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    Chapter 4. Viewing and Editing Text in W... > Correcting Your Spelling and Grammar

    Correcting Your Spelling and Grammar

    You can avoid the embarrassment of distributing a document full of misspellings, incorrectly used words, or poor grammar even if you don’t have a proofreader or an editor at your disposal. Word comes to the rescue by discreetly pointing out your spelling errors, word usage problems, and grammatical no-no’s. When you see one of those helpful little squiggles under a word or phrase, you can choose what you want to do to correct the mistake—if it really is a mistake.

    Correct a Spelling Error

    Right-click a red squiggle to see one or more suggestions for correcting the error.

    Click the suggestion you want to use.

    If you believe that what you have isn’t an error but is something that Word doesn’t recognize, click Ignore to have Word ignore this one instance; click Ignore All to have Word ignore the word throughout this document; or click Add To Dictionary to have Word ignore the word throughout all your documents.

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    Tip

    If Word didn’t offer any suggestions when you right-clicked a squiggle, return to your document and try to correct the error yourself. If the squiggle remains, right-click it, and see whether there are any suggestions now.


    Correct a Contextual Spelling Error

    Right-click a blue squiggle to see one or more suggestions for fixing improper word usage.

    Click the suggestion you want, or choose to ignore this error or this word throughout the document.

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    Correct the Grammar

    Right-click a green squiggle.

    If the shortcut menu suggests alternative phrasing, click to use the alternative. If only a description of the problem is shown, click in the document and edit the text as suggested.

    If you’re sure your grammar is correct, click Ignore Once.

    If you want to know why the text was marked, click About This Sentence for an explanation of the grammar rules involved.

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    Automatically Correct Your Misspellings

    Right-click one of your own common misspellings, point to AutoCorrect on the shortcut menu, and choose the correct spelling from the list of suggestions.

    Check your document, and observe that the correct spelling has replaced your misspelling.

    Continue composing your document. Note that if the same misspelling occurs again, Word corrects it for you.

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    Tip

    Word uses blue squiggles to mark formatting inconsistencies as well as contextual spelling errors.


    See Also

    “Customizing the Spelling and Grammar Checkers” on page 322 for information about modifying the way Word checks your spelling and grammar, and “Customizing Your Spelling Dictionaries” on page 323 for information about using and editing custom dictionaries.