How to Spell Check in Excel? A Step-by-Step Guide
(Note: This guide on how to Spell Check in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365
As humans, we tend to make mistakes. When typing an article or creating a document, there might occur some inadvertent typographical errors that escape human supervision.
In Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, any typographical or grammatical errors are indicated by underlines. However, in Microsoft Excel, there are no particular indicators to show any errors that occur.
In those cases, Excel has a built-in option to check the spelling of any text involved. This will eliminate the need to manually check each cell for any errors.
This guide is a step-by-step guide on how to spell check in Excel.
You’ll Learn:
- How to Spell Check in Excel (with an Example)
- Options in the Spelling Dialog Box
- AutoComplete and AutoCorrect
- Thesaurus
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How to Spell Check in Excel (with an Example)
Consider an example where we have a list of people with different designations chosen from all over the country. At first glance, it might seem that everything is fine. Upon closer inspection, it can be seen that some designations have spelling errors.
On one hand, you can check and inspect the columns manually to correct the misspelled words. But, this is only easy when the list is small. When the list is large, manually inspecting and fixing the errors might not be efficient and can be time-consuming.
Let us see how to use the spell-check option based on the above example.
- To check the spelling, you can select a single cell or a group of cells.
- If you select a single cell, the spell check option will only pertain to the data in the particular cell.
- In case you want to check the spelling for all the data in the Excel spreadsheet, select all the cells either by clicking and dragging or by holding the Ctrl key.
- Also, it is important to note that when you select a single cell to spell check, Excel checks the spelling in the whole sheet including the comments, headers, and footers. However, if you select multiple cells, Excel only checks the spelling within the selected cells.
Note: When you select multiple cells, Excel does not check the formula in the cells. However, if you want to check the spelling of the formulas, you need to select the text in the formula bar and then spell-check them.
Spell check in Excel is a bit different from spell check in Word and there are two ways you can enable the spell check option in Excel. One way to enable the spell check option is from the Review ribbon and the other method is by using the shortcut keys.
Spell Check from Review Menu
- After selecting a cell or a group of cells, navigate to the Review main menu ribbon. Under the Proofing section, click on Spelling.
- This opens the Spelling dialog box.
- Using the Spelling dialog box, you can correct the spelling of a particular word.
After you have made all the changes and if there are no errors found, Excel throws a pop-up saying “Do you want to continue checking at the beginning of the sheet?”. Click Yes.
Once the spell check is complete. Excel throws another pop-up saying “Spell check complete. You’re good to go!”.
This closes the Spell Check dialog box.
Using the Keyboard Shortcut
If you are a person who is more accustomed to using a keyboard, you can use the keyboard shortcut keys to spell check easily and efficiently.
- First, select the adjacent cells or non-adjacent cells using the Ctrl or Shift keys.
- Now, press the F7 function key to open the Spelling dialog box.
Now, you can check and correct the spelling of the selected cells in Excel.
Options in the Spelling Dialog Box
Now that we have arrived at the Spelling dialog box, let us now see the variety of buttons in the Spelling dialog box and how to fix the mistakes.
- As the Spelling dialog box opens, you can see that Excel searches through rows and highlights the cell with the spelling error in the Not in Dictionary text box.
- You can see the words that Excel suggests in the place of the misspelled word in the Suggestions section. You can navigate through the suggested words by using the arrow keys or by clicking on the word.
On the right side of the dialog box, you can see a few buttons. Let us see them in detail.
Ignore Once: If the highlighted text is not a misspelled word, this button is used to ignore the suggestions for the cell.
Ignore All: This option ignores the suggestions and corrections for all the places where the particular word occurs.
Add to Dictionary: Excel has a dictionary that has certain words added to them. If you will be using the highlighted word often, you can choose to add that particular word to your Excel dictionary. This ignores the particular word as an error and it does not show up every time you spell check.
Change: If the particular word is genuinely a misspelled word, you can choose to correct that particular word from the suggestions shown in the dictionary.
Change All: As the Change button replaces only the particular word with the suggested word, the Change All button replaces all words in the selection with the particular word.
AutoCorrect: The AutoCorrect button replaces the particular word with the most relevant word from the suggestions.
Dictionary Language: In almost all of the Microsoft applications, you can change the language of the script to any language other than English.
To check the spelling of the data in a different language other than English, click on the dropdown from Dictionary Language and choose the language of your choice.
Options: The Options button takes you to the Excel Options: Proofing section where you can make additional customizations to the spell check and dictionary settings.
Undo Last: If you are not satisfied with replacing or ignoring the previous selection, you can always choose to revert the change by using the Undo Last button.
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AutoComplete and AutoCorrect
The above method is very effective when you have to check the spelling of the data in the cells after curating them. However, if you want to check the spelling of the data as you type, there is a way.
Using the AutoComplete and AutoCorrect options, you can fix the edits on the go.
AutoComplete
The AutoComplete feature is most helpful when typing formulas and when entering redundant data into cells.
AutoComplete is enabled by default in Excel. When you type any particular data in one cell, the AutoCorrect feature shows you the matching data in another cell (if there are any). You can press the Tab key to keep the suggestion or keep typing on to ignore the suggestion. This saves you the effort to type in the data repeatedly and helps maintain accuracy.
AutoCorrect
The AutoCorrect feature also helps fix errors on the go. This option is used to automatically choose between the suggestions without having the user choose among the suggested words.
The AutoCorrect feature applies to data in the cells, formulas, text boxes, and chart labels. However, the AutoCorrect option does not pertain to a dialog box.
- To fine-tune the AutoCorrect options, navigate to File and click on Options. This opens the Excel Options dialog box. In the dialog box, click on the Proofing category.
- Under the AutoCorrect options section, click on the Autocorrect Options button.
- This opens the AutoCorrect dialog box showing the default language in the title.
- In the dialog box, you can make additional customizations as per your needs.
- Once you have made all the changes, click OK.
Thesaurus
If you have to find more relatable words to use in place of a specific word, you can use the Thesaurus option which is available next to the Spelling button.
- To look up similar words, select the cell.
- Navigate to Review. Under the Proofing section, click on the Thesaurus button.
- This opens the Thesaurus pane to the right of the Excel window showing suggestions for that particular word.
If you have a spelling mistake or the word does not have any synonyms, Excel shows you a message saying “We couldn’t find any similar words”.
This way, you can find similar words to use in place of a particular word easily.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the shortcut key to spell check in Excel?
After selecting the cells to spell check, press the F7 function key to open the Spelling dialog box. Here, you can check the spelling of the selected words.
How does Excel indicate spelling errors in cells?
Since Excel predominantly deals with numbers, it does not indicate any spelling errors like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. In case your data has more text, then you can use the Spell Check option to weed out and correct any errors.
Where is the Spell Check option in Excel?
Navigate to the Review main menu ribbon. Under the Proofing section, click on Spelling. Or, you can use the keyboard shortcut key F7 to check the spelling.
Closing Thoughts
It is a good practice to check the spelling in all the cells once you have completed entering the data. Checking spelling errors might seem like a trivial thing, but ignoring spelling errors can adversely affect your credibility and render all your hard work ineffective.
In this article, we saw how to spell check in Excel using the Spelling option. We also saw the options in the Spelling dialog box including the AutoCorrect and AutoComplete features.
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Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel and other business software for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 140+ IT training courses.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!