Manage Autocorrect in Google Docs

Important: On a computer, Autocorrect is only available on Google Docs.

Autocorrect can automatically correct capitalization and spelling in Google Docs. It can also automatically detect links, lists, and quotes. You can turn autocorrect on or off, turn off specific substitutions, and turn suggestions on or off.

Autocorrect is available in:

  • English
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Portuguese
  • German

Turn off autocorrect

  1. Open a Google Docs file.
  2. Click Tools and then Preferences and then General.
  3. To turn off certain autocorrects, like automatic capitalization, spelling corrections, or link detection, uncheck the box next to the function.
  4. Click OK.
Turn off specific automatic substitutions
  1. Open a Google Docs file.
  2. Click Tools and then Preferences and then Substitutions.
    • To turn off certain automatic substitutions, next to the word, uncheck the box.
    • To remove automatic substitutions, next to the word, click Remove remove.
  3. Click OK.
Correct a word's spelling

To always correct a specific word's spelling:

  1. Right-click on the word.
  2. Click Always correct to [word].
Undo an automatic correction
  1. After the word is corrected, click the word.
  2. To permanently turn off automatic correction, click Undo.
Turn suggestions on or off

Important: This will turn suggestions on or off for all of your documents.

Misspelled words are underlined in red. Grammar suggestions are underlined in blue. To turn spelling and grammar suggestions off:

  1. Open a document in Google Docs.
  2. Click Tools and then Spelling and grammar and then Show spelling suggestions or Show grammar suggestions.
  3. The check mark will disappear to show that it is off.
About spelling suggestions

Words where spelling is not recognized are underlined in red to warn you of a possible misspelling. When you click on the word, you'll see a "Spelling" label. If there is no spelling suggestion available, you can choose to edit the word, add the word to your personal dictionary, or ignore the suggestion.

About machine learning

Spelling suggestions are powered by machine learning. As language understanding models use billions of common phrases and sentences to automatically learn about the world, they can also reflect human cognitive biases. Being aware of this is a good start, and the conversation around how to handle it is ongoing. Google is committed to making products that work well for everyone, and are actively researching unintended bias and mitigation strategies.

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