Hiding Spelling Errors

Word 95, 97, and 2000 include a feature which checks up on the spelling and grammar in your document as you type. You've seen the results--the red and green squiggly underlines that mark spelling and grammar errors that you may want to create.

For some people, the red underlines that denote spelling problems can be distracting, since their appearance can break your concentration as you are composing your document. Perhaps you would rather do your spell checking as a discrete phase of document development at a later time. If you find the red squiggly underlines distracting, you can turn them off. Simply follow these steps:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
2. Make sure the Spelling & Grammar tab in Word 97 and later versions is selected. (Click here to see a related figure.) For Word 95, choose the Spelling tab. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Make sure the Hide Spelling Errors in Current Document check box (Word 95) or the Hide Spelling Errors in This Document check box (Word 97 and later versions) is selected.
4. Click on OK.

Any existing red squiggly underlines should disappear. In order to check your spelling you will now explicitly need to start the spell checker.