Spell Check in Word: The Best Tips and Tricks

Spell check in Word is a most useful feature. It’s the first thing you’ll probably use when writing a document in Word. But there are many ways to use the feature. Let’s explore how to avoid common mistakes and shortcuts with Word’s spell check feature.

What is Spell Check

Microsoft Word features Spell Check, which will check your document for spelling and grammar errors.

Once this happens with the first copy, you can edit single or multiple documents without having to engage the feature every time. We show you how to access this feature below.

Finding Spell Check

Spell check is automatically engaged every time you open a document to work in Word. Sometimes though, you may need to adjust the spell checker.

If you need to do so, you can locate it under the ‘Review’ tab in most recent versions of Word. You can also use the F7 button to start Spell Check.

Turning Spell Check ‘On’ and ‘Off’

Sometimes, Spell Check does not come on automatically when you open your Word documents. When this happens, to start a check of the spelling and grammar in your file just press F7.

You can also click on the ‘Review’ tab. A dialog box appears when the program finds spelling errors. This contains the first misspelled word identified by the Spell Checker.

Then, you can do one of three things: ignore the error, change it, or add it to Word’s dictionary. After you decide how to resolve the misspelling, the program moves to the next misspelled word.

The Spell check highlights spelling errors with a red line and grammatical errors with a blue line. Because this feature can be distracting, you might want to turn it off.

Turning off spell check in word

Don’t want Office to mark errors with squiggly lines while you are working? You can turn off automatic spelling and grammar checking.

First, open the spelling and grammar options. Click on the Check spelling checkbox to select or clear it. Here’s what to do to automatically check grammar and mark grammar errors. You can do the same thing; select or clear the ‘Mark Grammar’ errors as you type a checkbox.

Using Spell Check in Microsoft Word 365

There may be a different way to manually check spelling and grammar if you use Microsoft 365.

You may not have the option of using the “Spelling & Grammar” button in the Review ribbon. However, the “Editor” button has been added. The Editor pane is located on the right side of the screen.

Microsoft Word will give you a summary of how you’ve progressed through the document. It contains the suggested changes, along with details regarding spelling and grammar.

To Wrap Up

Spell check is such an unobtrusive feature that we often forget it’s there. This is until it doesn’t work automatically, the way it should. Or, distracts us with notices for constant changes.

These helpful tips above should assist you in getting the most out of Spell Check.