Turning Off the Check for Repeated Words

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 18, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365

Marianne types Inspector General interviews and very often people stammer, repeating the same word a few times. This causes the 'delete repeated word' window to pop up. Marianne tried turning off spell checking to fix the problem, but that obviously caused other problems. She wonders if there is a way to turn off checking for repeated words without turning off spell check.

The answer isn't to turn off spell checking altogether, but instead to modify how spell check does its work. Follow these steps:

Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions, display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
Click Proofing at the left side of the screen. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Proofing options of the Word Options dialog box.

Clear the Flag Repeated Words check box.
Click OK.

Not being an interview typist (particularly for the Inspector General) myself, there is another way that may be acceptable: Just change how you type the duplicate words. For instance, instead of typing "yes yes" (which would cause the duplicate-word flag to appear on the second "yes"), you could type "yes, yes" or "yes; yes" or place some other sort of punctuation or dash between the repeated words. This causes Word to not treat them as repeats; that only occurs if you repeat the words with no intervening punctuation.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10121) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Extracting Hyperlink Information

In Excel, a hyperlink consists of two parts: the text displayed for the link and the target of the link. You can use a ...

Discover More

Automatically Referencing Info Entered in a Table

Tables are a great way to organize information in a document. At some point you may want a cell in a table to contain the ...

Discover More

Clearing Only Filtering Settings

When you filter data in a worksheet, Excel also allows you to apply sorting orders to that data. Here is a ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! An easy-to-understand guide to the more advanced features available in the Microsoft 365 version of Word. Enhance the quality of your documents and boost productivity in any field with this in-depth resource. Complete your Word-related tasks more efficiently as you unlock lesser-known tools and learn to quickly access the features you need. Check out Microsoft 365 Word For Professionals For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Expanding a Custom Dictionary

Does Word tell you that your custom dictionary is full? It might not actually be full, but even if it is, you can add ...

Discover More

Spell-Check Won't Work

Having problems making spell check work on a portion of your document? There are two primary causes for such an ...

Discover More

Keeping Words in the Custom Dictionary

The spell checker that is part of Word allows you to create and use custom dictionaries to expand how the checker does ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is two less than 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

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.