Important: On a computer, auto-correct is only available on Google Docs.
Auto-correct can automatically correct capitalisation and spelling in Google Docs. It can also automatically detect links, lists and quotes. You can turn auto-correct on or off, turn off specific substitutions, and turn suggestions on or off.
Auto-correct is available in:
- English
- Spanish
- French
- Portuguese
- German
Turn off auto-correct
- Open a Google Docs file.
- Click Tools
Preferences
- To turn off certain auto-corrects, like automatic capitalisation, spelling corrections or link detection, untick the box next to the function.
- Click OK.
Preferences - Open a Google Docs file.
- Click Tools
- To turn off certain automatic substitutions, next to the word, untick the box.
- To remove automatic substitutions, next to the word, click Remove
.
- Click OK.
.To always correct a specific word's spelling:
- Right-click on the word.
- Click Always correct to [word].
- After the word has been corrected, click the word.
- To permanently turn off automatic correction, click Undo.
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:
- Open a document in Google Docs.
- Click Tools
- The tick will disappear to show that it is off.
Words where the spelling is not recognised 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.
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 is actively researching unintended bias and mitigation strategies.