Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Spell-checking Uppercase Words.

Spell-checking Uppercase Words

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 10, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

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:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Excel displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Spelling tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Spelling tab of the Options dialog box.

  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.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3321) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Spell-checking Uppercase Words.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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