Setting Spell Check Options in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Sometimes while working in PowerPoint it may so happen that you know a particular word is misspelled, but PowerPoint's spell check doesn't seem to think so! This may be because your word is in all CAPS, or it may contain some numbers. In these cases, and in number of other instances, PowerPoint just ignores any misspellings. Fortunately, you can turn off the options that instruct PowerPoint to ignore these misspellings. Remember though that changing these options will apply to all Microsoft Office applications you have installed on your computer—including Word, Excel, and Outlook.

Note: Many of the editing tasks related to spell check cannot be done within PowerPoint. In fact, you need to do these tasks in Word. Fortunately though, any changes made within Word reflect within PowerPoint as well. Most techniques explained in this page therefore pertain to both PowerPoint and Word.

Follow these steps to set up spell check options in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Launch Word 2011 and choose the Word | Preferences menu option, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1:

This opens the Word Preferences dialog box. Select the Spelling and Grammar option that you can see highlighted in red within Figure 2.

Spelling and Grammar option within Word Preferences dialog box

Figure 2:

This opens the Spelling and Grammar dialog box in which the Spelling section includes various spell check options as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3:

Spelling

Spelling and Grammar

Figure 3

Check spelling as you type

Enables AutoCorrect to do an automatic spell check while you type.

Hide spelling errors in this document

Disables the red wavy underlines that automatically appear underneath misspelled words.

Always suggest corrections

Automatically displays a list of suggested spellings for misspelled words during a spelling check.

Suggest from main dictionary only

Ignores any other loaded custom spelling dictionaries.

Ignore words in UPPERCASE

Prevents the spell checker from flagging acronyms or any other words typed in ALL CAPS.

Ignore words with numbers

Ignores spelling errors for words that contain digits, such as license plate numbers or model numbers.

Ignore Internet and file addresses

Prevents the spell checker from flagging web or e-mail addresses, network paths, and file paths.

Flag repeated words

This marks second and subsequent instances of the same word in a row, for example preventing you from writing "the the".

Use German post-reform rules

When the language is set to German, flags non-accented uppercase characters as spelling errors during a spell check.

Enforce accented uppercase in French

This is option is only applicable when the editing language is French, and suggests accents for uppercase letters as appropriate.

Russian: Enforce strict ë

When the language is set to Russian, enforced the use of ë (e-umlaut).

French Modes

Use this selection list to fine-tune spell check options for French.

Spanish Modes

Use this selection list to fine-tune spell check for Spanish.

Portuguese Modes

Specify whether to use post-reform, pre-reform or both spellings when the language is set to Portuguese.

Brazilian Modes

Specify whether to use post-reform, pre-reform or both spellings when the language is set to Brazilian.

Custom Dictionary

This selection list is used to change the default custom dictionary. But do remember that this change will not implement in PowerPoint since PowerPoint always considers only the Custom Dictionary file located within the user's Library folder as its default custom dictionary.

Dictionaries

Custom Dictionaries

where you can make changes to custom dictionaries. Learn more in our Edit Custom Dictionaries tutorial.
When done, click the OK button to close the Spelling and Grammar dialog box. Any changes you made will be applicable immediately in Word itself. In other Microsoft Office programs installed on your computer, you may want to restart the program for these changes.