How to edit your Custom Spelling Dictionary

Article contributed by Suzanne S. Barnhill

Occasionally you’ll inadvertently press the “Add” button while running the spelling checker and add a misspelled word to your custom dictionary. Luckily, it is easy to repair the damage.

• In Word 2000 and earlier, go to Tools | Options | Spelling and Grammar and click the Dictionaries...  button. Chances are you have only one user dictionary, CUSTOM.DIC, which will already be selected. Click on the Edit button. This will open the dictionary file as a text file. Find the word you inadvertently added and delete or correct it, then press Ctrl+S to save the file, and close it.

• In Word 2002 or 2003, go to Tools | Options | Spelling and Grammar and click the Custom Dictionaries… button. In the Custom Dictionaries dialog, select CUSTOM.DIC and click on the Modify… button. This will open a dialog showing a list of words. Find the word you inadvertently added and delete or correct it, then click OK to close the dialog.

• In Word 2007, go to Office Button | Word Options | Proofing and click on Custom Dictionaries… In the Custom Dictionaries dialog, select CUSTOM.DIC and click on Edit Word List… This will open a dialog showing a list of words. Find the word you inadvertently added and delete or correct it, then click OK to close the dialog.

This tip applies only to incorrectly spelled words in your custom dictionary. To “remove” a misspelled word from Word’s built-in dictionary, see “How to ‘remove’ a word from Word’s main spelling dictionary.”