Spell Check Won't Work

One of the powerful tools provided with Word is the spell checker. As you are creating your documents, you may notice that Word doesn't always find spelling errors. There are two things you can check if this is the case.

First, if the misspelled words are in uppercase, you may have spell checking turned off for words that are all in uppercase. To turn on this capability, follow these steps:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
2. Make sure the Spelling & Grammar tab is selected in Word 97 and later versions. (Click here to see a related figure.) For Word 6 and Word 95 users the Spelling tab should be selected. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Make sure the Words in UPPERCASE check box (Word 6 and Word 95) or the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box (Word 97 and later versions) is cleared.
4. Click on OK.

Next, if entire paragraphs are being ignored, it could be because proofing has been turned off for the paragraph. Follow these steps to correct this problem:

1. Select the paragraph in question.
2. Choose Language from the Tools menu. This displays the Language dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. In the language list at the left of the dialog box, make sure (no proofing) is not selected. (Select a different language, such as one of the English variations.)
4. Click on OK.