Spell check is one of the most requested features in Microsoft Teams. Unfortunately, a lot of users either find that their Teams don’t have any sort of spell check or worse, their spell check is not functioning correctly.
Do you belong to any of those groups?
In this article, let’s discuss the spell check feature in Microsoft Teams and show you how to activate it. Meanwhile, I will also outline here the steps to take if the spell check in your Teams is malfunctioning.
Let’s start!
Is there a spell check on Microsoft Teams?
Yes! Although it has been a source of debate among plenty of users, Microsoft Teams does have a spell check since it was launched.
To show you, here’s how it looked like on Microsoft Teams:
Spell check working perfectly on Teams
It also works on the chat as well:
Spell check working perfectly on Teams chat
Like in Word, it outlines a misspelled word in red and provides a list of suggestions after you right-click on the outlined word.
The only thing lacking here is that you can’t add any word to its dictionary. Any word you added to the dictionary while using Microsoft Word won’t count as Microsoft Teams actually uses a separate dictionary.
As of now, this feature isn’t added yet. The good news is, this feature has already been added to Microsoft Teams User Feedback Forum.
Request for additional spell check features via Microsoft Teams User Feedback Forum
It also seems that people are already working on it. You can expect this feature to be added on Microsoft Teams any time soon in the future updates.
How to activate the spell check in Microsoft Teams?
If spell check isn’t working on your Microsoft Teams, you may have to make sure that it’s enabled.
To do so, go to your profile settings by clicking on your profile picture found in the upper right corner of the application.
Then, click Settings from the options.
How to access your profile settings on Microsoft Teams
On the settings menu, under the General tab, there is a Language section that specifies the language your app and keyboard are set to.
Below that is where you can enable or disable the spell check feature in Microsoft Teams.
How to enable spell check on Teams
To enable spell check, make sure to tick the box. You may have to restart the app for the changes to take effect.
Why is your Microsoft Teams Spell Checker not working correctly?
Complaints have started popping out about how the spell check in Teams seems to work incorrectly. Some claim that Teams outlines words as misspelled when in fact, they were spelled correctly.
Here’s an actual example of such a complaint voiced on r/MicrosoftTeams.
A complaint about spell check error on Microsoft Teams via r/MicrosoftTeams
There are actually two fixes that you can try to solve this problem.
The first one is to try and change the language to anything other than the one you’re currently using. Then, after restarting the app, restore the language back to the language you’re using.
If you’re sure how to do it, simply follow the instructions above on how to get to the language settings (profile picture > settings > general) and change the app language from there.
How to change the app language on Microsoft Teams
The other method you can try is deleting the dictionary file. For some reason, the dictionary files that your Teams are using can become corrupted, which leads to spell check giving you wrong results.
To do this, simply visit the following address:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\dictionaries
So if the user account on your Windows is teamsuser, then go to:
C:\Users\teamsuser\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams\dictionaries
Once you get to the folder, select all .bdic files and remove them permanently.
How to delete the dictionary files of Microsoft Teams
Don’t worry about erasing all those files. After you restart Microsoft Teams, it will download a fresh dictionary file and potentially solve the issue you’re facing.
Does Grammarly work with Teams?
Aside from the spell check feature that comes with Microsoft Office’s products, there is one tool that a lot of people use — Grammarly. For this reason, users have been asking whether or not Grammarly work with Microsoft Teams.
Unfortunately, Grammarly doesn’t work with Teams.
Here’s the specific answer from Grammarly in regards to the integration of their spell checker tool with other apps including Microsoft products:
Does Grammarly work with Teams?
The request to add Grammarly or other spell checker tool to Microsoft Teams is already submitted to Microsoft Teams User Feedback Forum and already more than 600 votes as of the day this article was written.
Unfortunately, this request has a slim chance of getting realized especially that Microsoft has its own spell checker feature.
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