Word Spell Check Not Working? Let’s Fix It!

by | Apr 6, 2015

Microsoft Word Spell Check Not Working? Follow These Steps

I had a client recently who sent me a Microsoft Word document that wouldn’t spell check. She even included typos, but Word said everything was fine! It obviously wasn’t.

How to Fix Spell Check

If Microsoft Word won’t spell check your document, whether you’re on a PC or a Mac, the fix is simple.

Fixing Word Spell Check on PC

  1. Go to the Review tab
  2. Select Language
  3. Click Set Language.
  4. In the Language dialog box, make sure the correct language is selected.
  5. Verify that the check box “Do not check spelling or grammar” is UNCHECKED.
  6. Click OK.

Word spell check not working

Fixing Word Spell Check Not Working On Mac

  1. Click on the Tools menu.
  2. Select Language.
  3. In the Language dialog box, make sure the correct language is selected.
  4. Verify that the check box “Do not check spelling or grammar” is UNCHECKED.
  5. Click OK.

That’s it. Now when you try to check your spelling again, it should work!

Want more MS Office support? Check out our Microsoft Office training courses, or click below to join our wonderful mentorship community!

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About Alicia Katz Pollock

With a Masters in Teaching from Tufts University, a QuickBooks®️ Online Advanced Certification and more than 30 years’ experience in the tech industry, Alicia is passionate about finding creative, practical solutions to complex and everyday tech problems. She also loves a good laugh!

Comments

20 Comments

  1. DP

    Thanks for writing this! It fixed my problem. Why in the world this setting isn’t under “Spelling” is beyond me.

    Reply
  2. Judy Hemming

    Thank you! I have tried other things without success. This worked!

    Reply
  3. Dan Duncan

    MS Word for Mac 2019. When I type “was” I get a ‘correction of “Washington” and “Butter” is a correction for “but”.

    There are more, probably things I haven’t discovered. I tried going to tools and checking ‘language’ but that is greyed out.

    Reply
  4. clair lalor

    very helpful! thanks

    Reply
  5. Veronica

    Wow, thank you! 2 seconds following your instructions and it was fixed, others have very convoluted fixes that didn’t work. THANK YOU so much!

    Reply
  6. NJtoTX

    Still not working. Spell check works fine in a new doc or in my own docs. But I’m on a PC (Word 2016(, and all the files I am working on were created on a Mac. Doesn’t seem to be anything about the documents themselves that would cause it to only check grammar and not spelling. No exceptions, nothing.

    So far my workaround is to copy all text, paste it into a new document, spellcheck that, then go fix the errors in the original doc.

    Reply
    • Alicia Katz Pollock

      If you copy it into a new document and save that one instead, wouldn’t that work, instead of going back and fixing the errors in the original?

      Does doing a Save As and making sure the document is a .docx with a new name solve it?

      Reply
  7. Dawn Oosterhoff

    Thank you for this post! I am an experienced Word user (Mac-based) and had often come across glitches with the spelling tool. I could never sort it out and hours with MS Office support only resulted in me rebuilding my custom and exception dictionaries. Today, I must have put the right string in the search engine because I landed on your page. Your tips taught me something new and saved me hours of work and frustration. Such an easy fix when you know what you’re looking for. Thank you.

    Reply
  8. Jack

    I’ve noticed, that in some case, the proofing can be overridden with an exception.

    Go to Word Options
    Then the proofing tab
    At the bottom is a drop down that lists exceptions. Make sure it’s not set to all documents or your specific document. If so, then uncheck the Hide options

    Hope that helps

    Reply
  9. Al Favela

    I’ve tried all of the above for my Mac and still cannot get Word to do spell check. Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • Alicia Katz Pollock

      Hi Al, without seeing your system and doing some troubleshooting, I can’t help. If you’d like to make an appointment, call me at 503-406-6550.

      Reply
  10. LizG

    Thank you!! Fixed the problem

    Reply
  11. Tony

    Thanks. i tried everything except for that logical step of the language settings. You’re the best!!! I wish i had found this before i sent a couple of emails with name spelling errors in them!! Ha!

    Reply
  12. Farshid Tafazoli

    To fix it simply press CTRL A and then SHIFT F1. In the opened bar on the right side of the document, under the fonts section click on LANGUAGE and from the opened windows choose English (United States) as the default font, make sure that the ‘DO NOT CHECK SPELLING OR GRAMMAR’ is UNCHECKED, then click on set as default. You can now browse the entire document and look for spelling errors as it will be back working.

    Reply
  13. Mike

    I have used the checker on the first 50 pages of 62 fine, now it tells me it is complete but I know it is not I tried deliberate errors but it still thinks it is complete.
    I have carried out the suggestions from this page it made no difference the box was unchecked.

    Reply
    • Alicia Katz Pollock

      Hi Mike, Do you have any styles applied, text boxes, or tables? The spell checker may not work inside them. Also go to Review > Language and make sure the text isn’t set to NOT be spell checked. That happens sometimes. ~Alicia

      Reply
      • Gai

        Thanks! You’re the only one who provided this answer! My spell and grammar checks were no working in a border. Or even when I copied and pasted the text from the bordered doc to a non-bordered doc. When I start fresh with a word doc it works just fine. Thank you!

        Reply
  14. mackmans

    This tutorial is very helpfull.

    Reply
  15. mackmans

    This tutorial is very usefull..

    Reply
  16. Noo

    Thanks, that’s really helpful. On my mac, word 2016 would not respond to any request to check spelling until I made the correct language ‘default’ (in tools menu, then language) and that was the only thing that worked. Thanks. N

    Reply

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