Spell Checking with Text Boxes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 21, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

Laney asked if there was a way to spell-check text within text boxes. She uses text boxes extensively for her layout design, and Word seems to ignore the text in the text boxes when it comes time to spell check.

In testing this problem, we actually found out that the text in text boxes is spell-checked; it is not ignored. Let's say that you have a five-page document, with text boxes on pages one and two. If you start doing a spell-check at the beginning of your document, Word goes through all five pages of the text before it actually does the spell-check on the text boxes. Why? Because text boxes are not on the same "layer" as the rest of the document. The spell-checker finishes everything on the text layer before it starts checking things on the other layers of the document.

If this wait-until-last approach to spell-checking bothers you, then you may want to use a different design element rather than text boxes. For instance, you could use tables instead of text boxes; they are placed on the text layer and processed with the rest of the text by the spell-checker. Another approach is to convert the text boxes to frames (as described in other issues of WordTips). Frames are placed on the same layer as the text, as well. When the anchor point for the frame is encountered by the spell-checker, all of the text in the frame is spell-checked. When the frame's text is finished, then the spell-checker picks right back up, at the point in the main text immediately following the frame's anchor.

If you still cannot get the spell-checker to pay attention to the text in your text boxes, the problem may not be related to the use of text boxes. Instead, the text itself could be marked to be ignored by the spell checker. To see if this is the case, select the text in the text box, then display the Language dialog box (choose Tools | Language | Set Language.) If the check box entitled "Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar" is selected, then you have discovered your problem. Clear the check box, close the dialog box, and do your spelling check again.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (204) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

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

Turning Off Spell Checking

For some documents, you may not want spell checking turned on. There are two ways that you can turn it off, depending on ...

Discover More

Rounding by Powers of 10

Need to round a value by a power of 10? You can do it by using the ROUND function as described in this tip.

Discover More

Setting Tab Stops Using the Tabs Dialog Box

Aligning different lines in your document is easy. Using the tab stops feature in Word, you can set four different types ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Normal Words Flagged by Spell Check

What do you do when Word's spelling check marks some common, everyday words as wrong? Here are some ideas of places you ...

Discover More

DLL Problem with Spell Check

Word 2002 has an issue with the SpellCheck feature returning a dll error.

Discover More

Making Ignore All Work for a Document on All Systems

When you tell Word's spell checker to ignore all instances of a misspelling, you may expect that the misspelling will be ...

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 four less than 4?

2023-09-18 08:32:40

Yngve D Roennike

I spell-check documents in different languages, and when I set the language for the overall document, it does not reach into the text boxes, which I presume are spell-checked for English. This is completely unworkable. Is there a fix for this?


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.