FIX: Microsoft Office Word 2007 - Spellcheck not working!

July 24th, 2007 | by LocalTech |

If you are facing an issue where you’re using Microsoft Office Word 2007 and the Spellcheck feature is not working while you are typing or even when you click on “Check Spelling and Grammar” it doesn’t detect any mistakes, here is the possible solution for you to fix that issue.

  • Open Microsoft Office Word 2007
  • Click on the Microsoft Office logo on the top left of the screen.
  • Click on Word Options
  • Click on Popular at the left hand side Pane
  • Click on Language Settings at the bottom
  • On the left hand side under “Available editing languages“, look for English (Australia) then click Add
  • At the bottom where “Primary Editing Language” change it to English (Australia) at the drop down menu
  • On the right hand side under “Enabled editing languages“, highlight any other language other than English (Australia) then click Remove in the middle.
  • Click on OK
  • Click on OK again
  • Restart the whole computer

Now test the issue and see if you’re still facing the same issue. If this step doesn’t work, please do let me know and I will give you the more complicated method of resolving the issue :)

  1. 31 Responses to “FIX: Microsoft Office Word 2007 - Spellcheck not working!”

  2. By Marshall C Allen on Nov 29, 2007 | Reply

    Hello,

    Replacing English US with English Australia did not fix this issue for me. Of course, I also want to remain with or restore to US as that is my language. I have done so (gone back to US) and would like to know about the ‘more complicated method’ of resolving the issue.

    thanks,
    Marshall

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  4. By LocalTech on Dec 31, 2007 | Reply

    Hello Eugene,

    I could recommend a few things that might resolve your issue.

    First of all uninstall the software completely… When I say that I don’t mean go to Program and Features then uninstall it there… Try doing the following

    Go to Http://www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for Windows Install Cleanup
    - Download and install this software
    - Click on Start - All Programs and go to Windows Install Cleanup
    - Search for all Microsoft Office applications and remove them

    Once you’re done, click on Start, and in the start search box type in REGEDIT and click enter to bring up the registry editor…
    Once in here go to the following locations and rename the folders

    HKey_Local_Machine -> Software -> Microsoft -> Office
    - Rename the Office folder to Office.old
    HKey_Current_User -> Software -> Microsoft -> Office
    - Rename the Office folder to Office.old

    *You have to expand the folders to view the subfolders…

    Close the registry editor now and go to Computer

    Then go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office and rename the Microsoft Office folder to Office.old

    Once you have done these steps, Microsoft Office would have completely been erased from your computer… Now do not restart the computer, just run the installation again and then test out the spell checker…

    If this step doesn’t work, it would be a good idea to try and create a new user account and test it in there as this step has worked previously.

    Do let my know if these steps resolve your issue :)

    On Dec 30, 2007 12:35 PM, E. Dolan wrote:

    Hello,
    I would be grateful for any help in resolving the following problem:
    We have a new Dell PC, with Windows Vista and Office Basic 2007.
    Spell check function will not show misspelt words in Word 2007. It does work correctly in Excel 2007 and Outlook 2007.
    In word 2007 repeated words are detected with wavy red line under the repeated word, but otherwise “the spell check is complete” shows, ignoring misspellings.
    The English dictionary for Ireland is selected. Grammar check is turned off. “Do not spell check” is not selected in word “proofing” settings.
    I have experimented with various other relevant settings to no avail.
    I uninstalled and reinstalled Office 2007 basic, still no solution.
    I have run out of ideas - any help/suggestions are appreciated.
    Eugene.

  5. By Lance on Jan 23, 2008 | Reply

    I have struggled with this problem and think I found the answer. It seems that Office 2007 disables the english dictionary becasue it causes problems with Outlook Express. To turn the dictionary back on goto:
    Microsoft Office Button>
    Word Options>
    Ad Ins>
    Manage (select disabled items)>
    Click on the english dictionary and re-enable it>
    Close Word and restart.
    My speel check now works fine.

  6. By Lance on Jan 23, 2008 | Reply

    I obviously didn’t spellcheck my previous post.

  7. By Rich Fuller on Jan 28, 2008 | Reply

    Lance,

    You’re a genius as you have found the answer! I’ve been searching sites and trying stuff for 2 weeks and this one worked. Thanks a lot.

    Rich

  8. By Freelancer on Feb 2, 2008 | Reply

    Guys, I have the same problem, please help.
    In all office 2007 applications repeated words are detected with wavy red line under the repeated word, but otherwise “the spell check is complete” shows, ignoring misspellings.

