Word Spell Check Not Working — How to Fix It

When Word stops underlining spelling mistakes in red, it is easy to assume the feature has broken. Usually it has not — one of a handful of common settings is wrong, or a single piece of text has been flagged as a language Word does not know how to check. Working through the causes in order takes about five minutes and fixes the problem in the vast majority of cases.

Cause 1: The Wrong Proofing Language Is Set

This is the most common cause. If the language assigned to your text does not match an installed proofing language, Word silently skips spell checking for that text. This often happens after pasting content from a website or another document — the text brings its language setting with it.

Check and fix the language on selected text

1. Select all the text in your document with Ctrl+A.
2. Go to Review > Language > Set Proofing Language.
3. Check which language is shown. If it says something unexpected (for example, English (United States) when you are in the UK, or a foreign language), select the correct language from the list.
4. Make sure Do not check spelling or grammar is not ticked at the bottom of the dialog.
5. Click OK.

Set the default language for all new documents

1. Go to File > Options > Language.
2. Under Office authoring languages and proofing, check that your preferred language is listed and shows Proofing installed.
3. If it is not the default, click on it and choose Set as Preferred.
4. Restart Word.

If your language shows Proofing not installed, go to File > Options > Language > Add a Language, select the correct one, and follow the prompts to download the proofing tools. You will need an internet connection and may need to restart.

Cause 2: Spell Check Is Turned Off

Word has a global setting to disable spell checking. It is easy to turn on accidentally.

1. Go to File > Options > Proofing.
2. Make sure Check spelling as you type is ticked.
3. Also check that Mark grammar errors as you type is ticked if you want grammar checking too.
4. Click OK.

While you are here, scroll down and check that Hide spelling errors in this document only and Hide grammar errors in this document only are both unticked. These options suppress the underlines in the current document without turning off spell checking globally.

Cause 3: Text Is Marked as Do Not Check Spelling

Word lets you mark specific sections of text so they are excluded from spell checking. This is useful for code blocks or foreign language quotes, but if it has been applied to the wrong text by accident, those sections will never show spelling errors.

1. Press Ctrl+A to select all text.
2. Go to Review > Language > Set Proofing Language.
3. Make sure the Do not check spelling or grammar checkbox is unticked.
4. Click OK.

This clears the Do Not Check flag from all selected text. If you have specific sections that legitimately need to be excluded, you will need to reapply the flag to those sections afterwards.

Cause 4: AutoCorrect or Spell Check Has Been Disabled via a Macro or Add-in

Some third-party add-ins or macros disable proofing settings without being obvious about it. If you recently installed a new add-in or template and spell check stopped working around the same time, this is worth investigating.

1. Go to File > Options > Add-ins.
2. At the bottom, set the Manage dropdown to COM Add-ins and click Go.
3. Untick all add-ins to disable them temporarily.
4. Close and reopen Word, then check whether spell check is working again.
5. If it is, re-enable add-ins one at a time to find the culprit.

Cause 5: The Normal.dotm Template Is Corrupt

Normal.dotm is the default template that Word uses for every new document. If it becomes corrupt, it can cause a range of odd behaviour including spell check failures. Resetting it is safe — Word will create a fresh copy automatically.

1. Close Word completely.
2. Open File Explorer and navigate to: C:\Users\[YourName]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\
3. Find the file called Normal.dotm.
4. Rename it to something like Normal.dotm.old (do not delete it yet — keep it as a backup).
5. Open Word. It will create a new clean Normal.dotm automatically.
6. Test whether spell check now works.

If this fixes it, you can delete Normal.dotm.old. If not, rename it back to Normal.dotm and move on to the next step.

On Mac, the Normal.dotm file is at: ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates/

Cause 6: Office Needs Repairing

If none of the above has worked, the proofing tools themselves may be damaged or incomplete. Running an Office repair re-downloads and reinstalls the affected components without touching your documents or settings.

On Windows:

1. Close all Office applications.
2. Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps (Windows 11) or Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features (Windows 10).
3. Find Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Office in the list.
4. Click it and choose Modify.
5. Select Quick Repair first — it runs without internet access and takes a few minutes.
6. If Quick Repair does not fix it, run Online Repair. This takes longer but does a full reinstall of the Office components while keeping your settings.

On Mac:

1. Go to Help > Check for Updates in any Office app and install all pending updates.
2. If updates do not help, uninstall Office using the Microsoft Office Uninstall tool (available from Microsoft’s support site), then reinstall from your Microsoft 365 account at office.com.

Running a Manual Spell Check

Once you have spell check working again, you can run a full check on the current document at any time by pressing F7 or going to Review > Spelling & Grammar. This checks the entire document from top to bottom and lets you work through each issue in a dialog box, rather than relying on the live red underlines.