This is useful in the legal arena where you are (for example) modifying established legal language, but can't actually change it, only identify suggested changes. You'd need any modifications you are making (the character style) to be spell checked, but the underlying legal language (the base paragraph style) cannot be inadvertently, or accidentally changed during a spell check.
Establishing the underlying paragraph style as don't check spelling is pretty straightforward: in the style definition box click the Format Dropdown and select Language. In the subsequent dialog, click the "Do not check spelling or grammar" box and accept the style change:
- Change the language of the character style to anything BUT the same language as the underlying paragraph style, and at the same time, tick the box for "Do not check spelling or grammar." Then accept and save the settings.
- Go back to the style definition and select to modify. On this second go-round, change the language BACK to the language you want it to be (assuming you want the language of the character style to be the same as the paragraph style). Changing it back doesn't affect the spelling setting, and the language is matched to the paragraph style.
Voila! You now have a paragraph style that does not check spelling, and a character style overlying it that does.
The best way to ensure these words do not slip through is to have them show as misspelled all the time, and yes, you can do that. Create a plain text file and put the correctly spelled words you want to have flagged as in it. Name the file as shown below (Check with Microsoft for the file name for other languages):
- English(US): ExcludeDictionaryEN0409.lex
- English (UK): ExcludeDictionaryEN0809.lex
- English (Canada): ExcludeDictionaryEN1009.lex
Then save the file to:
C:Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\UProof
The next time Word is run, the words you've identified in that list will show as misspelled. This way, you will see the words with the red squiggly underline and you can be sure the word is being used in the correct way.