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Spelling

φ checks your spelling as you write. Misspelled words get a subtle wavy underline, and you can correct them straight from the right-click menu — pick a suggestion, or choose Add to Dictionary to keep the word.

Everything lives in Settings → Language.

Check the whole document

When you'd rather review a finished draft in one deliberate pass, run Check spelling. φ walks every misspelling in order and, for each one, shows a small panel with suggestions and your choices — nothing is ever corrected automatically:

  • Change — replace this word with the suggestion (or type your own in the box).
  • Change all — fix every occurrence of the word in the document.
  • Ignore / Ignore all — skip this one, or every occurrence, for the rest of the pass.
  • Add to dictionary — keep the word everywhere, now and in future documents.

The word under review is highlighted in the text so you always see it in context, and a counter shows how many are left. Start the pass any way you like:

  • the command palette (⌘P) → Check spelling…
  • Edit → Check Spelling… in the menu
  • the shortcut ⌘⇧L
  • the spell-check button in the status bar

The whole-document check uses φ's bundled dictionaries (English, Spanish, and French are built in), so it works even when your everyday engine is your operating system's checker. If the document's language has no dictionary installed, φ points you to Settings → Language → Spelling to add one.

Choosing an engine

Under Settings → Language → Spelling you pick how φ checks spelling:

  • Native (default) — uses your operating system's spell-checker. It's light and leaves your system's writing tools untouched. On macOS the language is detected automatically; on Windows and Linux you choose the languages below.
  • Enhanced — uses φ's own bundled dictionaries, so you get the same high-quality checking on every operating system. English, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico) and French are built in.

Turn the whole feature off with the Check spelling toggle.

Languages

Choose which languages to check under Settings → Language → Spelling → Languages. You can pick more than one — a document is checked against all of them, so a word that's correct in any chosen language isn't flagged. This is what makes multilingual documents work.

Installing more languages

The Enhanced engine can use any Hunspell dictionary. To add one:

  1. Download a Hunspell dictionary (a folder with an .aff and a .dic file).
  2. Settings → Language → Spelling → Install language… and select the folder.

Per-document and per-vault overrides

Spelling settings cascade: document → vault → global. A more specific level wins, and anything you don't set falls back to the level above.

  • For one document: click the spell-check chip in the status bar (bottom of the window) to set this document's engine and languages. Choose Use default to clear the override and follow the vault/global setting again.
  • For a vault: Settings → Language → This vault sets a default for every document in the current vault. Choose Use global to clear it.

Personal dictionary

Words you add with Add to Dictionary are remembered across documents. Review or remove them under Settings → Language → Personal dictionary — removing a word makes φ flag it again.