Home | Tips and Tricks | PowerPoint | How to use spellcheck

forgot your password?

Good spelling is crucial for your PowerPoint show. There’s nothing worse than standing in front of a large audience, looking up at your presentation, and seeing a typo in 3-foot tall letters glaring down at you. Ouch! Those spelling mistakes are fantastic for destroying your credibility. Plus, audience members get hung up on spelling mistakes and actually take offense at these errors … some people really get upset!

Fortunately, PowerPoint comes with its own spell-checking features. Actually, it’s the same spell-checker used by other Office applications like Word and they all share the same custom dictionary. Fortunately, the PowerPoint spell-checker works exactly the same way as those other programs so you won’t have to learn anything new.

To spell-check your show, go to the first slide in your presentation. Then go to the menu bar and click [Tools – Spelling]. You can also use the shortcut key [F7]. The spell-checker will then go through your show, slide be slide, and check your spelling for you.

Check as you go …
When you type your presentation, you may notice that a little “squiggly line” appears under misspelled words. This is a feature called “check spelling as you go” and it allows you to proofread while you type content. Some people (like me) find this setting distracting. To toggle this feature on/off, go up to the file menu, then [Tools – Options – Spelling and Style] and place a check next to “check spelling as you type.”

Next: Adding notes to your slides ...
Or: See all our PowerPoint tutorials!

	Go right ahead! You can even copy and use the pictures. We only ask that you include the following sentence (and link) at the bottom of the article: