Rewrite text with Transforms and custom prompts
Last updated: October 2, 2026
Available on: Mac, Windows and iOS. iOS has Polish with different limits and controls.
Use Transforms to polish drafts, restructure text or apply custom instructions where you write. On desktop, base Polish maintains your tone; custom prompts can change it.
Turn on Transforms
Desktop Transforms is in Beta. Default shortcuts activate when you open Transforms, select Try it out or turn Opt in on—not when the demo ends. Before that, Polish and View Diff shortcuts stay inactive at startup.
If you chose Notetaker-only onboarding, finish dictation setup on that device to unlock the tab.
Open the Transforms tab in Flow's Hub.
Select Try it out.
Highlight the sample email text.
Press the shortcut shown in the demo: your current binding, or the platform default below.
Select Turn on Transforms, available only after the demo text is replaced, to finish setup with default instructions.
The completion screen includes shortcuts for View Diff and Undo.
Use and change shortcuts
Desktop transforms accept 1–1,000 words. With no selection, Flow uses the readable text box contents; if the field is empty, it can use your last dictation from the past 60 seconds.
Flow works in most text fields where it can detect a selection; some custom editors are unsupported.
Finish dictation before running a transform. Dictation cannot start while a transform is running.
Select the text you want to rewrite in another app.
Press the transform's shortcut to replace the text in place.
After setup, turning auto-paste off opens rewrites in Scratchpad instead, when Scratchpad is enabled.
Action | Mac | Windows |
Polish | Opt+1 | Win+Alt+1 |
Prompt Engineer | Opt+2 | Win+Alt+2 |
View Diff | Opt+O | Win+Alt+O |
These are the default shortcuts. Prompt Engineer turns unstructured spoken thoughts into a structured AI prompt.
Change a shortcut
Change Polish and Prompt Engineer bindings from their cards on the Transforms page; change View Diff from Settings → Keyboard shortcuts.
Click a shortcut field.
Press your combination.
Release the keys to save.
Mouse-button shortcuts save on click. To cancel recording without changing a binding, use ×, Escape or click outside the field—Escape stops recording but leaves the configuration window open.
Use + beside the last binding to add another, up to four per action. Remove shortcut appears only when it is not the action's only binding, except View Diff, whose last binding can be removed.
Each combination allows at most three keys and requires a modifier or eligible mouse button. Duplicate or OS-reserved combinations, left/right clicks, and combinations mixing both sides of the same modifier are blocked.
Finish recording before using + or Reset to default in the shortcuts dialog. A success message confirms a shortcut reset.
Review, retry or undo
Select Done. See changes in the Flow Bar or use View Diff to compare the original and rewritten text. The banner appears only after a successful rewrite that changed the text; Your text looks good! means no changes were made.
The viewer offers Copy, thumbs-up/down feedback, Retry polish and context-dependent actions such as Accept edits, Configure Polish or Undo.
Retry: runs the transform again on your original text; Undo restores the most recent transform.
Re-transform: options such as Prompt Engineer, Turn to list, Translate to English and Empathize operate on the already-transformed result. Translate to English is unavailable on iOS.
Warning: Plain-text URLs become clickable links; Markdown links and HTML anchors are not always preserved, so review them before using the result. Slack nested lists can lose formatting during a rewrite.
Create a custom transform
The page supports ten shortcut-based transforms: base Polish, Prompt Engineer and eight custom prompts. Only the two built-ins appear initially; custom cards appear after configuration. Create New and Create your own disappear when all eight custom slots are filled.
Important: A custom transform needs a name, prompt and shortcut to save. There are no Save or Cancel buttons—name and prompt edits autosave after typing, shortcut edits save immediately, and closing with required fields missing discards the incomplete changes.
Select Create New or Create your own, or open an existing card to edit it.
Name the prompt, such as “Make Formal.”
Assign a unique shortcut.
Write the instructions in Customize prompt.
Test the shortcut on selected text in another app.
The first custom prompt suggests Opt+3 on Mac or Win+Alt+3 on Windows; later custom slots have no default. Changing a shortcut in a transform card replaces that action's previous binding.
If nothing happens, first check all required fields; Prompt Engineer also needs both a prompt and shortcut to save. If you see Failed to save, try again or Failed to save prompt, try again, retry the edit before testing.
Customize base Polish
The base Polish card has five independently toggleable cleanup rules: Make more concise, Reword for clarity, Reorder for readability, Add structure for readability and Maintain your tone.
Under Customize your Polish prompt, add up to five custom instructions, at most 50 words each. Duplicates produce “A custom rule with this text already exists”.
The additional Pro rules Clarify main point and Refine phrasing for impact are off by default. The example preview reflects your changes; retry if it says “Couldn't regenerate the example. Try again.”
