How to Turn Off Spell Check in Microsoft Word

Spell check is one of Word's most visible features — those red and blue wavy underlines that flag potential errors as you type. But there are plenty of legitimate reasons to turn it off: working with technical jargon, coding snippets, product names, foreign language drafts, or simply finding the constant highlighting distracting during a first draft. Whatever the reason, Word gives you several ways to control it — and understanding the difference between them matters.

What Spell Check Actually Does in Word

Word runs two overlapping background processes most people lump together as "spell check":

• Automatic spell check — flags words not found in the dictionary with a red underline as you type
• Grammar and writing suggestions — flags sentence-level issues (passive voice, punctuation, clarity) with blue or gold underlines, depending on your version

These are controlled separately, which is why turning off one doesn't always silence the other. Knowing which one is bothering you helps you find the right setting faster.

How to Turn Off Spell Check in Word (Windows)

Option 1: Turn It Off for the Entire Application

This disables automatic spell and grammar checking across all documents.

1. Open Word and go to File → Options
2. Select Proofing from the left panel
3. Under "When correcting spelling and grammar in Word", check:
   • ☑ Hide spelling errors (or uncheck "Check spelling as you type")
   • ☑ Hide grammar errors (or uncheck "Mark grammar errors as you type")
4. Click OK

The exact wording varies slightly between Word 2016, 2019, and Microsoft 365, but the Proofing section is consistent across modern versions.

Option 2: Turn It Off for One Document Only

Useful when you're working on a technical file or draft that generates constant false positives — without changing your global settings.

1. Go to File → Options → Proofing
2. Scroll to the bottom of the Proofing panel
3. Under "Exceptions for: [document name]", check:
   • Hide spelling errors in this document only
   • Hide grammar errors in this document only
4. Click OK

This keeps spell check active in all your other documents while silencing it for the specific file you're working in.

How to Turn Off Spell Check in Word on Mac

1. Open Word and go to Word → Preferences (from the top menu bar)
2. Click Spelling & Grammar
3. Uncheck "Check spelling as you type" and/or "Check grammar as you type"
4. Close the preferences window — changes save automatically

The Mac version of Word follows the same logic but uses the native macOS preferences layout rather than the Windows-style Options panel.

How to Turn Off Spell Check in Word on the Web (Word Online)

Word Online has a more limited proofing control set compared to the desktop app.

1. Open your document in Word Online
2. Go to Review in the top ribbon
3. Look for Spelling & Grammar — you can dismiss individual suggestions, but there is no global "turn off" toggle in Word Online the way there is in the desktop version

If you need full control over proofing settings, the desktop application gives you meaningfully more flexibility than the browser version. 📋

Turning Off Spell Check for Specific Text

Sometimes the issue isn't the whole document — it's a block of text that Word keeps flagging incorrectly. You can tell Word to skip specific text entirely.

1. Select the text you want to exclude
2. Go to Review → Language → Set Proofing Language
3. Check "Do not check spelling or grammar"
4. Click OK

This is particularly useful for code blocks, product names, addresses, or passages in another language that you're quoting but not writing in.

The Difference Between Hiding Errors and Disabling Checking

This distinction trips up a lot of users:

Hiding errors means they won't show visually, but a manual spell-check run (via the Review tab) may still catch them. Disabling the check means Word isn't flagging anything at all in the background.

AutoCorrect Is a Separate System

Worth noting: turning off spell check does not turn off AutoCorrect. If Word is automatically fixing your typing — changing "teh" to "the," capitalizing after periods, or replacing characters — that's a different setting.

To adjust AutoCorrect: File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options

These two systems are related but independent, and users often conflate them. 🔧

What Changes Across Word Versions

The core steps above apply to Word 2016, 2019, 2021, and Microsoft 365 on both Windows and Mac. However, a few things vary:

• Microsoft 365 with Editor enabled adds an AI-assisted writing layer on top of traditional spell check — you may need to disable the Editor suggestions separately under Review → Editor → Editor Settings
• Older versions (Word 2010, 2013) follow the same Proofing path but won't have the Editor layer
• Word on mobile (iOS/Android) has limited proofing controls — typically just toggling spell check on or off within the app's settings menu

How much control you have depends on which version you're running, whether you're on desktop or browser, and whether your organization's IT policies allow proofing settings to be changed (a common restriction in enterprise Microsoft 365 deployments). 🖥️

Variables That Affect Your Approach

Before changing any setting, it's worth considering a few things about your own workflow:

• Are you turning this off temporarily (for one drafting session) or permanently?
• Is the issue the whole document, or just specific sections with technical content?
• Are you on desktop Word, Word Online, or mobile — because the available controls differ significantly
• Is your Word account personal or managed by an organization — IT-managed accounts sometimes restrict which proofing settings users can change

The right approach — document-level exception, application-wide disable, language override, or AutoCorrect adjustment — depends on which of those situations matches your actual setup.