too many spelling errors (Office 2003 SP1)

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I am working on a thesis which contains hundreds of author names, prior to formatting the bibliography. Word gives up on spellchecking regularly, noting that there are too many spelling errors (all author names). I repeatedly use the spellcheck dialogue box options to uncheck “hide spelling errors,” to restore the spellcheck function. Is there a set limit to the number of “errors” which Word can deal with? Is there any way to extend the limit if it exists?
With thanks in anticipation for your collective wisdom!
Dianne

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When I have documents like this I mark all the proper names with the “Do not spelling or Grammar” attribute. You can do this by Edit / Replace. Find What: put the authors name. Replace With: ^& (this is the find what text) Then click the more button and Format > Language > Do not check spelling or grammar. Then click on the Replace All button.

An alternative is to ADD the author’s names to your dictionary, but I don’t like to do this because I may not want all those names permanently in my dictionary, and because the Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar attribute will travel with the document, helping other people.

StuartR

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When I have documents like this I mark all the proper names with the “Do not spelling or Grammar” attribute. You can do this by Edit / Replace. Find What: put the authors name. Replace With: ^& (this is the find what text) Then click the more button and Format > Language > Do not check spelling or grammar. Then click on the Replace All button.

An alternative is to ADD the author’s names to your dictionary, but I don’t like to do this because I may not want all those names permanently in my dictionary, and because the Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar attribute will travel with the document, helping other people.

StuartR

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I’ve used a bit of a “trick” in the past, to stop Word choking on “errors” in code snippets included in documents. I would define a style, which I reserved exclusively for use on such code content. When I wanted to see spell check highlights, I would (temporarily) modify the font format of that style to Hidden Text. I actually used a macro to toggle this Hidden effect on and off.

I don’t know if this method would be appropriate for your “hundreds of author names”, scattered throughout the document though. You would have to, at some stage, individually assign them such a designated style.

Alan

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Thank you Alan and Stuart- quite a challenge, either way.
Dianne

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Hi Diane:
Depending upon where the authors names appear in the document & whether they all include a first & last name, you can partially solve the problem with Find/Replace. Stuart suggested putting in the authors names, which would be the most accurate way. A less accurate, but possibly workable solution would be to:

• using wildcards
• Find
• ^&
  and then follow Stuart’s directions for the Language setting (Format/Language/Do not check spelling or grammer
  [/list]This will find two words in a row that start with a capital letter. It might be better to not click Replace All & just click either Replace or Find Next, depending on what it finds. This should still be faster than going through manually.

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Thanks,Phil.
Whichever way I look at it, it would be nice to have the capacity to ask Word to be more cooperative with these unusual demands a few of us place on it, but……
Dianne

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You can always have a toolbar button that runs a Macro to set the No Proofing for you, here is an example Macro that sets no proofing for the current selection, and for every other instance of the same text:

Public Sub NoProofing()
If Trim(Selection.Range.Text) "" Then
Selection.LanguageID = wdNoProofing
With ActiveDocument.Content.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.LanguageID = wdNoProofing
.Text = Selection.Range.Text
.Replacement.Text = "^&"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = True
.MatchCase = True
.MatchWholeWord = True
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
End With
End If
End Sub

StuartR

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You can always have a toolbar button that runs a Macro to set the No Proofing for you, here is an example Macro that sets no proofing for the current selection, and for every other instance of the same text:

Public Sub NoProofing()
If Trim(Selection.Range.Text) "" Then
Selection.LanguageID = wdNoProofing
With ActiveDocument.Content.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.LanguageID = wdNoProofing
.Text = Selection.Range.Text
.Replacement.Text = "^&"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = True
.MatchCase = True
.MatchWholeWord = True
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
End With
End If
End Sub

StuartR

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Thanks,Phil.
Whichever way I look at it, it would be nice to have the capacity to ask Word to be more cooperative with these unusual demands a few of us place on it, but……
Dianne

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Hi Diane:
Depending upon where the authors names appear in the document & whether they all include a first & last name, you can partially solve the problem with Find/Replace. Stuart suggested putting in the authors names, which would be the most accurate way. A less accurate, but possibly workable solution would be to:

• using wildcards
• Find
• ^&
  and then follow Stuart’s directions for the Language setting (Format/Language/Do not check spelling or grammer
  [/list]This will find two words in a row that start with a capital letter. It might be better to not click Replace All & just click either Replace or Find Next, depending on what it finds. This should still be faster than going through manually.

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Thank you Alan and Stuart- quite a challenge, either way.
Dianne

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HI

I too am having this issue.

I’m opening up a very large doc that contains alot of technical references. Word will display the message ‘ There are too many spelling or grammatical errors in ‘doc’ to continue displaying them…..’ & interupt my process.

It appears that the spell checker & this msg appears at certain times eg every 10-15mins. Is this correct? Does the auto spell checker run at scheduled times? can I turn this off?

