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A
Anonymous523
Participant
September 3, 2013
Answered

InDesign CC - Spell check not working.

  • September 3, 2013
  • 27 replies
  • 59290 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

    Show previous replies
    moors creative.347414
    moors creative.347414
    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
    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
      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
      Participant
      June 16, 2015

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

      A
      anicat
      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
        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
          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
            Participant
            March 18, 2020

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

              BobLevine
              Community Expert
              BobLevineCommunity Expert
              Community 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!

                Grabzoo
                Grabzoo
                Participating Frequently
                February 5, 2014

                Re-tried trashing the preferences again opening a new doc, checking the language: English USA. Popped in some lorem ipsum.

                Spell Check will not work.

                At this point I think it's a Program error, since it started from the last time I upgraded CC.

                Since there isn't a new upgrade that I see yet I am thinking uninstalling and reinstalling ID will not do anything different.

                Anyone else have any other suggestions?

                Adobe could you check into another ID CC upgrade perhaps?

                Thank you!


                There is a good chance your language preferences are coming from your Paragraph Styles.  Paragraph styles override all other document preferences when applied to text. 

                To check if this is the problem, open your paragraph styles panel (F11) and double-click any of the styles (i.e. [basic paragraph]).  Click the 'Advanced Character Formats' tab on the left navigation menu; verify that Language is set to your preferred language (e.g. English: USA). 

                Do this for all listed styles, then save your document.  Run spell check again and your problem should be solved.

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