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Anonymous523
New Participant
September 3, 2013
Answered

InDesign CC - Spell check not working.

  • September 3, 2013
  • 27 replies
  • 59180 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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    moors creative.347414
    moors creative.347414
    New Participant
    October 9, 2015

    Having the same issue. Cleared overides and that fixed it for the short term but it shouldn't be happening. Please Fix!

    D
    davidc26288426
    New Participant
    October 1, 2015

    Forgive me if I'm suggesting something a bit basic, but it caught me out...  I was working in print mode rather than preview (which switches by pressing 'w').  In print mode, spell check doesn't work, I switched to preview (on advice from a colleague) and it works fine.

      anne-mariec
      anne-mariec
      New Participant
      April 13, 2016

      Actually brilliant!!! This fixed my problem!!! Thank you @davidc26288426

      "27. Re: InDesign CC - Spell check not working.

      davidc26288426 Community Member davidc26288426 01-Oct-2015 07:58 (in response to @SeeFuller)

      Forgive me if I'm suggesting something a bit basic, but it caught me out...  I was working in print mode rather than preview (which switches by pressing 'w').  In print mode, spell check doesn't work, I switched to preview (on advice from a colleague) and it works fine."

      K
      kyleluvsew
      New Participant
      June 16, 2015

      I just cleared overrides in the paragraph styles panel and it works. Hope this helps.

      A
      anicat
      New Participant
      April 30, 2015

      I too was having the same problem with my brand-new copy of Indesign, just downloaded last week. Spellcheck completely failed to work. I checked all the preferences recommended here, still nothing. But what HAS worked was the advice from maiyo8: downloading the English dictionaries from OpenOffice (aiff & dic) and replacing the ones that came with the software. Restarted Indesign and bingo: spellcheck works now. Thanks so very much, maiyo8! You have saved my reputation as a graphic designer who always checks to make sure my layouts are delivered to the client spelling-error free. Although I have yet to find a fix for the errors a client makes.

      A
      Anonymous
      November 19, 2014

      I had the same problem too, ever since InDesign CS6 was first installed on my MBP laptop (OS X, late-2008 model).

      I just fixed the issue by replacing two of the original en-US dictionary files with ones I downloaded from OpenOffice.  Here are the directions that I followed to accomplish this -- Add or remove Hunspell dictionaries | CC, CS6.  And this is the file I downloaded to replace the AFF and DIC files -- http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/us-english-spell-checking-dictionary.

      I hope this helps.  Cheers!

        NOcreationsBE
        NOcreationsBE
        Inspiring
        May 5, 2018

        maiyo8  schreef

        I had the same problem too, ever since InDesign CS6 was first installed on my MBP laptop (OS X, late-2008 model).

        I just fixed the issue by replacing two of the original en-US dictionary files with ones I downloaded from OpenOffice.  Here are the directions that I followed to accomplish this -- Add or remove Hunspell dictionaries | CC, CS6.  And this is the file I downloaded to replace the AFF and DIC files -- http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/us-english-spell-checking-dictionary.

        I hope this helps.  Cheers!

        Thank you maiyo8! This is the only thing that worked for me (after a recent InDesign CC update I could not get the spell check working, even after trying everything else posted here). Replacing the Hunspell dictionaries finally worked! More than 3 years later and Adobe is still not able to fix this problem??

        HSatterfield
        HSatterfield
        New Participant
        May 29, 2014

        I too was having the same problem after updating to CC. This is what worked for me: Preferences, Dictionary, Spelling-Hunspell. It was set to Proximity by default. My language always had English: USA, so that wasn't my issue. Hopefully this will work for others with the same problem. Good luck!

          A
          Alice io
          New Participant
          January 27, 2015

          Once I also changed Preferences, Dictionary, Hyphenation to Hunspell this worked for me.

          I had already done the noted steps about checking and fixing Language under Paragraph and Character styles. A bunch of the character styles were indeed not set to a language even through overall preferences were. However until I also changed to Hunspell for both Spelling and Hyphenation under Dictionary dynamic spelling did not work.

            G
            Genie Creative
            New Participant
            March 18, 2020

            Thank you - you legend ... that has been bugging me for ages 🙂

              BobLevine
              BobLevine
              Adobe Expert
              September 3, 2013

              Is there a language assigned to it?

              J
              jesstrounce9471802
              Participating Frequently
              February 3, 2014

              And if the right language is assigned....?

              Ever since I upgraded to the most recent Indesign CC, spell check will not work. Help!

                J
                jesstrounce9471802
                Participating Frequently
                February 3, 2014

                If the correct language is assigned in the Character or Control panel, it should be spell-checked by that dictionary.

                Try restoring your preferences. Here's how:

                Trash, Replace, Reset, or Restore the application Preferences


                Arrg. That worked for a little bit. Now: spell check works for two files. Two other files I have open it will not work. And any new doc created it will not work.

                I didn't change any preferences at all.

                What else could it be/can I do???? Resetting preferences every few hours would be rediculous.

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