Check grammar, spelling, and more in Word

Microsoft Editor runs in Word for Microsoft 365 to analyze your document and offer suggestions for spelling, grammar, and stylistic issues, like making sentences more concise, choosing simpler words, or writing with more formality.

To use Editor, on the Home tab choose Editor.

Reviewing suggestions

To focus on the issues you care most about, choose a correction or refinement type, like Grammar or Clarity. Then, use the arrows near the top of the pane to step through each of that type of issue.

Choose a suggestion to incorporate it into your document. If you don't like the suggestion, select Ignore once. Or, if you never want this type of suggestion, select Stop checking for this.

Tailor what Editor checks for

By default, Editor checks for several categories of issues, and the suggestions may or may not suit your writing style. To finely tune Editor for suggestions you want, do the following:

1. In the Editor pane, in the Corrections section, select Grammar.

2. In the Grammar dialog, select More options (the ellipses (…)) and then select Customize suggestions.

3. Scroll through the list of options. Select issues you want Editor to check, and clear the issues you want Editor to ignore.

   Note

   Selecting Reset to default returns to the default settings.

4. Choose OK.

Editor is running, even when the pane is closed

You might notice Editor’s red, blue, and purple underlines in your document even when the Editor pane is closed. That’s because Editor is always running in the background, checking for spelling, grammar, and some style issues.

Right-click the underlined text to see the suggestion. Use context menu to:

• Listen to the suggestion by clicking the arrow next to the suggestion and then choosing Read Aloud.
• Skip this instance of the issue by choosing Ignore Once.
• Tell Editor to stop checking for this issue by choosing Don’t check for this issue.
• Fine tune the settings for this type of issue by choosing the Options link.
• Get more information about the issue by choosing See More.

Checking more than one language

Your document might be written in more than one language, or you might want to switch to another language for Editor to check. If you are set up to use multiple authoring languages (File > Options > Language), Word detects the language you’re writing in, and Editor will check for issues in that language.

However, you might be writing in a language that Word doesn’t detect automatically. In that case, you can get Editor to check text in that language by selecting the text and going to Review > Language > Set Proofing Language, and then choose your language.

When Editor is checking more than one language, the Editor pane lists corrections and refinements for each language in the document. 

For information about the issues that Editor checks in various languages, see Editor's spelling, grammar, and refinement availability by language.

Editor on the web

When you work on documents in Word on the web, Editor provides a rich set of features that are coming soon to Word for Windows. Even when you’re not using Word, the Editor browser extension helps you with writing on websites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail.

Word marks spelling, grammar, and stylistic issues with an underline. Right-click the underlined word, and then choose the suggestion you want, or learn more about the error and how to correct it.

Or, open the Editor pane to address issues by category.

1. On the Review tab, select Editor.

2. The Editor pane categorizes spelling, grammar, and stylistic issues.

3. Click each category to address the issues.

   Note

   For keyboard shortcuts in the Editor pane, there's no need to press Alt. Just use the underlined letter to select the command (like i for Ignore Once, g for Ignore All, etc).

Choose what to check for

1. In the Editor pane, in the Corrections section, select Grammar.
2. Below the Grammar dialog, select Options.
3. For Writing Style, select Grammar & Refinements.
4. Scroll down to see all of the options available, and select or clear the rules you want. The settings apply to all the documents that you edit, not just the current one.

Not seeing writing style refinements?

Requirements and availability of the Editor pane include the following:

• Internet connection: Make sure your connection is working.
• Intelligent Services switched on: Go to File > Options > General and turn on Office Intelligence Services.
• Language availability: For information about the issues that Word checks for in various languages, see Editor's spelling, grammar, and refinement availability by language.

Word marks spelling, grammar, and stylistic issues with an underline. Control-click the word or phrase and choose one of the options.

If Word incorrectly underlined a word as misspelled and you want to add that word to your dictionary so that Word will properly recognize it in the future, see Add or edit words in a spell check dictionary. 

If spelling or grammatical errors aren't underlined, you might need to turn on automatic spelling and grammar checking, as follows. 

Turn on (or off) automatic spelling and grammar checking

1. On the Word menu, click Preferences > Spelling & Grammar.
2. In the Spelling & Grammar dialog box, under Spelling, check or clear the Check spelling as you type box.
3. Under Grammar, check or clear the Check grammar as you type box.
4. Close the dialog box to save your changes.

Check spelling and grammar all at once

1. On the Review tab, click Spelling & Grammar.

2. Word displays the issues it finds in the Spelling & Grammar dialog box.

3. To address an issue, do one of the following:

   • Type the correction in the box and then click Change.
   • Under Suggestions, click the word you want to use, and then click Change.

   To skip the error, do one of the following:

   • Click Ignore Once to skip only that instance of the error.
   • Click Ignore All to skip all instances of the error.
   • For a grammatical error, click Next Sentence to skip that instance of the error and move to the next error.

   To skip a misspelled word in all documents, click Add to add it to the dictionary. This only works for spelling. You can’t add custom grammar to the dictionary.

4. After you correct, ignore, or skip an issue, Word moves to the next one. When Word finishes reviewing the document, you’ll see a message that the spelling and grammar check is complete.

5. Click OK to return to your document.

Recheck the spelling and grammar that you previously checked and chose to ignore

You can clear or reset the list of Ignored Words and Grammar so Word will check for spelling and grammar issues you previously told it to ignore.

1. Open the document that needs to be checked.

2. On the Tools menu, point to Spelling and Grammar, and then click Reset Ignored Words and Grammar.

   

   Word displays a warning about the operation resetting the spelling checker and the grammar checker.

   

3. Click Yes to proceed.

4. Click the Review tab, and then click Spelling & Grammar to check spelling and grammar.