Word 2010 - Spell Checking, not checking?? - puzzle.

**Ron M** · 2012-05-10 20:53

I need some help to try and solve this problem. I was typing a memo this afternoon and noticed that the Spell Checker was not working. It didn't pick up spelling mistakes, even ones that I deliberately made to test it out. I went into my Word Bible and the Help function to see if I could discover what the problem might be. As far as I could tell, all the appropriate boxes were checked and all the relevant functionality was invoked and I could not figure out why this was not working. Soooo...I am hoping someone here will have some insight into other things I should check to see if I can figure out why this is not working. Any thoughts, ideas or insight that anyone would care to share will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Ron M

**jweissmn1** · 2012-05-11 08:53

Have you checked to make sure the language for your text is not set to ignore spell check?

Select all your text, and use the Set Language option (I don't know where it is in 2010, but it is one of the buttons on the right hand side of the Proofing tab in 2007). Clear the Do not check spelling or grammar checkbox and click OK.

- Jessica

**Charles Kenyon** · 2012-05-11 14:32

For more on the spell checker, see Mastering the Spelling Checker. Jessica's guess is my guess, too. I guess for diagnosing the problem I would just check one word that you know is misspelled that is not being flagged. If that is the problem, though, then you have to go through the extra step to select everything and reset it to check spelling.

**kmurdock** · 2012-05-11 16:21

You can also tell a style to not check spelling. Open the modify style dialog, click the format button, then Language...

If somehow the Normal style was set to not check spelling, then any styles based on Normal would also inherit it.

Not the most likely scenario, but certainly one of the sneakiest to diagnose...

Best, Kim

**Ron M** · 2012-05-12 03:01

Jessica, Charles and Kim, thank you for your replies. I have checked a lot of the areas that you have suggested and everything seems to be as it should be. One thing I did do and that was remove the Normal format from the Quick Style List and that seemed to work - go figure? - so I hope I haven't changed something else as yet unknown.

Ron M

**Charles Kenyon** · 2012-05-18 08:33

I'm glad you've got it working. I can think of no reason why removing normal (or any other) style from the Quick Style list would change the spell checking.

If this pops up again, a key method of checking the spelling language settings is to select a word that you know is misspelled but which is not flagged. Check the proofing language settings with that word selected.

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