Check Your Spelling And Grammar
These guides explain how to use the spell-checker and thesaurus features in applications running on Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems. This can help you to produce fewer errors in your text and help you find the exact word you are looking for.
Here’s how to do this…
- Check your spelling in applications
Use the spell-checker and thesaurus in programmes such as Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org Writer.
- Windows
Check Your Spelling And Grammar
These guides explain how to use the spell-checker and thesaurus features in applications running on Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems. This can help you to produce fewer errors in your text and help you find the exact word you are looking for.
Here’s how to do this…
-
- Check your spelling in applications
Use the spell-checker and thesaurus in programmes such as Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org Writer.
How to check your spelling in applications for Windows
These pages explain step-by-step how to use the spell-checker and thesaurus features in applications running on Windows systems.
- Check your spelling in OpenOffice.org Writer
- This page explains step-by-step how to open the spell-checker and thesaurus in OpenOffice.org 3.0’s Writer programme for Windows setups. This can help you to produce fewer errors in your text and help you find the exact word you are looking for.
How to check your spelling in OpenOffice.org Writer for Windows
Step 1: Open the spell-checker
Click on ‘Tools‘ in the menu bar and then ‘Spelling and Grammar‘ from the drop-down menu, or press Alt + T and then press Alt + S, to open the ‘Spelling’ window (shown in Fig 1).
Fig 1
You can also spell-check your document at any time by pressing F7.
Step 2: Open the thesaurus
OpenOffice.org Writer also includes a thesaurus, which will provide synonyms (words with similar meanings) for any given word. To use this feature, first highlight the word in your text.
Open the ‘Thesaurus’ window (shown in Fig 2) by clicking on ‘Tools‘ in the menu bar and then ‘Language‘ from the drop-down menu, followed by ‘Thesaurus‘. Alternatively, press Alt + T and then press Alt + L, followed by Alt + T.
Fig 2
You can also open the thesaurus at any time by pressing Ctrl + F7.
- Check your spelling in Microsoft Word
This page explains step-by-step how to open the spell-checker and thesaurus in Microsoft Word for Windows setups. This can help you to produce fewer errors in your text and help you find the exact word you are looking for.
Step 1: Open the spell-checker
Microsoft Word’s spelling checker can help with the spelling of words that you are uncertain about. It can even sometimes offer the right option when the word has been spelled differently from the correct spelling. For example, the word ‘physics’ will be offered as an alternative when the original word is spelt phonetically as ‘fizics’, as shown in Fig 1.
Fig 1
Click on ‘Tools‘ in the menu bar and then ‘Spelling and Grammar‘ from the drop-down menu, or press Alt + T and then press S, to open the ‘Spelling and Grammar’ window (shown in Fig 1).
You can also spell-check your document at any time by pressing F7.
Step 2: Use the grammar-checker
Microsoft Word’s built-in grammar checker can offer helpful hints to improve your sentence structure. However, some of its rules (particularly the ‘passive voice’ rule) can often create unnecessary doubt about phrases that may be quite acceptable.
If you use the grammar checker, we suggest you customise the standard options so that only ‘useful’ rules are used.
To use the grammar-checker, open the ‘Spelling and Grammar’ window as described in Step 1. Tick the box next to ‘Check grammar‘ by clicking on it, or press Alt + K to tick it.
Step 3: Open the thesaurus
Microsoft Word also includes a thesaurus. While offering a comprehensive list of synonyms (alternative words with the same or similar meaning), the thesaurus does not include word definitions, which some people would find helpful. Other specialist software applications to help people with reading and writing difficulties do, however, include extra features such as word definitions, speech output and homophone checking (words that sound the same).
To use Word’s thesaurus feature, first highlight the word in your text. Click on ‘Tools‘ in the menu bar and then ‘Language‘ from the drop-down menu, followed by ‘Thesaurus‘. Alternatively, press Alt + T and then press L, followed by T. The thesaurus will appear in the right-hand pane alongside your document.
You can also open the thesaurus at any time by pressing Shift + F7.
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