You’ll see plenty of lame workarounds online but rarely will you see an admission of this glaring limitation in Word. That’s a simple but sad fact that Microsoft doesn’t like to talk about. Anything that’s separated by a space can be added to the list but won’t be checked. Microsoft Word’s custom dictionary only lets you add single words to its list. While we wait for Microsoft to catch up there are limited options available. Word’s custom dictionary can’t handle repeating words or phrases and it should. You'll need to close and re-start Microsoft Word after editing a custom dictionary directly.Why can’t you add repeating words or phrases to the Microsoft Word custom dictionary? Enter the words you want to add, one on each line, using the Enter key after each one, then save and close the file. Once you've found your custom dictionary, open the file in Notepad. The easiest way to find the correct directory is just to run a search for the default file named: CUSTOM.DIC - your own custom dictionaries will be in the same place. It's generally:Ĭ:\Documents and Settings\ profile\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof (where profile is 'Administrator' or your profile name), but sometimes it can be in other places. The directory to which the file is saved can vary. To edit the custom dictionary directly, you first have to find it. If this happens, you can edit the dictionary directly. In Word 2000, editing custom dictionaries can sometimes cause Word to hang or crash.
Back in the Custom Dictionaries dialog, tick the checkbox beside the new dictionary, then click the Modify button.In the Create Custom Dictionary dialog, type in a name for the new dictionary and click Save.In the Custom Dictionaries dialog, click the New button.
Go to the Tools menu and select Options.Word lets you create up to 10 additional custom dictionaries, and this can come in handy when writing for the Web.įor example, you can create a custom dictionary called 'Web' and include words such as 'favorites' and 'bookmarking', which might be spelling mistakes in documents that don't concern the Internet.
Microsoft Word includes a custom dictionary that keeps a list of words you want to acknowledge as correctly spelled, even though Word's default dictionary doesn't recognise them.