Do not check spelling or grammar does not work on big selection

Hi,

I often embed pages and pages of source code in my Word documents. (CompSci student, taking a copious amount of notes) Turning off spell check for these code blocks is far more tedious than it should be.

Problem: If I select more than a couple hundred lines at once, the Do not check spelling or grammar option cannot be used properly. Instead of a normal on/off checkbox, I am presented with a third option; the square within a square which indicates somewhere in my selection I already turned off spell check. Even though I am sure no parts of my selection have spell check disabled.

static.3ice.hu/images/Office-bug--cannot-turn-off-spell-check-for-section-if-selecting-too-much-text-at-once.png

None of the checkbox states modify my spell check status after clicking OK. I tried unchecking it, checking it, rechecking it, and even leaving it unchanged, all several times.

Workaround: Select 5 paragraphs, turn off spell check for those lines. Select another 5 paragraphs, turn off spell check again. Repeat until all parts of the code are spellcheck-free. Repeat every time you want to paste code.

This needs a better solution :(

Thanks,
Daniel "3ICE" Be

November 9th, 2014 7:54pm

And when I say big I don't mean big. Most Office features fail just after 50 lines:
social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/980...879/

My computer can process millions of characters every second. Please don't tell me this 50 lines limitation was introduced as a performance improv

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November 9th, 2014 9:42pm

This is making me regret editing my second programming-related book in Word...

And the overwhelming silence in this thread is not helping.

December 20th, 2014 6:59am

Hello from 2015. Still an issue.
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March 21st, 2015 7:34pm

The square within a square simply means that in area of your selection, some text is already marked to not check and other text is marked the opposite. All you have to do is click on the box and change the setting. Then all will be marked either to Check or Not Check spelling based on the check boxes value.
March 22nd, 2015 7:37am

I tried that, several times, to no effect.

This is a fresh blank document where I just paste a short-ish wall of text with no formatting. After some 50 lines Word breaks spectacularly:

Here is a 100kb gif of Microsoft Word in "action":

static.3ice.hu/images/Microsoft-Word-in-action--showing-several-bugs-and-problems.gif

I'm trying to get it to realize I am typing in English.

This could have been titled: "Detect language automatically what does it take to get it to work?"

But this is not the only issue here.

I'm trying to turn off spell checker for part of the document.

My inability to do so is already reported here: social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/.../do-not-check-spelling-or-grammar-does-not-work-on-big-selection

I'm trying to see what font size all of that text is.

Why does Office stop reporting font information after 50 lines are selected? No, I did not change the first lines to be different.

I'm trying to see the text alignment of several pages.

Why can't office see that it is left aligned throughout? It worked for the last 49 lines of text, but not 50 or beyond.

My computer can process millions of characters every second. Please don't tell me this 50 lines limitation was introduced as a performance improvement.

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March 22nd, 2015 7:50am

Language and Spellchecking are attributes of Styles so you can try the following:

Create a special paragraph style with the Language and Spellcheck setting applied that you want and save this Style to your Normal template. Before pasting or inserting code change the insertion point style to your Special "Do Not Spell Check" style and insert and paste there.

Here is a sample of how to create the special style.

March 22nd, 2015 8:44am

Here is something else that will work and I've uploaded a document that you can use to setup an AutoCorrect entry of a Program Code block.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17552545/ProgramCodeBlock.docx

The document contains the following:

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March 22nd, 2015 9:16am

Dear Rich,

Those are some very good workarounds!

Up until now I have been applying the desired settings on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, which was very slow and cumbersome.

Hope the issue eventually gets fixed too. Some time down the line...
As amazing as this new workaround will be to use, nothing beats an actual bugfix.

Thanks,
Daniel

March 22nd, 2015 10:46am

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