Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Hiding Spelling Errors.
Word includes a feature that checks up on the spelling and grammar in your document as you type. You've seen the results—the red and green squiggly underlines that mark spelling and grammar errors.
For some people, the red underlines that denote spelling problems can be distracting, since their appearance can break your concentration as you are composing your document. Perhaps you would rather check spelling as a discrete phase of document development at a later time. If you find the red squiggly underlines distracting, you can turn them off. Simply follow these steps:
Figure 1. The proofing options of the Word Options dialog box.
Any existing red squiggly underlines should disappear. In order to check your spelling you will now explicitly need to start the spell checker.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6104) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Hiding Spelling Errors.
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2017-04-09 04:02:42
Ken Endacott
It is very annoying that both the Spelling and Grammar Check icon on the status bar and the Spelling and Review > Spelling & Grammar do not offer the ability to skip over an error and move to the next one. At times it is useful to step through a document correcting obvious spelling errors but leaving difficult ones for a later review to check proper names and foreign words.
The difference between ‘Check spelling as you type’ and ‘Hide spelling errors’ in this document only’ is that the former is a setting in the user’s options and applies to any document opened by the user whereas the latter is a document setting and can be used to ensure that spelling errors will not be visible when another user opens the document.
2017-04-08 14:40:43
Hi
Spelling errors can be found and corrected by left clicking the icon at the bottom of the page.
Note Look to the right of (Page4 of 22 2843 words (icon)
You may also hear the word pronounced and see the definition.
Right click the same icon and you can view the “Customize Status Bar” of your document.
W Coriell
2017-04-08 14:39:19
Hi
Spelling errors can be found and corrected by left clicking the icon at the bottom of the page.
Note Look to the right of (Page4 of 22 2843 words (icon)
You may also hear the word pronounced and see the definition.
Right click the same icon and you can view the “Customize Status Bar” of your document.
W Coriell
2017-01-08 06:00:14
Ken Endacott
The spell checker cannot be stopped, it runs in background maintaining a collection of errors that is updated as changes are made to the text. All that ‘Hide spelling errors…’ does is prevent the squiggly lines under errors from being displayed. You can still see the errors one by one by clicking Review > Spelling & Grammar.
Similarly, de-selecting ‘Check spelling as you type’ will prevent the display of squiggly lines but does not stop the spell checker. I suspect that somewhere in the evolution of Word, ‘Check spelling as you type’ has lost its original functionality and now just does what 'Hide spelling errors...' does.
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
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