Spellcheck Problems

There’s nothing more annoying than spellcheck problems. If you have noticed that Spellchecker has not been picking up some of the misspellings in your documents, there could be several reasons and it might take a little bit of detective work to figure exactly why.

The Possibilities

    • Possibility #1: You ignored the word previously during a typical spellcheck. This means that the misspelled word was added to the dictionary and spellcheck will ignore it.
    • Possibility #2: You typed the word in uppercase. The default option in MSWord is to ignore words typed in uppercase.
    • Possibility #3: You applied a style to the word and the format of the style is to skip words formatted with that style.

The Solutions

  • Solution #1: If you accidentally added a misspelled word to the dictionary, this would cause the spellcheck problem. You can reset the dictionary using the Proofing settings.
    • First, click on File, Options, then Proofing:

word-options-recheck-document

  • Solution #2: If you would like to include words typed in uppercase in the spellcheck, you will need to turn off the option to ignore them – otherwise, this causes the second spellcheck problem. First, click on File, Options, then Proofing:

word-options-ignore-words-in-uppercase

  • Solution #3: if the other solutions did not fix the spellcheck problems, you could dig a little deeper and see if the word has a style applied to it.  If that style has been formatted to be omitted from the spellchecker, this will cause a spellcheck problem. Find out if the word has a style applied to it by clicking into the text and take a look at the ribbon – if a style is selected other than “normal”, that means there is a style applied.

word-style-easy-way-to-check-if-a-style-is-applied-to-text-ribbon

Since this example text has a style applied, the next step will be to look at the properties of the style. While pointing at the style “Movie Title”, right-click then choose Modify.

word-style-modify-a-style-using-the-right-click-on-the-ribbon

Here you will see the various formatting options associated with this style. One of them is “do not check spelling or grammar”.

word-style-modify-style-dialog-box

Your next step would be to remove that option from the style format. First, Click on Format, then choose Language.

word-style-format-language-option

Next, you will uncheck the option “Do not check spelling or grammar”. This action is taking place inside the Modify Style dialog box and will only affect this style. Lastly, click OK, then OK again. The Spellchecker will now catch misspelled words that have that style applied to it.

msword-do-not-check-spelling-or-grammar-option-within-a-style

Happy Learning!

 

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