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How to Add Words to Dictionary in Word 365

How to Add Words to Dictionary in Word 365

December 26, 2022 by Mitch Bartlett 9 Comments

Does Microsoft Word 365 regularly detect words that you commonly use as misspelled words? You can change this by adding custom words to the dictionary.

Option 1 – Add Words to Dictionary While Writing

Type the word in your document and right-click on it and select “Add to Dictionary”.

Add to Word dictionary


Option 2 – Add Words to Dictionary from Settings

  1. Expand the Office Quick Access Toolbar and select “More Commands…“.
    Word 2016 More Comments option
  2. Select “Proofing” in the left pane, then click the “Custom Dictionaries…” button.
    Word 2016 Custome Dictionaries button
  3. Here you can add or remove dictionaries. Usually, you just need to use one dictionary. To add a word to the dictionary, select “Edit Word List…“.
    Word 2016 Edit Word List button
  4. Type the word you wish to add to the dictionary and click “Add“.
    Word 2016 Add word to dictionary
  5. Select “OK” then “OK” again when you are done adding words. Now your word will not be detected by Word as a misspelling.

 

Note: This option is also available in other Office applications such as Outlook, Excel, Publisher, etc.


FAQ

Why is my “Add to Dictionary” option grayed out?

This seems like a bug in the software. Try going to “File” > “Options” > “Proofing” > “Custom Dictionaries”. Then select the “Dictionary language”. Then remove the checkbox next to the dictionary item, then check it again. These steps seem to toggle something in the software that makes the “Add to Dictionary” option available again.

 

Why doesn’t Word seem to be spell-checking correctly?

Check to make sure you are using a valid dictionary file. You can do this by going under “Proofing” > “Edit Word Dictionaries…” > “Edit Word List…”

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Filed Under: Office Tagged With: Office 365, Word 365

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. GARY GOODMAN says

    August 27, 2019 at 6:38 pm

    After adding a word to the two custom dictionaries, spell check still trips over the term every time it appears

  2. Rob H. says

    March 15, 2019 at 12:27 pm

    “This seems like a bug in the software. Try going to File > Options > Proofing > Custom Dictionaries. Then select the “Dictionary language”. Then remove the checkbox next to the dictionary item, then check it again. These steps seem to toggle something in the software that makes the “Add to Dictionary” option available again.”

    Thank you for this tip! I knew how to do this, but it wasn’t working. This tip did reset whatever needed resetting.

  3. Audri-Anne Sweatt says

    December 9, 2016 at 4:16 pm

    This was helpful! Thank you James Rivington. :-)

  4. Mario says

    October 26, 2016 at 10:38 am

    @JAMES

    That worked. Thanks.

  5. Randy Wake says

    August 3, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    James Rivington, Thank you! Your solution worked just fine!

  6. Judy Goans says

    July 9, 2016 at 9:19 pm

    This seems to have worked for me. Thanks!

  7. James Rivington says

    May 22, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    I am using Outlook 2016 and Windows 7 and I had the problem of the “Add to Dictionary” option being grayed out. I followed your check/uncheck suggestion and it did not fix it, but I did notice a strange option in there:

    In the Custom Dictionary dialog, the list included two items:
    1: RoamingCustom.dic (default)
    2: CUSTOM.DIC

    I changed the default to the second item and it started working correctly.

    Note that I only recently upgraded to Office 2016. So far, I see a few useful new features but mostly I am unimpressed by the blatant UI violations being introduced by the “Windows 10” look.

    Thanks for guiding me to the solution.

  8. Mitch Bartlett says

    May 14, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    @Rob – That’s a feature a lot of iOS users want. It just doesn’t exist unfortunately.

  9. Rob says

    May 13, 2016 at 8:36 pm

    I have a long list I need to add to a custom dictionary. The above only allows the entry of one at a time. Is there a way to add a long list in one copy/paste action?

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