Microsoft Word comes with a powerful spelling and grammar checking module. World’s most popular word processing software, MS Word, can check your text for correctness and allows you to make amends. If there is a spelling mistake, the word gets underlined with a red color wavy / squiggly / zig-zag line indicating the error. For grammatical errors a wavy green line appears under the word or phrases.
So, all in all, these red-green wavy underlines indicate spelling and grammar mistakes.
This feature is very helpful and millions of users have become used to with it. Or may be I should say that they have become dependent on this feature for writing correct language!
At times, we find ourselves in a need of getting rid of all those red and green wavy underlines. This can happen, for example, when you are working with a non-English, let’s say Hindi, document and while using English language spelling checker. Such a document will get flooded with error indicating underlines because of mismatch between document language and the spell checker language.
ALSO READ: Time Saving MS Word Tips
Our tips on MS-Word make your life easier and increase your productivity at work.You can always take a right click on a word (or a phrase) and select “Ignore” or “Ignore All” from popup menu to do away with the underline.
But if such errors are too many and you need to hide those irritating underlines in one go —then you can use the following method:
- Open the document
- Go to File > Options
- A box will appear. Select “Proofing” from the options given
- In the “Exceptions for” section, select the document in which you don’t want to see spell mistakes
- Check either or both of the following check boxes as per your need:
- Hide spelling errors in this document only
- Hide grammar errors in this document only
- Click OK
- Open the document
- Go to Tools > Options > Spelling & Grammar
- Select “Proofing“
- Check the boxes for “Hide spelling errors in this document” and/or “Hide grammar errors in this document“
This method is useful because it hides spelling / grammar errors only in a particular document. It does not completely switch off the spell checker. Spell checker will duly show errors in all other existing and new documents that you’ll create.
I am hoping that in future versions of MS-Office, Microsoft will provide a single click option to do away with all the spelling and grammar error indications.
I hope this was useful for you. Please do let me know if you have another question.
thank you this is really helped for me
Thank you!! I tried several other “solutions” (which didn’t solve the problem) before finding your site and the actual solution. Will bookmark you!
Thank you so much.
The boxes for “Hide spelling errors in this document” and/or “Hide grammar errors in this document“ are greyed out and permanently checked. Cannot modify. The pull-down menu just above those boxes says Exceptions For and is defaulting to the document I am in. And the squiggly lines are STILL there.
Thanks so much for your help!
Simple and effective. Thanks very much!
will these lines not be visible when we send the document to another person and he/she opens in her laptop?
This is really terrific Lalit. Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot, that helped me so quickly!!
Finally someone on the internet who had the solution in simple enough words. :)
And indeed, MS should give us an extra checkbox, e.g. on the Review pane, the toggle this.
Hi, This was very simply put and was, indeed is, oh so very, very helpful. Thanks a million… and more.
Thank you Lalit. I was frustrated with a large file in Malayalam. Your tip helped me save a lot of time.
thanks, it works great. I c/p google translated text from russian to english and it comes wih tons of red underlines. Made me crazy :)
This works! Thank you so much! The only problem is that another system must have the same options done since it isn’t default option. Inform us about this common problems more often. Kind regards, peace.
Yes it works thank u very much!
I can’t figure why my Apple MS Word program does the following. Maybe you can help me. When typing in Word I get a green squiggly line under all words referring to myself. Words like ” I, I’m or My ” Why is this. The spell check red squiggly line I like, I just don’t know why the green line is there for anything referring to myself.
My toolbar doesn’t have “File,” so I can’t implement your proposed fix. Is there another way to fix this problem?
it may be the ‘office button’
This works only on my computer but i want to make the changes permanently so that the receiver also doesn’t get this.
kiss you ! thanks a lot baby. you fixed my problem
Very useful. simple to follow
Thanks Guys! All very useful. In Word 2013 if you correct the red and green lines once, it never appears again. So if you send your document to somebody who uses Word 2013, the reds and green are not seen anymore. Word 2013 – Its fantastic.
Thank you very much for posting this information
Great !! Thanks so much.
Thank you for the article. I would like to remove the proofing colors because I would like my document to appear neat and professional when I send it to someone. So I was wondering: Are these changes permanent? If someone opens my document in their own Microsoft Word program, will the red and green underline reappear? Thank you.
Hi Reid, no, such changes won’t be permanent. Display of red and green underlines below the spelling and grammar mistakes depends on the settings made in a particular computer. The idea is that before sending a document across, you should make sure that all the spelling and grammar mistakes have been corrected. The words that are no found in dictionary, they will anyway be highlighted and the recipient would understand that these words are highlighted because they are not in dictionary.
Thanks a lot!
Thanks for that help man. Those lines were too much
You’re welcome, Salma! Hope to hear more from you on TechWelkin!
This was very helpful, thanks!
This information is very useful for us. Keep updating information that will help us. Thanks a lot
Hi, I have a problem in my MS Word with red / green line errors. I have used this method of proofing types in my MS Word. Most of the times it shows the same red/green lines while the same document is opened on different systems. So please help me to solve this problem by any other method (other than disabling of grammar checking option). Regards, T. Annamalai Samy
This is the only method and it is system specific. IF you will open the same document on another system —the red / green lines may reappear and you will have to disable them again.
Thank you so much! This occurs so much to me because I’m a med student and so many medical words/abreviations aren’t included in the spelling dictionary, hence making studying my lessons in this word documents boring with the lines everywhere lol so helpful so concise! :)
Tina, I glad that you found this little tip useful. Yes, for students who are in technical fields, this tip is more useful because MS-Word will not have technical vocabulary in its dictionary. As a result MS-Word will do a lot of spelling mistake markings with red underlines. All the best for your studies!
Thanks I just wanted this for PowerPoint 2010 and it’s working well.
Thank you very much.
Awesome pal, thank you!
very useful information…
Brilliant site Lalit. I wasted hours in the last week trying to find a solution to red underlining of all words in ms-office docs. Your explanation is brilliant, crisp, clean and sharp. Just what I wanted. I am going to bookmark your site. Thanks John
Thank you John! Hope to be of more help to you in future. Stayed tuned!
This information is very useful:)) Good job!! Do post up more information on how to use MS Word!! ^^ Thank You.
Thank you for taking time out and comment! Hope to hear more from you!
Hi Lalit,
Thank you for the advice on how to remove the lines…however, I have word 2008, I think. Anyway, I went into Review, then clicked on the spelling option. There is a little block which one can tick to indicate that one doesn’t want the document to be grammar or spell checked. But still nothing happens. I’ve highlighted the whole document, tried several times…. Have you got any other suggestions. I would be very grateful.
Kind regards
Maritha
Hello Maritha, Thank you for your comment.
In MS Word 2008, you should go to Word Options > Proofing. There you will get two checkboxes to hide the spelling and grammar errors. These options simply hide the red and green wavy underlines AND does not turn off the spelling and grammar check. Checking goes on but the results are not shown to the user.