To spell check a document, open the file in the Spell Checker, choose the language it is written in, and press Check spelling. Then correct the marked issues and download the document with the fixes in it.
You can copy a long text out of a file and paste it into a text box, but that is slow, and the formatting gets lost on the way back. Opening the document itself is quicker. This guide shows the 3 steps and what to know about each one.
The 3 steps at a glance
- Open your document in the Spell Checker.
- Choose the language and press Check spelling.
- Review the suggestions, then download the corrected document.
The Spell Checker is free to use and needs no account.
Step 1: open your document
The Spell Checker opens on a text box. Instead of typing into it, open a document. The file can come from your computer, from a link (choose Paste URL and paste the address of the file), or from cloud storage.
These are the formats it reads:
| Kind of document | Formats |
|---|---|
| Word | DOCX and DOC |
| OpenDocument text | ODT |
| Other text documents | RTF, TXT, HTML, and Markdown |
| PDF, including scanned PDFs | |
| E-books | EPUB |
| Photos and scans of pages | JPG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, BMP, and GIF |
A scan or a photo of a page holds no text, only a picture of it. The Spell Checker first reads such a page with text recognition (OCR) and then checks the text it found. In a PDF this happens page by page: only a page without a text layer is read with text recognition.
A document can have up to 100 pages. For a longer one, split it into parts and check them one after the other.
Step 2: choose the language and press Check spelling
Pick the language of your document and its variant. The variant matters most for English: American, British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and South African English spell many words differently, such as color and colour. German comes for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and Portuguese for Portugal, Brazil, and more. There are more than 30 languages in all.
You can also let the Spell Checker detect the language. Detected English is checked as American English, though, so for a report in British English choose British English yourself. British or American English? explains how to keep one variant throughout a text.
If you want more than the errors, turn on Picky mode. It adds style suggestions: wordy phrases, repetition, and wording that could be simpler. These are suggestions, not mistakes.
Then press Check spelling.
Step 3: review the suggestions and download
A document is checked page by page. Page 1 is checked and shows its suggestions before page 2, so you do not have to wait for the whole document: you can correct the first pages while the next ones are still being read.
Each issue is underlined in the text and listed beside it, sorted by kind: Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, and, in Picky mode, Style. Each kind is also a filter, so you can fix all the spelling first and look at style last.
Click an underline or a card to see the explanation, and pick a fix to apply it. If a suggestion is wrong for your text, ignore it. Names and technical terms are often flagged only because they are not in the dictionary. Choose Add to dictionary for such a word, and it is not flagged again. The word is kept in this browser only.
You can also edit the text in the result yourself. After larger changes, press Check again.
When you are done, choose Download and pick a format: PDF, DOCX, ODT, RTF, TXT, HTML, or Markdown. If you only need the text, press Copy text instead. To start on the next document, press Check another text.
Which download format to choose
- A DOCX or ODT file: download it in its own format. You get your original file with each fix written into it, so its formatting stays as it was.
- A DOC or EPUB file: it comes back as a new file in one of the formats above. Choose DOCX if you want to keep working on it in a word processor.
- A PDF, a scan, or a photo: choose the format you need next: PDF to send it on, DOCX or ODT to keep editing, TXT for plain text.
Tips for long documents
- Check the language first. If many correct words are flagged, the document may be checked in the wrong variant.
- Add your terms early. In a report full of names or technical terms, add each one to the dictionary the first time it is flagged, so it does not come up again on every page.
- Use a clear scan. Text recognition can misread a letter on a blurred or crooked scan, and a misread letter looks like a typo.
- Use the AI Spell Checker for documents that matter most. The Spell Checker works with dictionaries and grammar rules. The AI Spell Checker has an AI model read whole sentences, so it also catches a real word in the wrong place, such as form where you meant from, and clumsy wording. It costs more to run, so its free use is limited. It opens documents the same way. Spell checker or AI spell checker compares the two.
A last read is still yours
No check can tell whether a date, a figure, or a name is the right one. Read the corrected document once more before you send it. For Word files in particular, see how to spell check a Word document online.