Wikipedia:Spellchecking
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
Spellchecking software and online tools can be helpful when copyediting Wikipedia articles. This page explains how to use them effectively and avoid conflicts with other editors.
General advice:
- Be sure to use the spelling for the correct English variant (e.g., American English, British English, Canadian English etc.) for the article you're editing.
- No spellchecker is completely accurate. You must check the output of any tool you use.
- Be extremely careful when editing pages written in languages or dialects in which you are not fluent.
- Grammar-checking tools can introduce more errors than they appear to fix.
- You are responsible for all spelling and grammar changes you make, even if the changes are suggested by an error-checking tool, such as Grammarly or ChatGPT.
Be careful with dialect differences
[edit]Make sure you set the language of the software or tool to the correct variety of English. If the article's topic is not linked to a particular region, use the same variety as the first non-stub version of the article. Check the talk page before editing variety-specific spelling; many articles have a template such as {{Use Hiberno-English}} near the top of its talk page that indicates the spelling variety to be used.
Consistently use the article's English variant throughout the article (except in direct quotations), and use terms that are common to all varieties of English (e.g., fixed-wing aircraft rather than airplane or aeroplane) whenever possible.
See Wikipedia:Manual of Style § National varieties of English for detailed advice, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Spelling for a table of spelling variants in different dialects.
Checking a single article
[edit]Using a web browser
[edit]The easiest way to spellcheck an article is to use your web browser's built-in spelling checker.
 | Regardless of the method used, you should take care to ensure your spellchecker does not break wikitext; most of these spellcheckers have not been designed for wikis like Wikipedia. |
- Mozilla Firefox has a built-in spellchecking engine. However, you should check you have installed and selected the correct dictionary for the English-language variant of the article. Right-click in an editing field, make sure "Check spelling" is checked, then select the correct variant under "Languages". There are separate dictionaries for "English / United States", "English / United Kingdom" etc.; if the appropriate dictionary does not appear in the list, click "Add Dictionaries" and use the page that appears to install it. Note you will have to restart Firefox to enable it after installing.
- Google Chrome provides built-in spellchecking for each text field.[1]
- Microsoft Edge also has a built-in spellchecker.
- Safari also provides spellchecking features on Mac, iPad and iPhone.
- Opera has a spellchecker.[2]
Browser extensions
[edit]- Grammarly is a free plugin for popular web browsers that checks spelling, grammar, usage and punctuation.
- LanguageTool is an open-source tool that checks grammar and spelling.
Using an external website
[edit]- SpellChecker.org is a free online spellchecker that requires no extension or add-on installation.
- WebSpellChecker is a multi-language spellchecking engine that can be integrated into a website or a web application.
Using word-processor software
[edit]Many office suites, such as Microsoft Office and LibreOffice, are equipped with spelling and grammar checkers that are on by default. Open the Wikipedia article, select "edit" from the menu atop the page or section, select and copy the article source, paste it into a Word or Writer document, follow the red (spelling) and green (grammar) markers, and correct mistakes as necessary.
To enable spellchecking in Microsoft Word, go to the Tools menu and enable "Grammar and spellchecking". When satisfied, copy and paste the text into the text box in the browser window, check any UTF-8 characters are still working as before by clicking "Show changes", and, if satisfied, click "Publish changes", as usual.
In LibreOffice Writer, go to the top menu, select "Tools" → "AutoCorrect", and select "while typing" to enable checking.
Checking recent edits in bulk
[edit]If you have installed the anti-vandal tool in your common.js, you can use the live spellcheck to identify misspellings as they happen (recent edits). This is not a comprehensive spellcheck—it points out only the most-commonly misspelt words. And it will not spellcheck text an editor is adding to an article; for that, see the web browsers section above.
Checking existing text in bulk
[edit]Spellcheck dictionary additions for editors
[edit]Wikipedia:Spellcheck dictionary is an editor-compiled list of English words, terms, abbreviations and acronyms commonly encountered on Wikipedia. You may copy it and add it to your software's spell-check dictionary.