Spell check only works half the time.
Something changed a couple months ago where Firefox's spell check began only catching about half of my typos. Over the last 15 years I have become used to my browser providing spell checking services, looking for the little red lines to point out my mistakes, so now that this feature has stopped working reliably I am constantly submitting items with embarrassing typos, having to go back and edit almost every single post I make after the fact. Is there any way to get this working properly again? Thanks.
All Replies (5)
Is it possible the misspelled words were added to the spell checker?
May I suggest:
Grammarly for Firefox by Grammarly
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grammarly-1/
Grammarly will help you communicate more effectively. As you type, Grammarly flags mistakes and helps you make sure your messages, documents, and social media posts are clear, mistake-free, and impactful.
I highly doubt this many misspelled words could have been mistakenly added to the checker at once. I'm pretty sure the spell checker is missing more typos than it is catching at this point. This was a problem that emerged instantaneously after a version update.
So is Firefox's spell checker really so broken and beyond repair that we need to resort to using third party add-ons? I get it that Firefox has been in a serious state of decline for years, but this is a pretty basic feature and i would prefer an actual solution over a band-aid. I don't want to switch to Chrome, I just want Firefox to work reliably like it did ten years ago.
So I need to begin compiling a list of all the misspelled words that Firefox is failing to acknowledge as incorrect? What happens then?
Its missing almost every word. If I had to estimate, it is only catching 25% of my typos since I have been paying closer attention to it today, the problem is much worse than i initially noticed. It would be much easier for me to demonstrate the few typos Firefox does catch. Every once in a while I get a red underline, but for the mot part Firefox has stopped informing me of typos.
The problem seems to be significantly worse in Facebook. I am now seeing that typos that were not caught a few minutes ago in Facebook are being caught when I type them here in this post submission window. So either it is a problem with Firefox and Facebook specifically, the symptoms vary inconsistently depending on what site I am using, or the symptoms are just outright intermittent.
Do you have a dictionary installed and selected?
You can see which dictionary is selected if you right-click in a text area and open the Languages sub menu. At least one dictionary should be installed and have a check mark to indicate that it is selected.
- open the "Add Dictionaries" link to install a dictionary if you do not have one.
The spelling checker is enabled if [X] "Check Spelling" in the right-click context menu has a checkmark.
You can enable or disable spell checking globally:
- Settings -> General: Language and Appearance: "Check your spelling as you type"
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-use-firefox-spell-checker
You can look here for dictionaries:
Note that for spell check you need a dictionary. A language pack provides string translations for the user interface.
You can check on the about:config page that layout.spellcheckDefault is set to 1 (multi-line) or 2 (single-line).