Community Newsletter: Q&A: 6/4/2004 Stop nagging me about my spelling and grammar

6/4/2004 Stop nagging me about my spelling and grammar

by Lee Koo (ADMIN)  - 6/17/04 5:01 PM

Question:

When I use Microsoft Word (XP), the program constantly
underlines my sentences to alert me to possible bad grammar
or other errors. While working on drafts, it's annoying; how
do I stop the nagging?

Submitted by Ken F. of Los Angeles, California


Answer:

This is a pretty straightforward "fix". In Microsoft Word, go to the menu bar, select Tools >
Options. The resulting Options window allows you to tailor
pretty much every part of Word's performance. Under the
Spelling & Grammar tab are two control areas, one for
spelling and the other for grammar. The first check box in
each area is "Check spelling as you type" or "Check grammar
as you type." Remove both of their check marks, and you'll
get no more ongoing distractions while typing a document.

When you are ready to check spelling and grammar in a
document, just go back to the menu bar, select Tools, and
click Spelling And Grammar. A shortcut key for it is F7. Hope
this helps.


Submitted by: Rick S. of Cooper City, Florida

********* HONORABLE MENTIONS: **********

Answer:

On the menu bar at the top of the window, go to TOOLS --> Options, and click on the "Spelling & Grammar" tab. The top part of the tabbed menu has options for the spelling check; the bottom part has grammar checking options. Uncheck "Check grammar as you type" and "Check grammar with spelling".

Related to this is the TOOLS --> AutoCorrect Options. If you notice Word "helping" you by making replacements or "corrections" you don't want, this is the place to look. Likewise, if you do want to automatically replace something -- such as having Word insert the copyright symbol when you type (c) -- go to the "replace words as you type" section and add your keystrokes.

Another related area, also on the TOOLS drop down menu is "Customize". You can control what toolbars are displayed, what commands are on what toolbars, and, using the "keyboard" button on the initial "toolbar" tab, you can assign commands to hot keys. This is a very powerful feature, because there are a great many commands which can be assigned to hot keys but cannot be accessed through the regular drop down menus. As an unreconstructed WordPerfect user, for example, I have assigned "view next window" to the F3 key, so that I can cycle through each open window. [Paradoxically, you first need to go to HELP --> WordPerfect Help --> Options and uncheck the top two boxes to turn "help for WordPerfect users" off].

There are a lot of commands that can be assigned, and it is sometimes difficult to understand what they do just by reading the description; I urge everyone to spend some time experimenting with these commands. There is a button that will allow you to remove key assignments. The question specifically mentioned drafts, so I'll point out that under the "Window" commands is a command that will allow two side by side windows to scroll together to allow line by line proofing.

Hope this helps.

Submitted by: Mark J. New Albany, Ind.

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Answer:

In order to stop automatic spell checking you need to hide
the spelling errors.
1. Click the 'Spelling and Grammar' icon
2. Click the 'Options' box
3. Check the 'Hide spelling errors in this document' box
If you don't have the 'Spelling and Grammar' icon showing
you can get to the same check box by clicking 'Tools',
'Options' and then the 'Spelling and Grammar' tab. To get
the spell checking going again just go back and uncheck
that box.

Alternatively you can stop Windows using a dictionary to
check the spelling.
1. Click Tools
2. Click Language
3. Click Set Language
4. Check the box 'Do not check spelling or grammar'.
5. Click 'OK'
To undo this simply uncheck the same box.


Submitted by: Bulldog

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Answer:

To turn off these options, go to the Tools menu, select Options, then click the Spelling & Grammar tab. Under Spelling uncheck Check spelling as you type. In the Grammar area, uncheck Check grammar as you type . Finally, click OK to close the Options screen.

Note that you must now remember to manually run Spelling and Grammar checks. Start such a check by either hitting the [F7] key or the Spelling and Grammar button on the Standard toolbar (Icon has the letters ABC on the top with a blue checkmark below).

