How to Use Adobe InDesign's Spell Check Feature

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By Fiona Cameron
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Use Adobe InDesign's Spell Check Feature

You want to run the spell check feature before publishing your document so that you can make sure you've caught any embarrassing errors. The spell check feature is designed to highlight misspelled, unrecognizable and repetitive words. In addition, words containing capitalization errors are also highlighted for correction. The dynamic spell check feature enables you to correct unidentified words as you type (as opposed to the Check Spelling window). Each unidentified word is underlined.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Adobe InDesign CS2
Windows XP

How to Set the Dictionary Language

Step 1

Set your dictionary to the preferred language. From the Edit menu, select "PREFERENCES > DICTIONARY."
Step 2

From the Language field, select "ENGLISH" (or the foreign language of your choice). Click "OK."
Step 3

From the Edit menu, select "SPELLING > CHECK SPELLING" to open the Check Spelling window. From the Search field, select "DOCUMENT" or "ALL DOCUMENTS" to specify whether you want to check the active document or all open documents.
Step 4

Click START to activate the spell check feature. During a spell check, InDesign may return suggested corrections for words that are not listed in the dictionary. The "NOT IN DICTIONARY" field will display the unidentified word.
Step 5

Choose one of the five responses for each unidentified word:

(a) Change the Selected Word: In the CHANGE TO field, write the correct spelling of the word in question.

(b) Select a Suggested Word: In the SUGGESTED CORRECTIONS field, select from the list of possible corrections.

(c) Skip the Word: Click "SKIP" to bypass the occurrence of this word and scroll through the remaining list of unidentified words.

(d) Ignore the Word: Click "IGNORE ALL" to bypass all ocurrences of this word.

(e) Add the Word: Click "ADD" to save the word in the custom dictionary.
Step 6

Click "DONE" to complete the spell check and return to the active document.

How to Perform a Dynamic Spell Check

Step 1

To activate the dynamic spell check feature:

(a) From the Edit menu, select "SPELLING > DYNAMIC SPELLING."

- or -

To activate the dynamic spell check feature and specify the color of the line used to identify misspelled, unrecognizable and repetitive words:

(b) From the Edit menu, select "PREFERENCES > SPELLING."

In the Preferences window, select the line color for each spelling error.

Insert a checkmark in the ENABLE DYNAMIC SPELLING box.

Click "OK." The dynamic spell check feature is now activated. If unidentified words are present, the colored line will appear below the word in question.

Press the right mouse button over the underlined word to display the context sensitive spelling menu.
Step 2

Perform one of the following actions for each underlined word:

(a) Select one of the suggested corrections;

(b) Add the unidentified word to the dictionary; or

(c) Ignore all occurrences of the unidentified word.

Comments

sunder-indesign said

Flag This Comment

on 8/20/2009 InDesign by default only supports a handful of languages for spelling and hyphenation. I came across a third plugin (SpellPlus) which has Spelling and Hyphenation support for 100+ languages in InDesign and InCopy. Above all there is no separate license for InDesign and InCopy and no seperate license for different Languages.

Check it out
http://metadesignsolutions.com/SpellPlus.html

List of Languages it supports
http://metadesignsolutions.com/languages.htm

pearlyvictoria said

on 9/13/2008 Most of your articles say you need Windows XP. Since Adobe products are cross-platform, you might want to add Macs to the list. Your articles are so helpful.