clipboard	Onto your clipboard, for you to paste wherever you want.
Paste to Previous Window	Straight back into the application you came from, replacing the text you had selected.
Auto-Type	Typed out keystroke by keystroke into the previous window — for applications that refuse a normal paste.

Auto-Type has its own Auto-Type Delay (ms) setting (5–100 ms) for applications that drop characters when typing is too fast.

If pasting fails for any reason, Optimize falls back to copying the text to your clipboard, so an accepted result is never lost.

Output Action only governs Accept. The Copy and Send to… buttons in the result panel are always available regardless of it — Copy puts the result on the clipboard, and Send to… hands it to the Assistant as the start of a chat.

The result is marked as AI-generated

A line under the optimized text asks you to check it before you use it. Optimize rewrites what you wrote with a model, so the result is AI-generated text and is labelled as such.

Text that is too long for Pia Cloud

Pia Cloud’s optimizer has a length limit. Text over it is turned down with a sentence naming your length and the limit, in your own language, rather than a raw server message.

Templates Shape the Result

An optimize template tells Optimize how to improve your text. Pia comes with six built-in templates and you can create your own. Optimize always runs with exactly one template selected.

Clarity & Grammar is the default template. It is set as the default when Pia first runs, so the Optimize hotkey and Fast Path always have a template to use even if you never chose one yourself. To change which template they use, click Set Default on a different template card.

Whichever template is currently the default can’t be deleted, and neither can the built-in templates. To make your own, see the Optimize Templates guide.

History

Your past optimizations are saved and searchable, so you can find an earlier result whenever you need it.

Next Steps

Want to fine-tune how Optimize rewrites your text? Head to Optimize Templates to write your own rewrite style.