Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#1

Post by limalabs » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 2:46 AM UTC

Just a short rant. I have been working on my Master's thesis and been using Opus 4.6 throughout, and today switched to Opus 4.7 (using it in Claude Code), and man is it bad at writing. It's such a stark contrast, sloppy, unprecise, very empty sentences. Thankfully I have reached the conclusion chapter of the thesis already, and can continue in the web version with 4.6 but boy is it bad.

Similar experiences?

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#2

Post by Zavora » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:16 AM UTC

Suggest you get 4.6 to use the text to generate a writing skill and then give it to 4.7 to align. From their launch docs they do indicate that prompts have to change to get the best out of 4.7

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#3

Post by Plory » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:17 AM UTC

[dead]

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#4

Post by allinonetools_ » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:27 AM UTC

[dead]

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#5

Post by downboots » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:56 AM UTC

> Similar experiences?

Regardless of which one. They're too verbose. They repeat information. They lack cohesion. Overly agreeable. The flaws are part of the tool.

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#6

Post by anon7000 » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 5:32 AM UTC

My experience writing code is that it’s more terse and specific, even in its own voice. I find it catching bugs more often during implementation more too, comparing directly against 4.6. I think I prefer its style because it seems to be way less verbose

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#7

Post by SyntaxErrorist » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

I have noticed this as well. It feels like they tuned it so hard for logic and coding that it lost its soul for actual writing. Stick with the previous one for the thesis work if you can.

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#8

Post by kappuchino » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 6:01 AM UTC

It's lovable when people use a wrench to hammer a nail in. Watch your thumb.

Meaning: You managed your ways around the system prompt and usage intention - Congrats! Now it doesn't work any more - Bummer!

Have you tried opus 4.7 in comparison to 4.6 with a general purpose / writing system prompt in the app? Thats where this would make more sense.

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#9

Post by muzani » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 6:40 AM UTC

There were a lot of pitchforks back when Sonnet 4.5 was accidentally down for a few hours: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1rlz7kw/sonnet_45...

It goes to show that there's a very large and vocal user base using it for writing, and yet it's not part of the benchmark for Anthropic.

Anyway, try Sonnet 4.5 while it's still available?

Re: Opus 4.7 is horrible at writing

#10

Post by sminchev » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 7:24 AM UTC

So far, from source code perspective, I see good results. Things that yesterday Opus 4.6 was not able to fix in multiple iterations, today Opus 4.7 fixes immediately.

It is not only the model that affects the end results. Good technical specification, architecture documents, rules, lessons learned, release notes, proper and descriptive prompting are also important.