Why has spelling check stopped working?

Bob Herold 20 Reputation points
2025-10-26T22:27:02.2933333+00:00

I am working on a Word document, approaching 20K words, in Windows 11. Until just now, spelling errors would automatically be indicated by being underlined. For some reason, that has stopped. Even when obvious errors are highlighted and F7 is pressed, the program seems to ignore them. Suggestions, please?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows
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Answer accepted by question author
Suzanne S Barnhill 279.8K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2025-10-26T22:59:55.5433333+00:00

Use Ctrl+A to select all the text, then go to the Language dialog and make sure that "Do not check..." is not checked (you may have to click twice to completely clear the check box). It's also advisable to disable "Detect language automatically," which usually causes more problems than it solves.

For more on spell checking, see http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/MasterSpellCheck.htm

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  1. Bob Herold 20 Reputation points
    2025-10-26T23:09:35.4166667+00:00

    Thanks for that!

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