Tip 665: Exclude Dictionary

Today's tip is a repeat – it last ran about 5 years ago and two recent questions about excluding words from the spell checker tells me it’s long past time to remind people about this little known feature.

Many people are unaware that the Office spell-check offers an "exclude dictionary" you can use when the dictionary contains words that you want to be flagged as misspelled. You may have a habit of mistyping a word, only to discover spell check missed it because it’s a correctly spelled word. The exclude dictionary works with Outlook when Word is your e-mail editor and is shared between Office apps that support it.

The short version is create a plain text file containing your words, one per line, in C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof
Save it using the same name as the main language dictionary, using the .exc extension. For example, the US English dictionary is called Mssp3en.lex, so you'll name the exclude dictionary Mssp3en.exc.

See //word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm for complete instructions.

Published October 6, 2009. Last updated on June 17, 2011.