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About this lesson

Learn how to spellcheck, find a better word, or count the total words in a document.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Proofing.docx
172.9 KB Proofing - Solution.docx
175.2 KB

Quick reference

Proofing Tools

Learn the importance of the features included in spellcheck, find a better word, or count the total words in a document.

When to use

It is very important to proofread your document before it leaves your computer. Misspellings and grammatical errors are viewed as unprofessional.

Instructions

Spelling and Grammar check

  1. Right Click any word with a red or blue underline and make your selections
  2. OR, click the Review Ribbon, , Spelling & Grammar
  3. A right-hand pane appears and provides a few more options.
  4. One feature is the “speaker” to listen to the pronunciation of a word.

Thesaurus

  1. Click the Review Ribbon, , Thesaurus
  2. Click the word you would like to replace
  3. Click the Thesaurus button (or press Shift + F7)
  4. The Thesaurus pane appears on the right side of the screen.
  5. Choose the arrow by the new word and click Insert.

Word Count

  1. If you need a count of total words in your document, click the Review Ribbon, , Word Count                                                                                              

Smart Lookup

  1. Click the Review Ribbon, , Smart Lookup
  2. A right-hand pane appears and provides a Bing lookup of the word, its meaning and origin.
  3. A much faster option would be to go to Google, type “Define:” enter the word to see a dictionary definition.

Kincaid Readability Statistics

  1. File Ribbon, , Options , Proofing
  2. Put a checkmark into
  3. This will show a grade-level review of your document. Keep in mind, it is measured by word count, word length, sentence length and paragraph length.
  4. For general business letters a 6th to 7th grade level is very good because it is short, simple and gets to the point. A college level paper should be anywhere above a 10th grade level
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  • 00:05 This might be one of the most important lessons and
  • 00:07 that is the tools to proofread and edit your text.
  • 00:10 So, the review ribbon is where we find those way over on the left-hand side.
  • 00:14 We have a proofing section and an insight section.
  • 00:17 So let's go ahead and get started with proofing section,
  • 00:19 which is spelling and grammar.
  • 00:21 So when you activate the spelling and grammar.
  • 00:25 A task pane opens up on the right hand side of your screen, and
  • 00:29 it already found a context error.
  • 00:31 And so it's going to basically offer you the option to replace that word.
  • 00:35 You can ignore it or you can replace it.
  • 00:38 You can change a word.
  • 00:39 You can even listen to the word.
  • 00:41 >> Four.
  • 00:42 >> So if you're new to the English language and
  • 00:44 don't know how to say a certain word, just hit the little speaker.
  • 00:47 It's very nice.
  • 00:48 I can choose on any one of these.
  • 00:50 Other options here, and I have some more right down here, okay?
  • 00:54 So, basically, I could choose that.
  • 00:56 Let me go ahead and choose that top one.
  • 01:01 And we're gonna go ahead and change it.
  • 01:03 Now I've found another error.
  • 01:05 This time it highlighted the entire sentence on its own, and
  • 01:08 I'm not sure what's wrong.
  • 01:09 It looks fine to me but
  • 01:11 it's marking it as wrong because I've got this blue underlined happening here.
  • 01:16 Well, basically it's telling you right over here on
  • 01:19 this list what is wrong with it.
  • 01:21 It's saying that there's too many spaces, there's two spaces in there.
  • 01:25 So I can just go ahead and hit the change, and it'll fix it.
  • 01:27 And then of course it moves off to the The next one.
  • 01:29 Let me close this though, because there's actually a faster way to do the same
  • 01:33 thing, and that is with your right mouse button.
  • 01:36 So notice I've got the word powerful right here.
  • 01:38 If I, and there's a red squiggle underline,
  • 01:41 which means its a misspelled word.
  • 01:43 So I'm gonna right click, and there's the option, right,
  • 01:46 I can ignore it, I can choose it, or I can add it to dictionary, or I can look it up,
  • 01:49 which means it's gonna go out to the Internet to get me a description.
  • 01:52 So I'm just gonna click on that one.
  • 01:54 How about this one, professionally?
  • 01:56 I am gonna right click and just choose the correct one,
  • 01:59 ignore, add to lookup, or the next one.
  • 02:02 All right, you can go through and do the rest of those on the exercise file, but
  • 02:05 I want to move on to the next one.
  • 02:06 So I've got the word powerful right here, and I just think,
  • 02:09 there's got to be a better word, or a different word.
  • 02:12 Well, that is where the the source comes on the review ribbon hit the source.
  • 02:16 Notice a tool tip comes up.
  • 02:17 Shift+F7 will do the same thing so click the source.
  • 02:21 We get a new task pin on the right side.
  • 02:24 You can listen to the word.
  • 02:25 >> Powerful.
  • 02:26 >> Or you could just go ahead and find one that you'd rather have.
  • 02:29 So I'm gonna choose prevailing.
  • 02:31 And when I click on prevailing.
  • 02:34 >> Prevailing.
  • 02:35 >> Okay, it chooses it, but
  • 02:37 I could've actually >> Just inserted it right away.
  • 02:41 So now, I'm going to go ahead, and let me--I actually have to go
  • 02:44 back one--come down to 'prevailing.' When I float my mouse over prevailing,
  • 02:49 a tiny drop down arrow shows up, and that's how I insert it.
  • 02:52 Or I could copy it to insert later, but I'm just going to go ahead and insert it.
  • 02:55 Now keep your eye on powerful, it's going to be replaced.
  • 02:58 There you go just like that.
  • 02:59 All right, word count.
  • 03:00 The word count is pretty important if you are writing an article and
  • 03:04 you have to stay under 500 words or whatever, however many words.
  • 03:08 This tells you right away how many words you have in this particular document.
  • 03:12 Very good information, I'll go ahead and close that.
  • 03:14 And then the last one, I'm gonna double click the word prevailing, and
  • 03:17 I'm gonna look up this item that says smart lookup.
  • 03:21 When I activate that, I get a second task pane.
  • 03:23 So they don't shut the other ones.
  • 03:25 They just assume you're working, and you want those books left open.
  • 03:28 I'm gonna close my Thesaurus, I'm done with that one,
  • 03:30 but now I have the Smart Lookup.
  • 03:32 Basically the Smart Lookup is going to give me the spelling of it,
  • 03:37 the pronunciation spelling of it, I can click that to hear it.
  • 03:41 It's telling me it's an adjective and what it means.
  • 03:44 I can also click the word Define Define and it will give me other versions of it,
  • 03:49 as a verb, as an adjective, the origin of it.
  • 03:52 Do you see what's happening here?
  • 03:53 You can really dig into the background of a word just by hitting that smart look up.
  • 03:59 Okay, it's informational only, it's not going to replace anything.
  • 04:02 It's just teaching you.
  • 04:03 So these are wonderful tools that you'll make good use of
  • 04:07 when you are using Microsoft Word.
  • 04:09 Thank you.

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