Google Docs Tutorials – Part 13 - Using the Spell Check Tool
Google Docs Tutorial - Part 13. Learn how to using Google Docs spell check for grammar and spelling errors. To help you further manage your document, Google Docs has added some useful features in the Tools menu.
The first tool, and probably the one you will use the most, is the Spelling tool. To check spelling, click on the Tools menu (as pictured on the right), and then click Check spelling. Notice on the Check spelling line, there is a toolbar button a and keyboard shortcut listing. Using either of these shortcuts will cause Google Docs to check the spelling in your document and highlight any words that might be spelled incorrectly. As you can see pictured below, there are two words in the Banana Tree document that have been highlighted. “Naïve” can be spelled either with the special character or with a standard letter “i” so this word can be left as-is
The second word that Google Docs has highlighted, is truly misspelled. By clicking on the word, Google Docs will present a list of word options that Google considers possible alternatives to the misspelled word (as seen below). In fact, “inner” is the correct word in this instance, and clicking on it will change the word in our document to the correct word.
Another feature within this menu is to add the unknown word to the dictionary. Click on the first highlighted word – “naïve” – to see the spelling options (as shown to the right). Click on Add to Dictionary to have the word “naïve” added to your dictionary.
As you add content to this document, your spelling will be checked automatically. Any words that Google does not recognize will be marked with red dots under them. This happens because the spelling tool is still activated. You can turn off the spelling tool by clicking on the ABC button that represents the spelling tool in the toolbar menu. To turn the spelling tool back on, you can follow the same procedure as above – open the Tools menu, and then select Check spelling – or you can click the ABC button on the toolbar. You can also turn the spelling tool off from the Tools menu, go to Tools and select Done spelling. Again, you will see misspelled words are no longer highlighted.
Another important feature of the Tools menu is the Language (for spelling) menu. This is useful if you are writing your document in a language other than American English. Google Docs is smart enough to figure out that this document is in English, so it checks the spelling accordingly.
You now are familiar with using the Spelling tool to catch misspelled words in your document.
