More Spelling Options in PowerPoint 2010

We already showed you how to summon the Spelling dialog box and spell check your entire presentation for any misspelled words. While this is a great way of checking your slides once your presentation has been created, there are other ways to spell check, and also some tips to help you understand how you can do better proofing of your text content. This page contains a collection of these tips:

1. Whenever PowerPoint encounters a spelling error, it highlights the misspelled word by placing a red squiggly line to underline the word, as shown highlighted in red in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: Red squiggly line added underneath a word indicating wrong spelling
   
   All you need to do now is right-click the word -- this brings up a contextual menu that offers a list of suggestions, highlighted in red in Figure 2. To accept any of these suggestions, just click on the relevant suggestion. PowerPoint then replaces the misspelled word with the suggested word you chose.
   
   
   Figure 2: Contextual menu containing spelling suggestions
   
   In addition, you will also find the Ignore All, Add to Dictionary, and Spelling options within this contextual menu (highlighted in blue in Figure 2, above):
   
   
   • The Ignore All option ignores the spell check for this word -- for this instance and also for any repeating instances of this word in the active presentation.
     
     
   • Using the Add to Dictionary option, you can quickly add this word to PowerPoint's spelling dictionary -- you will never be prompted to correct this spelling again. Do note that PowerPoint shares the same dictionary with other Microsoft Office programs such as Word, Outlook and Excel -- and those programs will also consider the new spelling as correct.
     
     
   • Clicking the Spelling option brings up the Spelling dialog box that we explained in our Spell Check in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
2. PowerPoint's spell checker does not check for spelling errors in charts and any other inserted objects. Even with PowerPoint 2010, which relies on fewer inserted objects, charts are actually an instance of Microsoft Excel working behind the scenes -- and PowerPoint only spell checks content that is part of PowerPoint.
   
   Fortunately PowerPoint does spell check any text within text placeholders and text boxes on your slides. It also looks for spelling errors in text contained within tables, SmartArt, slide notes, and shapes. Remember though -- you must always manually check all spellings within charts!
   
   
3. Remember that everything on your PowerPoint slide is larger than life. A spelling error within a 20 page Word document may go un-noticed but the same misspelled word in 44 pt. size as a title of your PowerPoint slide will attract a disproportionate amount of attention, making the slide and the presenter look unprofessional. Make sure you spell check all your slide content before you present!

See Also:

More Spelling Options in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows
More Spelling Options in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
More Spelling Options in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac