Tips for using Mac OS X’s spelling checker.
One of the great things about Mac OS X is its built-in spelling checker. It makes it a lot tougher to spell a word incorrectly.
With Check Spelling While Typing enabled, a dotted red underline appears under each word Mac OS X doesn’t recognize. When faced with this, you have several options:
Manually type in a new spelling for the word.- Use the contextual menu to choose a different word. (I didn’t realize there were so many options for the spelling of my last name!)
- Use the contextual menu to choose Ignore Spelling to remove the red underline.
- Use the contextual menu to choose Learn Spelling to add the word’s current spelling to the Mac OS X user dictionary. This is the option I recommend for a word that’s correctly spelled that you use often.
If you use the Ignore Spelling option, the word’s spelling is ignored in that document only. If you choose Learn Spelling, the word is ignored in all documents. And since Mac OS X’s spelling check feature works in all Apple applications, the word is ignored everywhere that Mac OS X might flag it as a possible error.
So what happens if you accidentally “learn” the incorrect spelling of a word? Simple. Tell Mac OS X to unlearn it.
Right-click (or Control-click) on the word you added to the dictionary in error. Then choose Unlearn Spelling from the contextual menu that appears. The word is immediately flagged as a possible problem again.
And remember, no spelling checker will flag a misspelled word if that spelling spells another word it knows.
Page References
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide includes more information about related topics:
- Checking Spelling & Grammar, pages 230-233
- Using Contextual menus, page 21
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