Hiding Spelling Errors

Word includes a feature that checks up on the spelling and grammar in your document as you type. You've seen the results—the red and green squiggly underlines that mark spelling and grammar errors that you may want to create.

For some people, the red underlines that denote spelling problems can be distracting, since their appearance can break your concentration as you are composing your document. Perhaps you would rather do your spell checking as a discrete phase of document development at a later time. If you find the red squiggly underlines distracting, you can turn them off. Simply follow 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 Hide Spelling Errors in This Document check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

If you are using Word 2007 then the steps are a bit different:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. At the left side of the dialog box, click Proofing. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. At the bottom of the dialog box, make sure the Hide Spelling Errors in This Document Only check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

Any existing red squiggly underlines should disappear. In order to check your spelling you will now explicitly need to start the spell checker.