Is there away I can stop Word from perfoming a spell check on this document. Unfortantely I cant add or Ignore each Word, as depending on the report the pages can blow out to 600pages filled with technical text?
Diana

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You can turn off automatic spell checking entirely (for all documents) in the Spelling and Grammar section of Tools | Options… You will still be able to start spell checking manually.

If you only want to turn off spell checking in this document, modify the Normal style, select Format > Language, and tick the “Do not check spelling and grammar” box, and/or select the entire document, select Tools | Language and tick the same box.

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cheers Hans – Diana 🙂

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cheers Hans – Diana 🙂

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You can turn off automatic spell checking entirely (for all documents) in the Spelling and Grammar section of Tools | Options… You will still be able to start spell checking manually.

If you only want to turn off spell checking in this document, modify the Normal style, select Format > Language, and tick the “Do not check spelling and grammar” box, and/or select the entire document, select Tools | Language and tick the same box.

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HI

I too am having this issue.

I’m opening up a very large doc that contains alot of technical references. Word will display the message ‘ There are too many spelling or grammatical errors in ‘doc’ to continue displaying them…..’ & interupt my process.

It appears that the spell checker & this msg appears at certain times eg every 10-15mins. Is this correct? Does the auto spell checker run at scheduled times? can I turn this off?

Is there away I can stop Word from perfoming a spell check on this document. Unfortantely I cant add or Ignore each Word, as depending on the report the pages can blow out to 600pages filled with technical text?
Diana

Reply | Quote

I’ve used a bit of a “trick” in the past, to stop Word choking on “errors” in code snippets included in documents. I would define a style, which I reserved exclusively for use on such code content. When I wanted to see spell check highlights, I would (temporarily) modify the font format of that style to Hidden Text. I actually used a macro to toggle this Hidden effect on and off.

I don’t know if this method would be appropriate for your “hundreds of author names”, scattered throughout the document though. You would have to, at some stage, individually assign them such a designated style.

Alan

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Yet another possibility is to add all those author names to your custom dictionary. That way, wrong spellings of those names would be flagged. It might be possible to have a special custom dictionary for this project, but it probably would mean switching back and forth when you work on other documents. Of course, I believe custom dictionaries also have some kind of upper limit…

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Thank you- that is certainly an easier solution to put in place. Can’t wait to get the bibliography formatted,and with luck they will all disappear!
Dianne

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Thank you- that is certainly an easier solution to put in place. Can’t wait to get the bibliography formatted,and with luck they will all disappear!
Dianne

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Yet another possibility is to add all those author names to your custom dictionary. That way, wrong spellings of those names would be flagged. It might be possible to have a special custom dictionary for this project, but it probably would mean switching back and forth when you work on other documents. Of course, I believe custom dictionaries also have some kind of upper limit…

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Hi –

This won’t work be feasible if you have hundreds of different names, but in those cases where you’re working on a long document with, say, recurring foreign spellings or proper names that are flagged, I’ve found right clicking on those recurring words and choosing Ignore All, you can very often avoid that
message.

Hoep this can help someone, some time.
Curious

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Yes, Curious- that is exactly the situation- there are hundreds of different names, most names appear only once , a few appear 2 or 3 times, and the remainder are a one-off.
Still, your recommendation is a good one, and I will do that to get them out of the way so i can pick the true spelling errors!
Thank you
Dianne

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Yes, Curious- that is exactly the situation- there are hundreds of different names, most names appear only once , a few appear 2 or 3 times, and the remainder are a one-off.
Still, your recommendation is a good one, and I will do that to get them out of the way so i can pick the true spelling errors!
Thank you
Dianne

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Hi –

This won’t work be feasible if you have hundreds of different names, but in those cases where you’re working on a long document with, say, recurring foreign spellings or proper names that are flagged, I’ve found right clicking on those recurring words and choosing Ignore All, you can very often avoid that
message.

Hoep this can help someone, some time.
Curious

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Hi,
I suggest you define a character style “Author name” and set it to “Do not check spelling or grammar” (in Word 97 give it the language “No Proofing”). Put a button for this style on your formatting toolbar and whenever you enter an author’s name, select it and apply the style. From then on, the spellchecker should ignore the name. The advantage of this technique is that this requires no further maintenance.
Regards,
Judith

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Thank you, Judith, for such an elegant solution. Greatly appreciated.

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Thank you, Judith, for such an elegant solution. Greatly appreciated.

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Hi,
I suggest you define a character style “Author name” and set it to “Do not check spelling or grammar” (in Word 97 give it the language “No Proofing”). Put a button for this style on your formatting toolbar and whenever you enter an author’s name, select it and apply the style. From then on, the spellchecker should ignore the name. The advantage of this technique is that this requires no further maintenance.
Regards,
Judith

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