The data in spreadsheets mostly consist of text entries and numbers values and there could be misspelled words in that. To find and correct the misspelled words, you can use the inbuilt Google Sheets “spell check” feature.
Spell check identifies the misspelled words and users can correct them using this Spell check feature. If we compare, Spell check in Google Sheets, it is not much advanced as in Docs where it checks grammar mistakes, misspelled words, and underlining incorrect words but still, it is a good option for spreadsheet users to run this check to identify and correct the misspelled words.
Steps to Run Spell Check in Google Sheets
- First, select the range of cells if want to run spell check from the specific range only.
- Or, just click on any cell and do not select any range if want to run it on the entire current spreadsheet.
- After that, go to the “Tool” tab and hover the mouse cursor on “Spelling” and then click on the “Spell Check” option.
- Once you click on the “spell check” it will start finding the misspelled words, and open a dialog box to replace or ignore the misspelled words.
- Now, click on “Change” to replace the misspelled word with the correct recommended word, or can click on “Ignore” If want to stay with that misspelled word.
- You can click on the drop-down arrow of the “Change” button to replace that word from all the places in the spreadsheet if that word exists more than once.
- Once you replace the word, it will show the next misspelled word to change and so on until you replace all the misspelled words.
- Once all the misspelled words, got corrected, it shows the pop-up stating “No spelling suggestions”.
Definitions of Spell Check Dialog Box Options
- Change: With this change option you can replace the misspelled word with the suggested one or even can write the word with which you want to replace that misspelled word.
- Ignore: With the ignore option, you can ignore to replace the misspelled word. You can click on ignore all for that specific misspelled word, then spell check with not highlight that word again if that exists multiple times.
- Add to Dictionary: Sometimes you want to stay with the word that spell check finds as misspelled every time you run it. To overcome this, you can add that word within the dictionary using this “Add to dictionary” option, and after that spell check will never find and highlight that word as misspelled.
Keyboard Shortcut to Run Spell Check
To use the keyboard shortcut “F7” in Google Sheets to run spell check, you need to enable the keyboard shortcuts.
- First, press the “Ctrl + /” keys from your keyboard to open the “Keyboard Shortcuts” dialog box.
- Here, toggle the “Enable compatible spreadsheet shortcuts” radio button to activate it.
- Now, within the spreadsheet, you just need to press the “Fn + F7” keys together and it will run the spell check on the current spreadsheet.
Add and Run Spell Check as Add -Ons
The inbuilt Spell Check in Google Sheets only finds misspelled words but there are many spell check add-ons available that come with more features like grammar check and underlining incorrect words.
To add the spell check add-on, go to the “Extensions” tab and then click on “Get add-ons, then search for “Spell check” and then select the best suitable add-on and install it.
Now to use it, go to the “Extensions” tab and hover the mouse on “Add-ons” and then click on “Spell check and Grammar” add-on to use it.
Disclaimer
Google Sheets “spell check” sometimes ignore some misspelled word like abbreviations and text with any additional alphabet added at the last. For example, if by mistake you write “Technicall” with one extra “L” at the end, it will ignore it most of the time.
