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ass17

By ass17
in Educational Software

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  • 1 month later...
psydii

psydii

Posted
Posted

Has anyone been able to contact them recently?  They seem to have been bought out again, and now all their numbers go to voicemail, and the web form  goes responded.

 

As you might imagine I'm quite desperate to get hold of them. Or the old installer.

michaeljbrewis97

michaeljbrewis97

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, psydii said:

Has anyone been able to contact them recently?  They seem to have been bought out again, and now all their numbers go to voicemail, and the web form  goes responded.

 

As you might imagine I'm quite desperate to get hold of them. Or the old installer.

Ever Way is the new name for TextHelp, apparently - not a different company. It might be they have changed their numbers as part of the rebrand. Looking here https://www.everway.com/customer-support/ looks like you can raise a ticket via their help portal. 

 

 

psydii

psydii

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, michaeljbrewis97 said:

Ever Way is the new name for TextHelp, apparently - not a different company. It might be they have changed their numbers as part of the rebrand. Looking here https://www.everway.com/customer-support/ looks like you can raise a ticket via their help portal. 

 

 

Yup, been round that route - all uk numbers just cut out or drop you to what appears to be  an anonymous voicemailbox.  Think we have a solution now, but the phone / web form side of thing might need a little work.

Edited by psydii
Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Posted
Posted

For some reason I got a notification for this thread despite not posting here for years.

 

Wow, sounds like @ass17 has come along way with this, and they've even been bought out! Congrats, I hope there was a big bag of money in it for you. This app saved my bacon back in the hectic days of me dealing with exams all by my lonesome.

MattK

MattK

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, psydii said:

Yup, been round that route - all uk numbers just cut out or drop you to what appears to be  an anonymous voicemailbox.  Think we have a solution now, but the phone / web form side of thing might need a little work.

For the knowledgebase go to https://support.texthelp.com/help and there is a contact us link at the top right if the knowledgebase doesn't have the answer you are looking for.

  • Like 1
  • 2 months later...
howardlaycock

howardlaycock

Posted
Posted
Have received the following email from texthelp this morning. Not the best news but entirely predictable.
 
From: Isobel Haskell <[email protected]>
Sent: 03 July 2025 10:27
To: to: [email protected] <[email protected]>; uksdr <[email protected]>
Subject: Important Update: Changes to ExamWritePad Renewals from 1st October

 

Good morning,

We’re reaching out to inform you of an upcoming change to ExamWritePad (EWP) renewals, effective from 1st October 2025 which will affect your renewal in October 2025.

From this date, all EWP renewals will require Read&Write in order to access key features such as text-to-speech and the PDF reader. This change ensures that users continue to benefit from the most advanced literacy support tools available.

We understand that this may impact your current setup, and we’re here to support you through this transition. Our team is on hand to help with any questions, training, or guidance needed to make the switch as seamless as possible.

What You Need to Know:

  • What’s changing? Access to text-to-speech and the PDF reader will now require Read&Write.
  • When does this take effect? From 1st October 2025, all renewals will reflect this update.
  • What do I need to do? If you wish to continue using these features, we recommend adding Read&Write to your exams toolkit ahead of your renewal date to ensure all learners' access arrangements continue to be supported.

We appreciate your understanding and ongoing partnership. If you have any questions or would like to discuss your options, please don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected].

We’ve created a helpful FAQ document to guide you through this update, answer common questions, and outline your options.

If you are already a customer of our award-winning software, Read&Write, there’s nothing you need to do! You can continue using both tools as normal. For more information on best practices for using Read&Write please visit our Academy. 

Thanks and best wishes, Isobel Haskell Senior Customer Success Executive
everway.com

Everway logo

  • Thanks 1
Rob_D

Rob_D

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, Steve21 said:

So basically the whole point of EWP is now dead! 

For us, the point of EWP was a locked down, distraction free, writing app for use in exams with a really robust backups. And it doesn't sound like that core functionality is being changed/removed.

