Office Mac 2011 does not spell check

[Salmon Egg]

My version 14.1.2 is running on a recent Mac Pro using latest
Snow-leopard.

When I start with a blank document, the spell check works. When I open a
file I am working on, I get the message that no errors were found. I
purposely entered errors to observe if the spell check works.

When I started with a blank document and transferred the text from the
document having the trouble, the spell check did not work. I am still
probing to find out more about the problem.

There are so many different Word preferences, I do not really know where
to look. Is it possible for individual documents to have their own set
of preferences? That seems pretty far-fetched but possible.

Is it possible that certain weird fonts bypass spell checking. That also
seems far-fetched.

At this time U am grasping at straws. Any help will be appreciated,,

--

Sam

Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.

 

[Patty Winter]

There are so many different Word preferences, I do not really know where
to look. Is it possible for individual documents to have their own set
of preferences?

Yes, it is! In fact, different text blocks within a document can
have different settings. Kinda handy if you think about it--you
can have Word check multilingual documents, or ones with HTML
code, without it putting red flags everywhere that make it hard
to see where the real spelling errors are.

Perhaps someone here will know a more global solution, but how I
do it is to select all the text in the document, then go to Tools >
Language and make sure that the box called "Do not check spelling
or grammar" is completely unchecked. If some of the text in the
document has previously been subject to checking and some hasn't,
that box will be blue with a black line through it, indicating a
state between checking completely on and completely off. You want
to change it to a blue box with a checkmark.


Patty

 

[Salmon Egg]

Yes, it is! In fact, different text blocks within a document can
have different settings. Kinda handy if you think about it--you
can have Word check multilingual documents, or ones with HTML
code, without it putting red flags everywhere that make it hard
to see where the real spelling errors are.

Perhaps someone here will know a more global solution, but how I
do it is to select all the text in the document, then go to Tools >
Language and make sure that the box called "Do not check spelling
or grammar" is completely unchecked. If some of the text in the
document has previously been subject to checking and some hasn't,
that box will be blue with a black line through it, indicating a
state between checking completely on and completely off. You want
to change it to a blue box with a checkmark.

Your post has been very helpful. I think it solves my problem even if I
do not fully understand how it works. (You have to carefully not select
what you want to do in order to do the opposite of.) I have run into the
same kind of thing with Microsoft Office many years ago when preparing
mailing labels. It was an adventure! I finally wrote out a procedure
that went through several counter-intuitive steps in order to get the
job done. I hope to finish my learning process tomorrow, because it it
is getting late now.

Since then, my vision has deteriorated more so that it is easy for me to
miss seeing some screen items.

--

Sam

Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.

 

[Richard Vear]

Dear Sam,
many thanks for helping me solve this most frustrating block to my writings. Not being the best speller there is nothing worse than sending anyone a letter / report with spelling errors. Spell check had to be there, it was in Outlook and the English dictionary etc were listed under the 'Applications' directory as stated under help on "proofing". Why Microsoft should put this check box under 'Tool'/'Languages is anyone's guess, there is no logic or reason for doing so. Even 'Mac Help' doesn't pick it up.
There is no reason to select any group of text before doing a manual spell check, just make sure that the check boxes for auto spell and auto grammar check, as you type are enabled. This is via 'Preferences'/'Authoring and proofing' then select 'Spelling and Grammar' and then tick the auto when typing check boxes.
This means that as you type all errors in spelling and grammar appear for immediate correction. Happy error free typing.

Richard

 

[martyandali]

Thanks so much! been playing around for ages wondering why spell check would just not work for me!

Cheers,

AVB

 

[Salmon Egg]

Thanks so much! been playing around for ages wondering why spell check would
just not work for me!

Cheers,

AVB

<anip>

Until reading this response, I had forgotten about the problem. I do not
remember ever getting it resolved. Maybe a Microsoft update corrected
the problem. For all I know, I may be sending Word files with errors.

--

Sam

Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.

 

[aekwader]

Thanks! This helped me too!!!

 

[mcastro295]

Your post has been very helpful. I think it solves my problem even if I
do not fully understand how it works. (You have to carefully not select
what you want to do in order to do the opposite of.) I have run into the
same kind of thing with Microsoft Office many years ago when preparing
mailing labels. It was an adventure! I finally wrote out a procedure
that went through several counter-intuitive steps in order to get the
job done. I hope to finish my learning process tomorrow, because it it
is getting late now.

Since then, my vision has deteriorated more so that it is easy for me to
miss seeing some screen items.

--

Sam

Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.

Wow, thank you so much for this help Sam and Patty. I could not figure out how to get my document to spell check until I stumbled on the Google groups.. Patty, I unchecked the box in languages, and bingo, I am able to see the squiggly red line. I was jazzed to see the red line. Thank Sam for asking how to fix this problem. Thank you Patty.

 

[Patty Winter]

Wow, thank you so much for this help Sam and Patty. I could not figure
out how to get my document to spell check until I stumbled on the Google
groups. Patty, I unchecked the box in languages, and bingo, I am able to
see the squiggly red line. I was jazzed to see the red line. Thank Sam
for asking how to fix this problem. Thank you Patty.

Glad it helped!

I don't know how it happens, but I often find that "Do not check
spelling or grammar" is partly activated (the black bar I mentioned)
in a given document. Maybe it has something to do with text that's
typed into the document vs. text that's pasted in from another source.
Anyway, glad you were able to get spellchecking working again.


Patty