Add writing samples
Writing samples are optional and unlock after the name, shortcut and prompt are set. Each prompt accepts up to five samples, 50–500 words each, and only the active prompt's samples are used.
Renaming a prompt preserves its samples. Default Polish samples are preserved. Writing samples are unavailable on iOS.
Custom prompts and samples sync across your devices unless Privacy Mode or the data-sharing opt-out keeps them local, and enterprise zero data retention keeps samples on-device.
Apply a transform automatically after dictation
Auto Apply After Dictation runs the chosen transform after dictation finishes, before pasting.
Open the Hub's Transforms page, not the Polish card.
Turn on Auto Apply After Dictation in its own row to enable the picker.
Choose Polish, Prompt Engineer or a saved prompt from Choose a transform.
The Flow Bar wand menu controls the same setting; changes there and in the Hub stay in sync. Configure transforms opens the Hub page. When the Flow Bar is ready, the wand picker can expand; clicking its expanded circle runs the chosen transform immediately.
Auto Apply skips dictations showing an auto-cleanup notification and back-to-back runs within five seconds. It replaces other post-dictation transform nudges and automatic rewrites when those are available. If “We polished your dictation” appears, select Reveal edit to review it.
Note: If the transform cannot complete because of text length, an error or missing configuration, Flow pastes your original dictation instead. Switching accounts during the operation cancels this fallback paste.
If a rewrite does not appear
“Oops, too long to polish” / “Try again with under 1000 words”: Select a shorter passage and retry; over-limit text is not rewritten.
“Select text to apply a transform”: Flow found no usable text. Highlight text and press the shortcut again; early prompts may say “Hey, select text first!”
“Couldn't detect text in your text box”: Flow could not read or copy the field and had no recent dictation to use. Click into the text box and retry.
“Polish mode servers are busy”, “Transform timed out” or “Transform returned no text”: Retry the transform.
A successful retry replaces the text or opens the result in Scratchpad, according to your auto-paste setting.
If the field is not editable, Flow saves the rewrite to your clipboard. With auto-paste off and Scratchpad enabled, it opens there; otherwise, “Flow can't paste right now. Text saved to clipboard” appears. Paste the clipboard text into an editable field.
Reset or turn off Transforms
These are optional recovery controls, not setup requirements.
Warning: Reset in a custom transform clears that slot's name, prompt, shortcut and writing samples. Deleting a prompt also removes its samples.
Reset to defaults on the main page asks for confirmation, then permanently removes custom transforms and their samples. This cannot be undone.
Reset in base Polish restores its rule toggles without changing shortcuts or other slots. Reset in Prompt Engineer restores its default prompt and shortcut.
Select Reset to defaults on the Transforms page only to reset all transforms.
Confirm with Yes, or select Cancel to keep your configuration.
“Settings reset” confirms completion. Built-in transforms and the Polish and Prompt Engineer default shortcuts are restored.
The page's Opt in switch is separate from Auto Apply. Turning Opt in off disables the shortcuts and settings controls and hides the Flow Bar wand without deleting saved transforms or prompts. Re-enabling restores the default shortcuts, so set your custom bindings again.
If your organization turns Transforms off
Only admins can change Transforms in Organization settings at admin.wisprflow.ai; non-admins can see the setting. It is on by default. Turning it off requires confirmation and does not delete saved settings or content. Organization restrictions override your personal settings.
Polish is blocked: running Polish is blocked (a generic error on iOS), and Flow stops offering transform suggestions.
Controls are hidden: on desktop the Transforms page and all Polish controls, wand, picker, notifications and banners disappear. Transform shortcut entry points are hidden too.
Shortcuts stop working: Polish shortcuts are removed but saved bindings are kept and return if your admin re-enables Transforms. Bindings you cleared yourself stay cleared.
In-progress rewrites: a transform still preparing or processing is cancelled; no transformed text is pasted or saved to History, and your original dictated text is kept and pasted instead. A transform already at the paste stage is allowed to finish.
If that paste fails after the organization restriction takes effect, Flow saves the original text to the clipboard for manual pasting, or also opens it in Scratchpad when auto-paste is off and Scratchpad is enabled.
Ordinary transform comparisons and the transform context menu close, but auto-cleanup comparisons remain available. Transforms can also be briefly unavailable after sign-in while organization settings load.
Dictation, Ask Anything and Notetaker are unaffected.
iOS Polish
iOS Polish accepts 10–1,000 words and uses only the selection when text is selected. Its five built-in instructions cover concision, clearer wording, grammar/spelling/punctuation, readable structure and matching your tone, and you can add custom instructions.
An out-of-range word count shows an error that clears automatically after 10 seconds.
Still stuck?
Contact support through Report an issue if a complete, saved transform does nothing with text selected. Include your platform, the target app, the shortcut and the prompt—plus an example if the result consistently ignores your rule. Describe what you tried and attach screenshots or recordings.