Loading and Using Custom Dictionaries in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

You may wonder what happens behind the scenes whenever you do a spell check in PowerPoint or any other Microsoft Office program. This is what happens: PowerPoint looks at each word you have typed and matches those words with the entries listed within its dictionary. If the dictionary does not contain some of the words in your slides, it goes ahead and marks those words as misspelled. Then it offers you suggestions for changing those supposedly misspelled words to other similar words that can be found within its dictionary.

So, why did we use the term "supposedly" in the last paragraph? That's because PowerPoint's dictionary is quite basic, and includes mainly words used in common, everyday language. If a word does not exist within that dictionary, it is not necessarily misspelled! There are so many specialized words in different knowledge branches like medicine, research, law, computing, etc. that are not common words. Yet, they are perfectly valid as far as spellings are concerned.

To counter this state of affairs, you can buy several specialized dictionaries. In fact, some great dictionaries are also available free of cost. These dictionaries can be then loaded within PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs to give you a larger range of words to use. For this tutorial, we downloaded this free Medical dictionary from Raj&Co.

Follow these steps to load a dictionary within PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

1. Launch PowerPoint 2010, and choose File | Options, as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Choose Options within the File menu
2. This opens the PowerPoint Options dialog box. Click the Proofing option on the sidebar to view the interface that you see in Figure 2, below.
3. 
   Figure 2: Proofing section of PowerPoint Options dialog box includes the Custom Dictionaries button
Tip: If you are already doing a spell check, just click the Options button within the Spelling dialog box. This gets you to the Proofing section of the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown above in Figure 2. Want to know more about the Spelling dialog box? Head to our Spell Check in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows tutorial.
3. Now, click the Custom Dictionaries button (highlighted in red in Figure 2, above). This summons the Custom Dictionaries dialog box (see Figure 3). Note that there will be at least one dictionary named CUSTOM.DIC (highlighted in red in Figure 3) This is typically the default custom dictionary.
4. 
   Figure 3: Custom Dictionaries dialog box
4. Within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box, click the Add button (highlighted in blue in Figure 3 above). This brings up the Add Custom Dictionary dialog box, as shown in Figure 4.
5. 
   Figure 4: Add Custom Dictionary dialog box
5. In this dialog box, navigate to the folder that contains your downloaded dictionary, or any dictionary that you want to load. Select a DIC file, and click the Open button (highlighted in red in Figure 4 above).
6. This adds the selected dictionary within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box, as shown highlighted in red in Figure 5.
7. 
   Figure 5: Custom Dictionaries dialog box
7. To remove a dictionary from the Dictionary List, just select it within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box, and then click the Remove button, as shown highlighted in red in Figure 6.
8. 
   Figure 6: Custom dictionary selected for deletion
8. Once done, click the OK button within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box to save any changes you made.
9. Now that we loaded a medical dictionary, PowerPoint no longer puts red, squiggly lines under words such as Abdominoplasty (see Figure 7 below). But, Propria is still showing up as misspelled. You need to get a legal dictionary next!
10. 
    Figure 7: Do you need a legal dictionary too?
10. Save your presentation often.