    How can I resolve it?

  9. By Freelancer on Feb 2, 2008 | Reply

    I found the answer:
    Rename the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0″ to zz1.0.

  10. By LocalTech on Feb 2, 2008 | Reply

    By that Freelancer means go to the Registry Editor

    Start - Run - Regedit
    Then browse to those following locations…
    That was the complicated method, was trying to find the folder but I forgot where it was, sorry guys…

  11. By Andrew on Feb 4, 2008 | Reply

    I tried the solution that Freelancer poted on Feb.2 using the added instructions LocalTech added bellow that, and it worked great!

    Thanks folks that Spellcheck problem’s been ticking me off for a while.

    Cheers!

  12. By barry on Feb 4, 2008 | Reply

    My spellcheck problem with Office 2007 is not what has been described in the other posts. The spellcheck works fine in office 2007, but once I installed office 2007, the spell check would not work on my MSN/Qwest email. Window comes up that there is no American dictionary. So I called msn help and they told me that MSN has to be updated to support the new updated dictionary on Office 2007, and that they are working on it; they indicated they have been working on it for about 5 months, but after exploring the web, I find its been longer. Is there any way around this problem? I downloaded
    Tiny spell or speller and it was pretty bad. Any suggestions?

  13. By CR on Feb 8, 2008 | Reply

    You rock - this has been killing not only me but my grades. Thanx to you I can once again spell

  14. By Beth on Feb 9, 2008 | Reply

    Thank you so much Lance!!! I had this problem for about a month and found another “fix” on another website which involved the registry. That worked for about a week, but it then reverted back to not working. I do use Outlook, so that was probably the problem. Your solution worked perfectly and made the most sense. Thanks soooo much!! I’m a medical transcriptionist, so I need my spell checker - I was losing my mind without it!

  15. By MRNX on Feb 14, 2008 | Reply

    Lance is the man! Thank you, I struggled with the problem fore more than five months and given op hope. Thank you very much!

  16. By Ryan on Feb 26, 2008 | Reply

    Lance, You are my hero. Spent the day trying to figure out where spell check went, googled, found this page and it was fixed 10 minutes later.

  17. By Desrae on Mar 15, 2008 | Reply

    Lance or anyone else,

    I found this page and have gone to the add-ins and unfortunately, the dictionary was not disabled. I am back at square one and do not know how to fix the problem. I have erased the file and reinstalled and I am still having problems. Any help?

  18. By Angie on Mar 15, 2008 | Reply

    Lance!
    You are my hero!

  19. By SCA on Apr 8, 2008 | Reply

    I am finding that if I have stationary in Outlook 2007, it will not check anything - the spell check reports that everything is OKAY when I purposefully type words incorrectly to test it- and if you cut and paste the e-mail text from Outlook to Word, it does the same thing -

  20. By Junaid on Apr 14, 2008 | Reply

    Thanx. though ur proceedure is time consuming but it works. LocalTech u rock.

  21. By robby on Apr 16, 2008 | Reply

    this did the trick!!

    thanks

  22. By Aliasger on Apr 17, 2008 | Reply

    Hey Lance thanks a lot i have been racking my brains over this spell check issue…thanks dude

  23. By Alex on Jun 1, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks Freelancer,
    Your suggested fix was right on (all others did not work for my machine):
    Rename the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0″ to zz1.0.

  24. By Peter G on Jun 9, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks that worked

  25. By Aisling on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply

    I followed your instructions re changing the language settings to English (Australia) which worked for all new documents I am creating - thank you!

    However, I had been working on a large piece of research (which is how I realised the problem with the spell checker) and the changes as above I made have not affected this document and the spell checker is still not working - and I really need the spell checker to work on it!!

    Have you any advice for making the spell checker work on documents that were created before the changes to language settings etc. are made?

    thanks so much,

    Aisling

  26. By Doug on Jun 13, 2008 | Reply

    I’ve been having this same spell check problem with all my Office 2007 applications. This fix did it for me too. Thanks so much!!

  27. By Doug on Jun 13, 2008 | Reply

    Sorry, I’m referring to the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0″ to zz1.0.” fix.

  28. By RJ on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply

    I’d like to ask Freelancer and LocalTech if renaming the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0 to zz1.0 is equivalent to removing the key. Might we have renamed it to anything - oldkey1.0 for example - or is “zz1.0″ the correct name for the key?

  29. By Tom on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply

    This is sheer genius. Thanks man

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