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A
Anonymous523
Participant
September 3, 2013
Answered

InDesign CC - Spell check not working.

  • September 3, 2013
  • 27 replies
  • 59218 views

I can purposefully type a misspelled word in InDesign and the Spell Check doesn't catch it. In fact it doesn't seem to work at all.

    Correct answer laura-808

    One thing to check, which I just discovered, is in Indesign Preferences/Spelling/Find there are tick boxes for what you'd like it to find and I found 'Misspelled Words' was unchecked. Here you can also Enable Dynamic Spelling. Pretty basic but seems to be what my problem was.

    27 replies

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    DS WildOutWest
    DS WildOutWest
    Known Participant
    March 17, 2018

    PROPOSAL:  Really has consistently caused problems that the Dynamic spell check only shows when you are NOT in "Preview Mode".  Many many documents went out with typos because you assume the dynamic check was on - when in fact you were in preview mode... ore worse forgot that you toggled back.  There should be a poll or something - Who would NOT want to see a typo indicated ?   Anyway, it took about an hour to figure out that this was even the case - after questioning my own sanity, and the effectiveness of the spell checker for months...  #nightmare default protocol.   Why not make persistent spell check an option in the preferences OR in the spell check menu?

    Cheers David

      A
      ambers44392956
      Participant
      February 20, 2018

      I just worked on a big document and knew there was a specific word incorrectly spelt after being picked up by someone, so went back to runt he spell check again and out of 40+ pages it was only showing 4-5 incorrect words on one page that were just funny surnames of people. I question how many other incorrect words it missed along the way...

      In general InDesign 2018 is the. worst.

      A
      Angela Roche
      Participant
      August 24, 2017

      Hey go to to View > Screen Mode

      Make sure that you have 'Normal' selected and not 'Preview'

      Just worked for me

      G
      GrafixxGuy
      Participant
      August 29, 2016

      Having the same issue here as well.  Checked everything, reset preferences, Spell Check is just not working.  Going to try re-istalling InDesign.  Will update.

      G
      GrafixxGuy
      Participant
      August 29, 2016

      Un-install/re-install seems to have fixed the issue.  I will post if the problem reoccurs.

      A
      Anonymous523Author
      Participant
      September 8, 2016

      I too have had this problem--Spell Check working in some docs and not in others. The only thing I can figure is that some of the files are older than others, but still not something that should create a problem for a Spell Check.

      The fix I found was simply to do a Save As of the file, making a copy of it, and then restarting the App. The new file spell-checked in the normal manner (i.e., actually locating misspelled words).

      bethanyg49005039
      bethanyg49005039
      Participant
      July 20, 2016

      Turning on preview mode (pressing "W") worked for me! Thank you!

      D
      david milgrim
      Inspiring
      February 24, 2016

      As is often the case, the answer is simple. I find a lot of people jump to things like entering code in the terminal and the like. I had the problem and someone posted that You simply have to exit preview mode. "w" (when your cursor is not typing text, otherwise escape then w) will bring it up. Presto, dynamic spell check is working.

        J
        julesstirling
        Participant
        February 24, 2016

        Tried that... still doesn't work. Darn it.

          D
          david milgrim
          Inspiring
          February 24, 2016

          Dang. Sorry to hear that.

            J
            julesstirling
            Participant
            February 2, 2016

            Same issue here. I've tried every suggestion in this thread and it still won't work!

            karlamattson
            karlamattson
            Participant
            January 14, 2016

            Crap. I just read through everyone's posts and I still cannot get my old documents to spellcheck. Anything new I create works and if I cut and paste into a new document, that works as well. Oh well at least I got that part figured out! Thanks for all of the troubleshooting tips everyone!

              L
              lucaf8692850
              Participant
              January 5, 2016

              Spent ages trying to figure this out, nothing was working, then realised I still had overprint preview ticked (under view). Make sure this is un ticked!

              Silly mistake but worth a check

              Steve Werner
              Community Expert
              Steve WernerCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              January 5, 2016

              I just tested in InDesign CC 2015.2 on a Mac. No problems doing spell checking when Overprint Preview is turned on.

              andystacy
              andystacy
              Participant
              November 4, 2015

              Just tried this. Im working in CS6. So im not sure if it will apply to the CC or not. I had all the above issues about spell check not working, checked all of the dictionaries and language and whatnot. Nothing worked.

              Then I went to Indesign Preferences > Spelling then I checked "misspelled words" and that seems to have done the trick. Seems too simple to overlook for such a complex issue, but I thought what the hell. So I tired it and it worked.

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