Why Word May Refuse to Check Spelling

Useful tips about working in Word

Why Word may refuse to check spelling:

1. Spell checking is not enabled.

Go to File → Options → Proofing, then select the Check spelling as you type checkbox and clear the Hide spelling errors in this document only checkbox (see image).

2. The text is marked with the wrong language.

Select the text you want to check, then verify that the correct language is shown in the status bar at the bottom of the window. If it is not, click the language name and choose the correct language from the list that appears.

By the way, Word can check spelling in multiple languages at the same time. To enable this, assign the appropriate language to each part of the text written in a different language.

3. The number of errors in the text exceeds 2,000, so Word has automatically stopped checking spelling to conserve system resources.

Either assign the correct language to the text (see above), reduce the number of errors and enable spell checking again (also see above), or split a large document into several smaller files to review errors more easily.

Even if Word disables automatic spell checking due to a large number of errors, you can still run a manual check by pressing F7.

4. Word does not support the language of the text you want to check.

Install support for the required language. This usually involves downloading and installing the appropriate language pack from Microsoft.