Spell-checking Uppercase Words

Excel includes a powerful spell-checker that, in reality, does a pretty good job. You can use this tool to locate potential spelling errors in your worksheets. If your worksheets contain lots of acronyms, you'll find that Excel flags most of them as misspelled words.

You can make sure that Excel ignores uppercase words in any spell-check by following these steps in versions of Excel prior to Excel 2007:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Excel displays the Options dialog box.
2. Make sure the Spelling tab is selected. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Make sure the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

To accomplish the same task in Excel 2007, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Excel Options. Excel displays the Excel Options dialog box.
2. At the left side of the dialog box click Proofing. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Make sure the Ignore Words in UPPERCASE check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

The only downside to this, of course, is if you use all uppercase for section titles or for other special words. In this case, Excel still ignores them, since they are uppercase. Make sure you change the setting of this check box based on the type of work you are doing in your worksheet.