How to Use Autocorrect in Microsoft Word

By eHow Computers Editor

Rate: (2 Ratings)

Word processing applications have come along way from the days when you had to manually run a spell-checking application and cycle through all of the words that may or may not be misspelled. Microsoft Word now points out potential misspellings on the fly allowing you to make instant corrections. You must learn a few details of this service to get the most out of it.

Flag Article

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Step1

Turn on the autocorrect feature in Microsoft Word. From the "Tools" menu, choose "Options." Then, select the "Spelling and Grammar" tab.

Step2

Select "Check spelling as you type" in the spelling section of the tab. With this option checked, Microsoft Word now underlines any words that might be misspelled with a wavy red line.

Step3

Right-click on words Microsoft Word points out as potentially misspelled. A menu drops down presenting you with several options of how to deal with the potential misspelling.

Step4

Note the suggested replacements at the top of the drop down menu. These are the words in Microsoft Word's dictionary closely related to the underlined word. To replace the underlined word with one of the suggestions, left-click the correctly spelled word.

Step5

Choose "Ignore All" if you want Microsoft Word to stop underlining a particular word. Microsoft Word won't underline this word in the rest of the document, but does underline it in future documents.

Step6

Add the word to the dictionary if it is correctly spelled and you intend to use it again. Click "Add to Dictionary" and Microsoft Word recognizes it as a correctly spelled word in the future.

Step7

Click "Autocorrect" and then the correctly spelled word from the menu to have word automatically correct the word in the future. In all future documents, if you make the same spelling mistake, Microsoft Word automatically changes the spelling instead of underlining the word. See and edit a list of your autocorrect words and other autocorrect options by choosing "Autocorrect Options" from the "Tools" menu.