How to avoid spell checking of source code in MS Word?

Question

When I copy source code to a word document or email, it would be nice if spell check could ignore source code token.

Is there an option to ignore blocks of text?

Banneret

Tempted to mark for close since it's a Word question. But I think I'll let this one go. – Docile

Answer 1

This one's easy. Select the code you pasted, go to Tools -> Language (or in the latest version of Word, the equivalent on the ribbon) and select the checkbox "Don't check."

Allianora

For word 2016+, go to Review -> Language -> Set Proofing Language. – Trella

Answer 2

To only turn off spell check for blocks of text, create a style called "Code".

Next, modify the style. In the Style editor, go to the Format sub-menu, then Language, then tick "Do not check spelling or grammar".

Now, wherever you apply that style, Word will ignore spelling and grammar. Perfect for source code! While you're editing the style, set a light-gray background, and set the font to Courier New.

This prevents you from having to set the language (and font, etc.) everywhere you have source code in your Word doc.

The final result looks like this:

Cherrylchersonese

I like this idea for MS Word 2010, since the other idea for "Don't Check" requires it to be done for each section. But when I create a new style "Code", it either makes everything bold or not-bold. – Authors

I think a better font to use is Consolas – Veterinary

That's the nice thing about using styles - you can reformat all your code at once. – Marcel

See answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/… for instructions / macros to create no proofing styles. – Grenade

Answer 3

Highlight the code/text in the document go to the Tools Menu>Language>Set Language. There will be a "Do not check spelling or grammar" checkbox

this will mark the area so that the spellchecker skips over it

Posen

Answer 4

This is my solution to word plastering my design docs with distracting red-underlines. It's not exactly what you're asking for, but you might find it sufficient.

Basically, one day I was thinking - "Why can't word make the mispelling markings SUBTLE like IntelliJ does?"

Well, it can - just change the wavy underline color to light gray instead of red.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925597

So much less distracting.

One other thing that the spell checker in IntelliJ does is detect camelcaps and treat each subword in a camel capped word as a separate word... So it considers myWordDocument spelled correctly, but flags myWerdDocument. Be nice if word did that!

Travel

Because spelling mistakes are something you want to be made very aware of. You don't want to accidentally miss something because the programme tried not to offend you with red underlines. – Timeserver

Answer 5

To avoid MS Word checking for any spelling or grammar in languages, go to Review> Language> Set proofing language

• Uncheck 'Detect language automatically'
• Select any language (double click any from list of languages)
• Uncheck 'Do not check spelling or grammar'

Stakhanovism