Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Spell-checking Uppercase Words.

Spell-checking Uppercase Words

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 24, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

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:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Spelling & Grammar tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The Spelling & Grammar tab of the Options dialog box.

  4. Make sure the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box is selected.
  5. 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.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (66) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Spell-checking Uppercase Words.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Understanding Background Printing

We click the button to print our document and seldom think of what is happening behind the scenes. Word prints documents, ...

Discover More

Quickly Selecting Text

Want a really quick way to select text? Just combine the Shift key with a simple mouse click.

Discover More

Selecting Objects

Windows uses a graphical user interface that requires the manipulation of objects that appear on the screen. ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Hiding Grammar Errors

Are you bothered by the green underlines that Word uses to mark potential grammar errors in your document? You can hide ...

Discover More

Correctly Repeated Words

There are times when you need to repeat a word in a document, but doing so triggers an "error reaction" from Word's ...

Discover More

Spell Checking with Text Boxes

Text boxes are a common design element in a document. You may wonder if the text you place in a text box can be spell ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 7 + 9?

2022-01-23 00:59:58

Steve Baker

I write a lot of Usenet posts that have a subject header field. I capitalize some words for emphasis and want these words completely ignored when I run them through a macro I have set up. The macro is simple. It takes the words I've highlighted and copied and runs the "change case" to capitalize all words. Then it runs the spell checker part of the macro. If a word, such as "LOL" is in the title, it gets ignored, because that word is not in the default dictionary and spell check is set to ignore capped words. However, if I cap the word "COOL", which IS in the dictionary, Word changes the case to first letter only.
Ex: "LOL... He Thinks He's COOL", gets changed to "LOL... He Thinks He's Cool" - LOL stays the same because it's not in the dictionary and gets ignored. I want words that I've capitalized to stay capped.
I've put "COOL" in exclusionary dictionaries and can't seem to get it to work. Any suggestions? Thank you for your time.


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.