To train your online spell checker, teach it the words it should accept and the rules it should use: add your names and special terms to its dictionary, choose the right language variant, and decide whether you want style suggestions. The marks that are left are then the mistakes worth your time.
A spell checker compares every word with its dictionaries. A word it does not find there is marked, even when it is right: your surname, the name of a product, a medical or legal term, or colour in a text checked as American English. Each false alarm costs you a moment, and a long list of them hides the real mistakes. This guide shows how to set up the Spell Checker so that it flags as little as possible of what is correct.
Teach it your words in 6 steps
The key to training is Add to dictionary. A word you add there is not flagged again.
- Open the Spell Checker and paste a typical text of yours into the text box, or open a document.
- Choose the language and its variant, for example British English.
- Press Check spelling.
- Choose the Spelling filter, so that only the spelling issues are listed.
- Go through the marks. For a real mistake, pick the fix. For a word that is right, such as a name or a term of your trade, choose Add to dictionary.
- Press Check again. The words you added are no longer flagged.
The next time one of those words appears in a text, the Spell Checker accepts it, and you see only the marks that need you.
Add a whole word list at once
You don't have to wait for your terms to come up one by one. If you write about a special field, collect its words in a list: product and brand names, the names of colleagues and clients, place names, and the technical terms of medicine, law, science, or software. Paste the list into the text box and press Check spelling. Most of these words are marked, because a general dictionary does not have them. Add each one that is spelled correctly, and your dictionary is ready in a few minutes.
Keep that list in a document of your own: you will need it again.
Add only what you are sure of
A word in your dictionary is never flagged again, and that includes a misspelling. If you add recieve by mistake, the Spell Checker accepts it from then on. So before you add a word, make sure it is spelled the way it should be: check a name against its owner's own website or email signature, and a term against a good dictionary of your field.
If you use a term in more than one form, such as a singular and a plural, check that each form passes. Add any form that is still flagged.
Your dictionary belongs to this browser
The words you add are kept in this browser only. On another computer, or in another browser, the Spell Checker starts without them. This is where your word list pays off: paste it, check it, and add the words again.
Choose the right language variant
Many false alarms have nothing to do with rare words: they come from the wrong variant of a language. English is spelled differently in the US and the UK (color and colour, organize and organise), and a text checked against the wrong variant is full of marks.
Pick the variant you write in: English as American, British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, or South African English. German comes for Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, and Portuguese for Portugal, Brazil, and more. If you let the app detect the language, detected English is checked as American English, so choose British English yourself when you write it.
A text that mixes variants, for example one put together from parts that different people wrote, is a problem of its own. Each check follows the variant you chose, so the parts in the other variant are marked. Don't add those words to your dictionary: decide on one variant and change the rest of the text to match. British or American English? explains how to keep one variant from start to finish.
Decide how picky it should be
Picky mode adds style suggestions to the check: wordy phrases, words you repeat, and wording that could be simpler. They are suggestions, not mistakes. Turn Picky mode on when a text should read well, such as a report or a cover letter, and leave it off when you only want to catch errors, for example in a quick email. The style suggestions have their own filter, Style, so you can also leave them for last.
Ignore what does not fit your text
Some marks are right for most texts but wrong for yours. A grammar rule may not fit a quotation, a line of verse, or a fragment you wrote on purpose in an advert. Ignore it. Use Add to dictionary for a word you will write again and again, and simply ignore a mark that is wrong in this one place.
When rules are not enough
However well you train it, the Spell Checker works by rules: dictionaries and grammar rules. That makes it fast and predictable, but a real word in the wrong place, such as form where you meant from, is in every dictionary. The AI Spell Checker has an AI model read whole sentences, so it catches those too. It costs more to run, so its free use is limited: keep it for the texts that matter most. Spell checker or AI spell checker compares the two apps.
No check of any kind can tell whether a name, a date, or a number is the right one. Read your text once more before you send it; the proofreading checklist lists what to look at.