Making Sure Words in Caps are Spell Checked

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 30, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

When Gloria does a spell check on her document, it seems that words that are in all capital letters are ignored. She wonders how to ensure that those words are spell-checked as well.

This is actually controlled through a single setting within Word. In order to access the setting, 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.)
At the left side of the dialog box click Proofing. (See Figure 1.)

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

Make sure the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box is cleared.
Click on OK.

You only need to make this setting once, and it should be good for any documents you work with after that. Understand that this setting controls how Word deals with all words that are in caps, including acronyms and initials. Thus, "words" such as IBM, ATT, ASAP, and IIRC will all be spell-checked after clearing the check box mentioned in step 3.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10472) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021.

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...

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What is two more than 7?

2023-10-03 03:32:21

Arya

Thank you for the helpful tip.

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