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Spelling Checker

Spelling and Grammar panel

Spell checking is available via the the standard macOS Spelling and Grammar panel, shown right.

When an unrecognized or misspelled word is detected, alternative spellings are suggested. You can Change the word to one of the suggested replacements, or choose from several other options.

With the default setting of Automatic by Language you can spell check a document containing text in multiple languages. Alternatively, you can select a particular language, with text in other languages then being identified as spelling errors.

To check spelling:

Step 1

With the document open, choose Edit > Check Spelling, which is also available by pressing the Command and semicolon keys.

Step 2

If an unrecognised or misspelled word is found, it's highlighted in your document and also in the Spelling and Grammar panel, which opens automatically. Now, do one of the following:

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If one of the suggested alternatives is correct, select it, and then click Change.

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If none of the alternatives is correct, retype the word or words, and then click Change.

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If you don’t want to make the correction, click Ignore.

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If you don’t want the word to be treated as an error, click Learn to add it to your personal dictionary.

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To look up the word in a Dictionary, click Define.

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To receive suggestions for possible corrections to the word, click Guess.

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To continue checking without making any changes, click Find Next.

Step 3

Making a selection at the previous step advances you to the next unrecognised or misspelled word. Repeat until your whole document has been spell checked, which is confirmed by a dialog.

There are two ways of adding exceptions to the spell checking function - Learn and Ignore. It's useful to recognise that these are similar in effect, but different in scope. The Learn function has system-wide scope and adds a word to your personal dictionary (a dictionary supported by macOS that can be shared by any application). The Ignore function only has single document scope and adds a word to an ignored word list that is stored within the document file.

TIP: In addition to spell checking your document it’s a good idea to read it through as a final check. The spelling checker highlights unrecognised or misspelled words, but not incorrect words. For example, typing "house" instead of "mouse" won’t show up as a misspelled word.

A spelling check will continue through all of the body and master pages, and will switch-over to the other Page Mode automatically; either body pages to master pages, or vice versa. All invisible overflow text is included in the spelling check.

Limitations

1. The spelling checker does not support automatic switch-over to the other Page Mode in response to continuous clicking of Find Next. (Switch-over requires you to select Change, Ignore or Learn).

2. "Check Spelling as You Type" is not available in the present release. This will be added to a future version.

3. Grammar checking is not included in the present release, and the "Check grammar" checkbox remains grayed out at all times. This will be added to a future version.

4. If you accidentally add (Learn) a misspelled word to your personal dictionary, you cannot use the application to "unlearn" it. TIP: As a workaround, users of Mac OS X 10.5 (or later) can unlearn words using Textedit (the personal dictionary is shared by all standard system applications, but not necessarily third party applications).