How To Spell Check Google Sheets

Last Updated on October 31, 2023 by Jake Sheridan

In this tutorial, you will learn how to spell check Google Sheets.

While text editing and spell checking might not be the first things you think about when thinking of Google Sheets, having professional and correctly spelled text to support your formulas and calculations is extremely important. Because of this, Google Sheets has a built-in spell checker that works much like a spell checker in a word processor. Read on to learn how to use it.

Using Google Sheets Spell Checker

You can spell check a single selection, an entire sheet, or all sheets in a Google Sheet. If you want to spell check only a portion of your spreadsheet select that range before following the below steps

Step 1

Open the Tools menu and hover over Spelling, then choose Spell Check

Step 2

In the upper-left of the Spell Check popup, the first misspelled word will display, with a text field below prefilled with the suggested correction

Step 3

You can type in an alternate correction if you would like, or leave the default. Either way, if you click on Change to change the word to the suggestion, or Ignore to skip this instance of this word and move on

Step 4

You can click the down arrow beside the Change and Ignore buttons to reveal the option to Change All or Ignore All. This will apply to all instances of the current misspelling

Step 5

When there are no more spelling suggestions on the current sheet, a button will display allowing you to Search All Sheets for misspellings

Step 6

If you selected a range before starting the spell checker, you will also be given the option to Search The Rest Of The Sheet

Adding Words to the Personal Dictionary

The Google Sheets spell checking dictionary is quite good, so most of the time you won’t have to add words to your personal dictionary. However, if you do use words that are not in the spell check dictionary, it can be frustrating to have to click Ignore for each of these words. And if you do misspell one of these words, the spell checker won’t help. For these cases, Google Sheets comes with a personal dictionary. Here’s how to use it:

Step 1

While spell checking your spreadsheet, if you come across a word that is spelled correctly but that the spell checker doesn’t recognize, instead of changing or ignoring the word, you can click the Add to Dictionary button

Step 2

The word will then be added to your personal dictionary, and whenever you use the Google Sheets spell checker under the same account, this word will be treated as if spelled correctly

Step 3

You can also directly add new words to your dictionary (or delete existing ones) by opening the Tools menu and choosing Personal Dictionary from the Spelling submenu

Summary

Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet

In this tutorial, I covered how to spell check Google Sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.