If you want to be able to quickly turn the spelling and grammer lines on and off, I'd suggest adding those commands to the toolbar. To do this, first go to the View menu, select Toolbars, then pick Customize. Go to the Commands tab, then select Tools in the Categories box on the left. Now, in the Commands box on the right, look for Hide Spelling Errors and Hide Grammar Errors (Despite their names, these commands are actually switches which can turn the feature both on and off). Click and drag them, one at a time, from the Command box to where you want them to be on the toolbars. They can go anywhere adjacent to other toolbar buttons - a good spot is the normally unused real estate at the end of the Menu bar. Once you have picked a valid spot, a black bar will appear alongside the existing toolbar button. Release the mouse button and the new button is copied to the toolbar. These two commands do not have an icon, so the actual text command will appear in the button. If this is too long, leave the Customize screen open and right-click the button. In the menu that appears, click in the Name text box and type in what you want to display. This right-click menu also gives you the ability to assign a toolbar icon and manipulate the button in other ways.

Hope it helps!

Submitted by - MadMatt

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Answer:

To remove the spelling and grammar check in Word XP do the following:

1. Open Word and start a new document
2. On your toolbar, click on "tools."
3. In the "tools" drop down box click on "Spelling and Grammar."
4. The spellcheck box will open, at the bottom is a button "Options" click on that.
5. Another box will open. Under the heading "Spelling" there is a checkbox called "Check spelling as you type" uncheck that box.
6. Farther down in the same box is a heading called "Grammar" there is a checkbox that says "Check grammar as you type," uncheck that box.
7. Click the "OK" button on the bottom.

You have now turned off the features in Word that underlines spelling and grammar errors as you type. You can still use the spellcheck feature, but it won't underline as you are creating a document.


Submitted by Carlene R. of Milwaukie, OR

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Answer:

I agree that the grammar checker is an annoying "feature" of MS Word. To turn it off, find the little book icon at the bottom of the screen, just above the taskbar, and right click on it. That gives you the option to turn off both the spelling checker and the so-called grammar checker.
My personal preference is to always switch the grammar checker off (and yes, I _do_ know there was a so-called "split infinitive" there) but to keep the spelling checker on, because I type quickly and my fingers sometimes get carried away with themselves.
However, I suspect that the grammar checker was programmed by morons who wouldn't recognise a correct English sentence if it bit them on the nose! It has extremely limited parameters for checking. Let me give you an example.
Take this sentence:
"These hotels were built by the government."
This is obviously a passive sentence (the verb-3 "built" followed by "by" indicates this), and MS Word usually recommends that we should consider recasting this in the active. OK - "The government built these hotels" - it doesn't have the same effect, but I agree that active sentences are generally easier to process than passive ones.
But guess what the moronic MS Word grammar checker does with this sentence:
"These hotels were built by the sea."
Yes, you've guessed it! "The sea built these hotels."
Oh, by the way, I'm an English teacher based in Yangon, Myanmar. The above is one of my regular complaints to students who use word processing for their assignments!


Submitted by Ian C.

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Answer:

1. Open Microsoft Word XP (actually it is Microsoft Word 2002).
2. Click on "TOOLS" and click on "OPTIONS" or click "alt+t+o".
3. Go to the "Spelling & Grammer" Tab.
4. Check the box "Hide spelling errors in this document" or click "alt+s". If you want to totally stop spellchecking, uncheck the box "Check spelling as you type" or click "alt+p" (the "Hide spelling errors in this document" box will automatically be checked.).
5. Check the box "Hide grammatical errors in this document" or click "alt+i". If you want to totally stop grammer checking, uncheck the box "Check grammer as you type" or click "alt+g". (The "Hide grammatical errors in this document" box will automatically be checked.)
6. Click OK.
7. Now your sentences will not be underlined any more.

Submitted by Santanu R. Lake Town, Kolkata. West Bengal, India