But I'm probably being pretty old-school here. If it wasn't in version 1, we don't really use it.

Steve21

Steve21

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Rob_D said:

For us, the point of EWP was a locked down, distraction free, writing app for use in exams with a really robust backups. And it doesn't sound like that core functionality is being changed/removed.

But I'm probably being pretty old-school here. If it wasn't in version 1, we don't really use it.


But now you need to pay two subscriptions to get the same features that were free previously if you’re using PDFs opening in the reader (as locked down etc)

 

And if it’s only items used in v1 that you need those still run via the older versions pre-subscription

 

Steve

ITGuyNW

ITGuyNW

Posted
Posted

It has been really to cool to see an idea rise like this and now completely crash and burn as they try and make as much money as they can.

  • Like 4
thimon

thimon

Posted
Posted

We only use EWP for the word processing element. We use Edge for text to speech for exam PDF files, luckily haven’t had any request for speech to text. 

Space_Munkey

Space_Munkey

Posted
Posted

Oh for 🤬 sake, I had a feeling this would end up happening... I'm sure we all did. Stupid everway.

 

This feels kind of like they don't want to support the program moving forward as it doesn't fit in with their overall product range, so they're trying to force people away from it.

 

 

  • Like 1
Bumhug360

Bumhug360

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, mavhc said:

Why did they buy it in the first place?

 

Its the Google tactic, when someone comes along with a better product you buy them out then kill it

  • Like 1
robintech

robintech

Posted
Posted (edited)
21 hours ago, thimon said:

luckily haven’t had any request for speech to text. 

 

For the long duration of an exam and the conditions they are taken under with locked down devices it doesn't work well in my experience , dictating an email but not for several hours including extra time and this is with the online speech recognition offline is much more of a struggle.  Some students get through fine for the entire season others with their intonation, pitch or speed of talking , too slow or fast starts to cause a feedback loop of frustration and anger, the occasional 10 second lag followed by a dump of text or worse "sorry I didn't get that", especially if they can't physically type for long periods of time.

 

Almost makes it worse how fluid it can be followed by random issues which possibly relate to using it for so long in a row, think Microsoft start to question what's going on.

Edited by robintech
Sephiroth

Sephiroth

Posted
Posted

How frustrating. I was hoping to completely remove Read & Write this year in favor of EWP everywhere. We've been using EWP for the last 2 years on isolated exams laptops, having moved from Word/Wordpad + Read & Write.

 

I would guess that it has come from a market share perspective; There's a competitor that is seeing a hefty chunk of sales, buy the product and slowly (or not-so-slowly in this case) bludgeon it to fit the marketing and costing of existing products.

midweek

midweek

Posted
Posted

I asked them if they were planning on integrating EWP with their other software back in January when they purchased the company and they said "At the moment, I don't believe there are plans to integrate it into any other products, so it should be staying standalone. "

 

Very glad we are moving over to exam.net.

psydii

psydii

Posted
Posted

If I  am not mistaken these people (Scottish National Investment Bank plc, IFM Investors Pty Ltd, Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) S.A.'s BRIDGE and Royal Bank of Canada) are expecting a return on the £140M they put into the (current) holding company in order to make the various purchases that have resulted in the everway brand.

thimon

thimon

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, bknaggs said:

Has anyone who bought a perpetual license been contacted to be told there are any changes coming their way?

Yup. They’re basically not honouring our perpetual license. We’ve manage to agree that we’ll get access to the latest version for 3 years, but after that we’ll need to move over the subscription model. 

bknaggs

bknaggs

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, thimon said:

Yup. They’re basically not honouring our perpetual license. We’ve manage to agree that we’ll get access to the latest version for 3 years, but after that we’ll need to move over the subscription model. 

 

Wow that's not great. Hopefully you got the initial deal and didn't pay what became the full price. If I was in that situation I'd be heading back to the free option.

 

 

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