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| 2. Word 97, XP/2002 or 2003 |
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| The traditional toolbars in these older versions of Office have the added
benefit that they are very customisable. Another advantage, as far as Spelling and Grammar
checking is concerned, is that a separate button for each operation can be added to the
toolbar. This makes testing for errors far less confusing in practice because spelling
can be checked first, then the grammar can be checked, or vice versa, instead of both at the
same time which is the case with Word 2007's offering of a solitary button. |
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| 2.1 Disable the wavy underlines |
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| To banish the wavy underlines, open Word > click Tools > Options > Spelling &
Grammar tab > at Spelling, untick 'Check spelling as you type' > tick 'Always suggest
corrections' > untick 'Suggest from main dictionary only' > untick 'Ignore words in Uppercase'
> tick 'Ignore words with numbers' > tick 'Ignore Internet and file addresses' > at
Grammar, untick 'Check grammar as you type' > tick 'Check grammar with spelling' > untick
'Show readability statistics' > at 'Writing style', choose Standard > click the Settings
button and check the default grammar and style settings are appropriate to your writing style.
On completion, click OK > OK to exit the dialog. No more wavy lines! |
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| 2.2 Add separate Spelling and Grammar buttons |
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| Many hidden buttons are available for adding to the traditional toolbars in older versions
of Office programs. Two really good ones to add will allow the spelling or the grammar
of a document to be checked as separate processes. The said buttons can be dragged straight
onto Word's Standard toolbar (as in Fig 2 right). Once in place, clicking either
button at any time will invoke the appropriate check on demand for either the whole doc or just a
selected word, sentence or paragraph. |
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Before proceeding, it is a good idea to open Word (that's Word 97, 2002 or 2003) and tile its window
horizontally with this browser window, so both are visible at the same time during the adding
of the new buttons during this step and bonus step 2.5. You can tile the windows either now,
while you are still online, or, if you save this page to your desktop as a .htm file, later
when you are off-line. To tile the windows, make sure that the buttons for Word, and this
browser window, are the only opened apps showing on your taskbar > click the blue title bar
of Word to make it the active window > right-click on the time in the System Tray /Notification
Area > from the menu, choose Tile Windows Horizontally. After doing this, Word's window
will be across the top half of your screen, and this article will be across the bottom half,
and that is where they will stay, both visible, as you proceed with making the following custom
changes to Word. |
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| To add the Spelling button to Word, click Tools > Customize > Commands tab >
in the Categories panel, choose Tools > in the Commands panel, left-click on "Spelling..."
(note "Spelling..." not, repeat not the similarly named "Spelling & Grammar..."
item) and drag the item up to the toolbar and drop it to the right of the Paste button.
To add the Grammar button, return to the still-open Customize dialog > left-click on "Grammar..."
and drag this item up to the toolbar and drop it to the right of the Spelling button you added
a moment ago. |
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| 2.3 Check selected words during typing |
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| With no wavy lines to bother you (after step 2.1), you can still check the spelling
of a suspect word immediately after typing it if you wanted to. Select the word (or phrase)
> click the new Spelling or Grammar button as appropriate. Harder ways of doing the
same thing are by (i) clicking Tools > Spelling & Grammar or (ii) after selecting a word
or phrase, pressing F7. |
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| 2.4 Check whole doc after typing |
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| When a document has been fully typed, click the new Spelling button and correct any spelling
errors found. Then click the new Grammar button and correct any genuine grammar errors found.
