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Fonts, hyperlinks, and spell check
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Fonts, hyperlinks, and spell check

Spell check your email

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Outlook has two tools to help you check your spelling: AutoCorrect and the spelling checker.

To use AutoCorrect, all you have to do is make a common spelling error, like switching the letters in customer.

When you press the Spacebar, Outlook automatically corrects the spelling.

Type two initial capital letters, and AutoCorrect makes the second letter lower case.

AutoCorrect can be very useful for quickly correcting common typing mistakes, but it doesn't catch everything.

When you misspell a word that isn't in the AutoCorrect list, then the Spelling Checker kicks in.

By default, the Spelling Checker indicates a misspelled word with a red, squiggly underline.

To fix the mistake, you can retype the word manually.

But an easier way is to let the Spelling Checker suggest a correct spelling.

And you have two ways to do that: correct the spelling immediately, or wait until you have finished typing.

To correct spelling immediately, right-click the misspelled word, then choose one of the suggested words; click Ignore All if you want the Spelling Checker to recognize the word as correctly spelled in the message; or you can add the word to the dictionary, so the Spelling Checker will always recognize it as a correctly-spelled word.

By the way, a blue squiggly line under a word points to a potential usage error.

The word may be spelled correctly, but it's not used the right way.

Now if you are the type of writer who doesn't want to deal with misspelled words while you are typing, then you can spell-check your message when you are finished.

First, click in the message to make sure nothing is selected.

Click the REVIEW tab and Spelling & Grammar.

The Spelling Checker scans the message from the beginning and looks for misspellings.

When it finds one, this dialog box shows the word in red and offers suggestions in this list below.

Click the one you want and then, choose one of the buttons on the lower-right.

Click Changeto change the word to the one you selected; click Change All to change all the words that are similarly misspelled, or if you make the same spelling error often, you can click AutoCorrect to add it to the AutoCorrect list.

So in the future it will automatically correct as you type.

If you don't find a suggestion you like, you can retype the word manually, up here.

You can also Ignore this particular misspelling, Ignore All similar misspellings, or add the misspelled word to the dictionary.

By the way, you can also check grammar as you type by clicking the Check Grammar box.

So that's how AutoCorrect and the Spelling Checker work, by default.

But you can change how they work and what they check for, if you want.

Click the FILE tab and Options.

Click Mail and Spelling and AutoCorrect. Down here, you have options for the Spelling Checker.

For example, you can uncheck Check Spelling as you type, if you don't want to see the red squiggly lines under misspelled words.

Click AutoCorrect Options to change what Outlook corrects automatically.

For example, if you don't want Outlook to correct two initial capital letters, you can uncheck the Correct Two Initial Capitals option.

Down here, you can view and change the words Outlook looks for and corrects.

For example, if you type "accidant" with an "a", Outlook changes it to an "e".

You can change or add a word to replace or delete an item in the list.

Or you can uncheck Replace text as you type to turn it off.

Now, you have the basics of the Spelling Checker and AutoCorrect.

If you want to do more with these features, check out the links in the course summary at the end of this course.

Up next, we'll cover one more part of the Spelling Checker, how to change the language the Spelling Checker uses.

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