Use VoiceOver to find spelling and text formatting issues on Mac
When you start typing a word, you can display a list of suggestions for completing the word. Many macOS apps, such as TextEdit and Mail, can identify misspelt words as you type and suggest corrections.
In apps like Mail and TextEdit, you can use the Text Checker for VoiceOver to proofread text you’ve written for common formatting issues such as misspelt words, mistakenly capitalised letters and duplicate spaces.
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier that you press with additional keys to enter VoiceOver commands. By default, you can press Control and Option together or just press Caps Lock.
Complete partial words
As you type a word, enter as many characters as you’re sure of, then press Fn-F5.
Press the Down Arrow key until you hear a word that sounds correct.
To hear how the word is spelt, press VO-W twice. To hear the word spelt phonetically, press VO-W three times.
When you hear the word you want to use, press the Space bar.
The word you selected replaces the text you typed.
Use automatic spelling correction
When VoiceOver announces a misspelt word, do one of the following:
Let the word be corrected automatically: Keep typing.
If the spell checker can’t correct the word, it underlines it in red. You can check the document to manually correct these misspellings.
Choose a suggested correction: Navigate to the word, position the insertion point within or just after the word, press the Down Arrow key, then press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key until you hear the suggestion you want to use. Then press Return.
To exit the suggestions without choosing one, press the Escape key, Fn-Tab or the Up Arrow key.
Revert to the original spelling of a word that was automatically corrected: Navigate to the word, position the insertion point just after the word, press the Down Arrow key to move to the original spelling, then press Return to select it.
If you don’t want spelling to be corrected automatically, choose Edit > Spelling and Grammar, then deselect Correct Spelling Automatically (if it’s available).
Correct spelling manually
If you chose not to use automatic spelling correction, or a document contains misspelt words for which the spell checker can’t suggest a correction, you can review and correct misspellings manually.
Tip: The VoiceOver rotor shows a list of all misspelt words in a document, so you can quickly jump to each word and correct it. To use the list of misspelt words, press VO-U to open the VoiceOver rotor, then press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key until you hear “Misspelt”.
To navigate to the next misspelt word, press Command-Semicolon.
To hear the word spelt, press VO-W twice.
If the word’s not actually misspelt, press Command-Semicolon until you hear a word that needs to be corrected.
To open a shortcut menu of suggestions, dictionaries and more, press VO-Shift-M.
Navigate to the spelling you want to use, then press VO-Space bar to select it.
If you don’t hear an acceptable correction, press the Escape key or Fn-Tab, press VO-Shift-Fn-F4 to move the VoiceOver cursor to the misspelt word, then enter any changes you want to make.
Start the Text Checker for VoiceOver
Open VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on).
Click the Commands category, then select Option Key.
Press Right Option-D (by default) to start the Text Checker.
You can change the modifier and keyboard key combination you use to open Text Checker. See Customise key commands and trackpad gestures for VoiceOver.
Find text issues
Press VO-Shift-Down Arrow to interact with an editable text area.
Start the Text Checker, then do any of the following:
Use the Right and Left Arrow keys to move between the Misspelt, Whitespace and Capitalisation menus.
Use the Up and Down Arrow keys to navigate the text issues in each category.
Press Return to jump to an issue in the text and correct it.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 to navigate to and fix any remaining issues. After you correct an issue, it’s no longer listed in the Text Checker menus.
You can also assign Find Next Text Issue and Find Previous Text Issue commands to VoiceOver keys or gestures. See Customise key commands and trackpad gestures for VoiceOver.
To change how VoiceOver announces misspelt words, open VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click Verbosity, then click Text.
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