Alternative ways of doing a final check, but not as separate operations are (i) Tools > Spelling
& Grammar or (ii) F7. |
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| 2.5 Add a "Last four edits" button |
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| While the Customize dialog is still open, we further recommend you add yet another of Word's
normally-hidden buttons to the Standard toolbar. You may or may not be aware that Word
remembers the last four places where you have carried out edits in a document and can jump you
back to each one in turn. This can be really handy if you are editing a multi-page document
because the equivalent shortcut key (Shift+F5) is
easily forgotten if not being used frequently. The ideal solution is to add the 'Last four edits' button to the Standard
toolbar. Clicking the said button will jump the cursor back to the place of the last four
edits, one at a time, the same as Shift+F5. To add such a button (as portrayed by the
bold Up arrow to the right of the Spelling button in Fig 2 above), return to the still-open
Customize dialog > in the Categories panel, click Edit > in the Commands panel, scroll
down to the item called "Previous Edit" > left-click on it and drag it up to the
toolbar and drop it in a suitable position > right-click on the new button >
from the menu, choose 'Change Button Image > from the gallery of icons which appears, choose
the bold upward-pointing arrow > right-click on the button again > from the menu, choose
Default Style > right-click on the button yet again > at Name, change the button's name
(i.e. tool tip label) from '&Previous Edit' to '&Last four edits' > press
Enter or click in an empty area of the page (to make the change of name take effect) > close
the Customize dialog. |
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| Fig 2 (above) In Word 97 to 2003, you can add buttons to check spelling and
grammar separately, which is good. The 'Grammar' button is on the immediate right of the
'Spelling' button in the above screenshot. |
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Tips |
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Word's weird and wonderful grammar
The changes offered by Word's spelling and grammar checkers should never be taken as gospel.
Always vet every single change the checkers suggest. If you don't, you will almost certainly
end up with some errors being introduced where real ones never actually existed before, or with
some trivial errors possibly being turned into terrible nonsensical errors. When using
the grammar checker, it should also be kept in mind that 'bad English' is not the same
thing as 'bad grammar'. If any instances of bad English are grammatically 'correct'
they will not be flagged up by the grammar checker, so will slip through. Because of that, proof reading
of a document is always advisable as a final step after running the spelling and grammar checks.
On the odd occasion a grammar check or a proof read does find something genuinely wrong, it
is always satisfying knowing the document did not go out to other persons in its uncorrected
state. |
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2 |
Removing unwanted buttons
To remove any toolbar button that you have no use for (not Word 2007), hold down the Alt key
and drag the button onto an empty part of the page. Do not overdo such removals.
A toolbar full of buttons some of which you may never use always looks a whole lot better than a half-empty
toolbar. Sparsely populated toolbars in a program gives the impression you've been short-changed. |
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3 |
Editing the spelling dictionary
You cannot edit the main spelling dictionary in Word. You can, however, view and
edit your own custom dictionaries. This is very handy if you accidentally add a wrongly
spelt word to your custom dictionary as it allows you to remove the erroneous word. In
Word 97, 2002 or 2003, click Tools > Options > Spelling & Grammar tab > at 'Custom
dictionary' choose which dictionary to edit (if you have created more than one) > click the
'Dictionaries...' button > click the Edit button, and your list of admissible words, capitalisations
and acronyms will be displayed as a Word document. Scan down the list, deleting or correcting
any items as appropriate. When finished, save the revised list. |
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4 |
Shared documents and wavy lines
If your Word document is going to be emailed to other people, it is so important to do a
spelling and grammar check. Otherwise, when they open your document on their own computer,
they will see all the wavy underlines. This will give them the impression that your document
is riddled with misspellings and grammar errors. The way to avoid this situation is to
carry out a final spell check and grammar check and, each time Word flags up a suggested change
you do not want it to make, click the 'Ignore' button (i.e. tell Word to bypass its rule).
Thereafter, Word will not reflag the same item (a word, phrase or sentence) on your computer
nor on anybody else's. Be sure to resave the document so it will remember you have declined
some of its incorrect suggestions. Then, when you forward your document, and a recipient
opens it in Word, you can be confident it will be virtually clear of any red and green wavy
lines on their particular machine, even if they have got the default (wavy line) setting turned
on. |
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Related topic |
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Select All - how to add an icon to Word's toolbar for the 'Select
all' (Ctrl+A) command. |
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