Spell Checker not working in Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac

Anonymous
2011-07-10T17:10:35+00:00

I just installed Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac a few weeks ago, and when I type a document in Word, it is not flagging misspelled words as I type, even though the "check spelling and grammar" button is selected. Additionally, when I run a spelling/grammar check, it tells me that it's been run already and it still does not flag any misspelled words. I tried reinstalling the proofing tools, but that has not helped. Does anyone have any feedback on how to fix this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2013-11-12T23:59:22+00:00

The convenience of this macro is, once you know it works, all you need to do is open all documents requiring fixing, ALL AT ONCE, and run the macro one final time.

To force Australian English, change the language specification from wdEnglishUS to wdEnglishAUS

(in two places).

There is a Preference setting that, curiously, is saved with each document and is probably the root of your current problem: *Word > Preferences > Spelling and Grammar > Hide spelling errors in this document.*I've added it to the code as well, so here's a new version with the changes in boldface, which you can add manually:

Sub ApplyEnglishAUStoAllOpenDocuments()

For Each aDocument In Application.Documents

aDocument.Activate

'Apply language ----------------------

Selection.WholeStory

Selection.LanguageID = wdEnglishAUS

Selection.NoProofing = False

'Redefine the Normal style ----------------

ActiveDocument.Styles("Normal").LanguageID = wdEnglishAUS

ActiveDocument.Styles("Normal").NoProofing = False

'Enable spelling errors --------------

ActiveDocument.ShowSpellingErrors = True

'Save changes and close -------------

aDocument.Save

aDocument.Close

Next aDocument

End Sub

In case you don't know anything about macros, the name that follows the starting "Sub" is arbitrary (thus, you can use pretty much any descriptive name there, like Sub ChangeLang(), etc.) while comment lines start with an apostrophe and are ignored by Word.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-11T01:46:31+00:00

    If you redefined the language in the Normal template, that change would only affect new documents. Once a document is created, it dissociates from the template. Existing documents would not be affected by that change and should be manually fixed one by one: Select All, then apply the language.

    For good measure, in each document select Format > Style and modify the Normal paragraph style by clicking on the Modify button, then selecting Language in the dropdown menu at the bottom left. This is not essential if you won't be working with that document anymore.

    The duplication of designations can be confusing:

    • There is a Normal template (the mold used to cast new documents), and…
    • Within every document (and even within the Normal template itself), there is also a Normal paragraph style (the mold for paragraph formats)

    Hi Daniel.

    Spell checking works as intended for new documents but not with previously created documents as suggested .

    I found that copying the contents of the previoulsy created file (i.e. Select All, Copy, Paste) into a new document gets spell checking working again on the existing text of the new document. That is underlining mispelt words with red text.

    Is there a better way to get all of my previous documents fixed with the spell checker working?

    Thank you

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-27T19:34:13+00:00

    I tried this and it failed to work, but then clicked the option to set the default language to English and that triggered it.  Otherwise, you will only set the language preferences for whatever text you have selected.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-09-29T15:51:40+00:00

    Just acquired a Macbook Air. Thanks your answer solved my problem as well. Wolf

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-06-29T03:06:02+00:00

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