Spell-checking Uppercase Words

Word includes a powerful spell-checker that, in reality, does a pretty good job. If you do quite a bit of technical writing and use a lot of acronyms, you know that most of them are easily flagged as misspelled words. You can make sure that Word ignores uppercase words in any spell-check by following these steps if you are using a version of Word prior to Word 2007:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
2. Make sure the Spelling & Grammar tab is selected. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Make sure the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

If you are using Word 2007 then you should follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Proofing at the left side of the dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Make sure the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

The only downside to making this configuration change, of course, is if you use all uppercase for section titles or for other special words. In this case, Word still ignores them, since they are uppercase. Make sure you change the setting of this check box based on the type of work you are doing in your current document.