Your grammar can either make or break your documents. However, not everyone is a walking encyclopedia of grammar rules and correct spelling of words, which is why Microsoft Word is able to analyze your documents and notice your mistakes for you. With certain features, you can even have the app automatically correct your spelling errors to the correct one as you type.
Our article aims to teach you how you can take advantage of one of Word’s most famous capabilities. If you’re a beginner and want to know how to enable spell checking or AutoCorrect, this step-by-step guide is the perfect solution. Just follow along with us and learn how you can speed up and increase the quality of your work at the same time!
Things you’ll need
- A device with Microsoft Word installed and activated.
Now, let’s get right to the guides.
Check Spelling and Grammar Manually
- Launch Word, and either open an already existing document or create a new one from the welcome screen.
-
From the Ribbon on the top of your screen, select the Review tab.
-
In the Proofing section, you can see a button that says Spelling & Grammar. Click on this to start a manual check.
-
If Word is able to detect any spelling issues in the language your document is set to, a new pane will open up on the right side of the application. You can see the error underlined with a red line.
-
You’ll see suggested words with definitions that allow you to select the correct spelling of the word you were trying to type. To implement any of these suggestions, simply click on them.
-
You also have the option to make Word ignore the presumably misspelled word or words by pressing Ignore Once or Ignore All under the suggestions. You can also Add to Dictionary, meaning that the word in question won’t get detected by as a misspelling in the future.
- After you deal with the first misspelled word, you can move on to the next one if any more have been detected.
Tip: You can use a shortcut to activate the manual spelling and grammar check in Word. Simply press the F7 key on your keyboard, and the application will automatically perform a spelling and grammar check.
How to set Spelling Checker to Show errors while your work
- Launch Word, and either open an already existing document or create a new one from the welcome screen.
-
From the Ribbon on top of your screen, select the File menu.
-
Near the bottom, you can see a button that says Options. Click on it and direct your attention to the new Word Options window that appears.
-
Click on Proofing from the menu on the left.
-
To enable automatic spell checking as you type, place a checkmark next to the Check spelling as you type checkbox.
-
To enable automatic grammar checking as you type, place a checkmark next to the Mark grammar errors as you type checkbox.
-
After you enable automatic spell checking, whenever Word detects a misspelled word, it’ll be highlighted with a red squiggly line under it. You can right-click on the word and see a list of suggested words for replacement, and the option to Ignore or Add to Dictionary.
-
After you enable automatic grammar checking, whenever Word detects a potential grammar error, two blue lines will appear. You can get assistance in fixing the error by right-clicking on it. You can also choose the Ignore option if you want to keep it in your document as it is.
We hope that this article was able to help you learn how you can easily check your spelling and grammar in Microsoft Word. Do you know someone who’s starting out with Word and other Microsoft Office products? Don’t forget to share this article with them! Your friends, classmates, colleagues, or employees can all get help in getting started with Word. If you want to learn more about Word or other Microsoft Office suite applications, feel free to browse our section of guides.