Troubleshoot spelling, grammar, and other proofing tools

Some of the content in this topic may not be applicable to some languages.

Spelling and grammar

The spelling checker didn't find specific errors in my document or didn't mark them with wavy underlines.

Try the following solutions:

The grammar checker didn't find specific errors in my document or didn't mark them with wavy underlines.

Microsoft Word provides a "natural language" grammar checker that flags possible problems by performing a comprehensive analysis of the text. If the grammar checker doesn't flag some problems, it might be because it is designed to focus on those that are most typical or frequent.

It might also be because the grammar checker can't determine the correct linguistic structure of certain sentences. In addition, for some languages the grammar checker doesn't check areas of the document that are likely to contain sentence fragments: headers, footers, comments, or text that's enclosed in quotation marks.

If the grammar checker doesn't flag basic errors in the main document text, try the following solutions:

The spelling or grammar checker questions text that is correct.

Try the following solutions:

The spelling checker didn't check words in uppercase letters.

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

  2. Clear the Ignore words in UPPERCASE check box.

  3. Then, repeat the spelling check.

The spelling checker didn't change every occurrence of a misspelled word.

If you check spelling all at once, you can click the Change All button in the Spelling and Grammar dialog box to change every occurrence of a misspelled word. If you close the dialog box before checking the entire document, the spelling checker will not correct errors in the unchecked portion.

When I try to check text in another language, Word can't find the dictionary or other proofing tools.

If you want to check text in another language, you need to install the spelling and grammar tools for that language, and make sure that language is enabled for editing. Thereafter, Microsoft Word will automatically detect the language in your documents and use the correct spelling and grammar tools.

The spelling checker or thesaurus suggested an offensive term.

When the spelling checker encounters a word it doesn't recognize, it determines which words in its dictionary are similarly spelled and displays a list of those words, with the most likely match highlighted. The contents of the list are determined only by spelling, so any instances of terms that seem inappropriate in context are completely coincidental.

The thesaurus provides a list of synonyms for the text you look up, and highlights the one that is closest to what you have typed. As with the spelling checker, any instances of seemingly inappropriate terms are coincidental.

I don't know why Word flagged my text as grammatically incorrect.

To learn more about the grammar rule Microsoft Word used to flag your text, click Explain in the Spelling and Grammar dialog box. If you want to change the rules Word uses to check grammar, click Options on the Tools menu, click the Spelling & Grammar tab, and then click Settings. Then select the grammar and style options you want.

When I change certain spelling options in Word, the changes aren't reflected in Outlook.

Some spelling options are only shared between Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook when you use Word as your e-mail editor. If you've turned off Word as your e-mail editor, you can change the following settings in Word without altering the setting in Outlook:

Custom dictionaries

I can't add a word to the custom dictionary.

I'm used to using Notepad to work with custom dictionaries.

Microsoft Word has simplified its methods for working with custom dictionaries so that you no longer need to use a separate text editor to work with the content of your custom dictionary. Notepad is no longer the recommended tool.

I added words to a custom dictionary, but the spelling checker still questions them.

Before you can use a custom dictionary to check spelling, you must activate it by selecting the check box next to its name in the Custom Dictionaries dialog box.

In addition, if you add a word to the custom dictionary while another program is running, the addition does not appear until you restart Microsoft Word.

Automatic language detection

Word doesn't correctly detect my language.

Word doesn't detect my language at all.