Microsoft Word 2003 Spelling and Grammar – Toggle Checking Grammar and Spelling

By default, Microsoft Word 2003 automatically spell-checks and grammar-checks all open documents. If a word is misspelled, or if it is correctly spelled and Word just doesn’t have it in its dictionary, the word is underlined in red. If Word 2003 thinks your document has grammar errors, such errors are underlined in green.

There may be times, however, where you want to turn off spell-checking and grammar-checking.

1. You’re reading a document for content, not to proofread it, and don’t care if any errors are in the document.

2. You’re opening a particularly large document and find spell and grammar checking takes too long.

3. You’re working on an older computer that slows down whenever Word performs grammar or spell checking.

4) You’re working on a laptop and need to save battery power. Spell and grammar checking large, complex documents may use a lot of CPU power, and thus battery power. If you’ve ever heard your laptop fan turn on when you read Microsoft Word 2003 documents, this is the case.

To toggle spell and/or grammar checking:

1. Click “Tools” – “Options”.

2. When the “Options” multi-tabbed dialog box appears, click the “Spelling & Grammar” tab.

3. Check or uncheck the following as desired:

* Check spelling as you type
* Check grammar as you type

When done, click “OK” to save your settings.