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Unable to change "Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar" for whole Document

Anonymous
2024-02-16T18:58:04+00:00

My document consists of 350 words split up into different bullet points. For some reason my entire document has the "Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar" checked, meaning there are no spell checks. When I select all (using ctrl + a) and try and change this option, there is a black square instead of a check mark. I then change the black box to the unchecked option (this requires me to click twice, to change. One click > check, one more click > uncheck). However when I do this, nothing is saved. I can select all and check the option and the black box is still there.

So what I've found out is, if I select smaller amounts of text, say a single line or even about 100 words, and THEN click the "Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar" option, instead of the black box it's just a regular check mark. Then I only need to click once to change it to being unchecked, and then voila, it's saved! It's almost like there's a hidden setting preventing me from editing an option for over x amount of words, and if I do try and edit over the amount, it doesn't save the settings I choose.

It didn't take me long to change my entire document's setting for "Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar", and isn't that big of a hassle when it's only 350 words. But I'd like to know why this issue exists. If my document was 10,000 words long, it would have been much more tedious to fix if I could only select ~100 words at a time.

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-02-16T21:55:32+00:00

    The Language dialog has another quirk that may have been involved. If you change the "Do not check spelling or grammar" box but no language is selected in the list above it, the change won't be saved. For whatever reason, Word insists on having some language selected in addition to a change of the check box.

    This gets to be a problem if you have individual words sprinkled throughout the document that are marked for a different language than the rest of the text. It means you can't use Ctrl+A to remove the "do not check" from the whole text without making the proofing language the same throughout the document at the same time.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-09-20T12:35:07+00:00

    Thanks for your reply. I've been using Office for decades. However, Help / Feedback has never worked for me. Further, I don't know anyone (friends or work colleagues) who have managed to get it to work either. If it did, I have a list of things I would like to be fixed, not least "paste with no formatting set as default", which hasn't worked ever as far as I know.

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  3. Stefan Blom 340.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-09-20T10:02:19+00:00

    Use the Help > Feedback facility in Word to suggest changes.

    Nobody in the forum can change how Word operates.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-09-20T08:29:03+00:00

    Clearly so many threads over so many years about this same issue. When is Microsoft going to fix it? I don't want to hear that it's "by design", so many people have the issue and just want spellcheck to stay on for their language regardless of what is typed or pasted into a document, email etc. If there are issues with foreign words, highlight them, don't turn spellcheck off and mask potential errors, it's just so stupid.

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  5. Stefan Blom 340.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-02-16T21:26:15+00:00

    The rectangle, or filled box, may indicate conflicting settings in the selection, for example, that "Do not check..." is enabled for part of the selected range and not for some other part.

    However, for any selection which is large enough, Word will display the filled box (even if all the text has the "Do not check..." option applied to it). As you have found, you can always click the box twice, to ensure that it is cleared.

    If you find that Word frequently stops checking the spelling, see if "Do not check spelling or grammar" has been activated for the paragraph style you are using.

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