As you type a document in Microsoft Word, the software aggressively monitors every single keystroke. If it detects a misspelled word, it immediately underlines it in bright red. If it detects a grammatical error, such as a missing comma or a passive voice sentence, it underlines it in blue (or green in older versions). While this real-time feedback is designed to make you a better writer, it can actually be highly detrimental to the creative process.
If you are trying to write a fast, stream-of-consciousness draft, having your screen constantly light up with red and blue squiggly lines is incredibly distracting. It forces you to stop your train of thought, go back, and fix minor typos rather than focusing on the actual content of your essay. Furthermore, if you are writing a sci-fi novel with made-up words, Word will falsely flag half of your document as incorrect.
You can dive into the Proofing options to completely disable this real-time background checking, ensuring you can write your first draft in peace and run a manual spell check later.
How to Turn Off “Check Spelling As You Type”
You must uncheck the real-time proofing rules within the Word Options menu.
- Open your document in Microsoft Word.
- Click on File in the top-left corner of the ribbon.
- Click on Options at the bottom of the left sidebar.
- In the Word Options window, select Proofing from the left-hand navigation pane.
- Scroll down the right pane until you find the section labeled When correcting spelling and grammar in Word.
- Uncheck the box labeled Check spelling as you type.
- Uncheck the box labeled Mark grammar errors as you type.
- (Optional) You can also uncheck Check grammar with spelling if you want manual scans to ignore grammar entirely.
- Click OK at the bottom of the window to save your changes.
Microsoft Word will instantly scrub all the red and blue squiggly lines from your document. You can now type as quickly and creatively as you want without the software constantly judging your rough draft. When you are finally ready to edit, you can simply press F7 to run a manual spelling and grammar check on your own terms.