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HTML spell check

August 10th, 2020

2 min read

Written by

Ben Long

Category

World of WYSIWYG

When users are entering text in your online applications or forms, you might want to provide them with spelling and grammar checking options. 

Default browser checking behavior typically depends on HTML element type and browser used. However, you might want to explicitly specify whether browser-based checking is enabled or not for specific elements.

You can enable and disable browser-based checking for specific HTML elements with the spellcheck attribute.

The spellcheck attribute can be used with the following elements:

  • Text values in input elements (not password)
  • Text in textarea elements
  • Text in editable elements

Syntax

<element spellcheck="true|false">

Attribute values

  • true - Browser-based spelling and grammar checking is enabled on the specified element
  • false - Browser-based spelling and grammar checking is disabled on the specified element

Example usage

Enable browser-based checking on an HTML textarea or input element by setting spellcheck to true:

<textarea spellcheck="true"></textarea>
An excerpt from The Hare and the Tortoise with spelling mistakes highlighted.
A textarea with spellcheck set to true.

Disable browser-based checking on an HTML textarea or input element by setting spellcheck to false:

<textarea spellcheck="false"></textarea>
An excerpt from The Hare and the Tortoise with spelling mistakes not highlighted.
A textarea with spellcheck set to false.

Spell checking with a WYSIWYG editor

A user corrects spelling mistakes in an application built with TinyMCE.

If you are building or using enterprise-level products, you may benefit from a quality WYSIWYG HTML editor and a premium spell checker - like TinyMCE and its popular Spell Checker Pro plugin.

Get Your Free TinyMCE API Key →

Many businesses need globally consistent spelling across all content and a whole team of content authors. Plus, more and more content is being produced with multiple languages in a single document, so they need the ability to check all of those languages simultaneously.

Tiny’s Spell Checker Pro automatically highlights words that are misspelled (in up to 13 languages at the same time), and users can select a suggested correction from the context menu.

The TinyMCE WYSIWYG HTML editor is used as the text entry component in 100M+ products worldwide to provide the best content creation experience possible for users. The core TinyMCE editor is free to use, but premium plugins like Spell Checker Pro are also available to add extra value for the enterprise-level experience.

Menus and toolbar options are fully customizable to suit your particular interface requirements.

Start with a free trial

Try TinyMCE + Spell Checker Pro with a 14 day free trial of our Cloud Professional plan.

Spell CheckingForms
byBen Long

Computer scientist, storyteller, teacher, and an advocate of TinyMCE. Reminisces about programming on the MicroBee. Writes picture books for kids. Also the wearer of rad shoes. “Science isn’t finished until you share the story.”

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