Thunderbird: Spell Check

Thunderbird's Spell Checker

Thunderbird can check your spelling:

as you type,
when you send a message,
both as you type and when you send,
or neither.

You can also have Thunderbird spell check at any time by clicking the Spell icon in the toolbar.

Spell checking is available in many languages.

To set the spell check options, use the menus to select Tools - Options.
(Macintosh users: from the Thunderbird menu, select Preferences.)

Click on the Composition icon.

Click on the Spelling tab.

If the first checkbox is checked, Thunderbird will check the spelling in your outgoing message when you click Send; before sending the message, Thunderbird will prompt you to act on the words it believes are misspelled. You can accept its suggestions, edit words manually, tell Thunderbird to ignore a particular word in this message, or add the word to your dictionary. You can also cancel the spell check and send the message at any point.

If the second checkbox is checked, Thunderbird will check your spelling as you type, indicating misspelled words with a red underline. Right-click on a marked word to see a list of suggestions, to tell Thunderbird to ignore the word, or to add the word to your dictionary.

You can have any combination: both checked, both unchecked, only one checked, or only the other checked.

If you use more than one language, you can select which dictionary you want Thunderbird to use. By default, only the English/United States dictionary is available, but clicking the Download More Dictionaries link will take you to a page on the Mozilla web site where you can get dictionaries for other languages. After following the installation instructions on that page, you will be able to select additional languages from the drop-down list on the Spelling tab.

Last updated: May 23, 2007