Word Needs a Little Help

Microsoft Word is a nice word processing program.  I use it daily.  Love it for many reasons.  For one thing, its spell checker does a great job of correcting misspelled words as long as the words are of the common or general use types.  However if I run a spell check check on misspelled medical words, the results are not satisfactory.

Does Word's built-in dictionary contain medical terms?

Yes, but only a handful of common medical words, but not enough to do a good spell check on a medical report for example.

To illustrate the point, a Word 2013 spell check was run on the following list of 72 words which had been verified as to the correctness of their spellings beforehand; the result was Microsoft Word's spell check did not recognize 40 of them because those 40 words were not in its spelling dictionary.  

So what are your options?

You either need to add your own medical words to Word's custom dictionary or get a ready made custom dictionary from a relevant, reputable business or organization.

Add your own medical words to the Microsoft Word custom dictionary.

 Word is set up for that. Advantages: It's free. You can pick and choose which words to add to it. And you'll gain experience working with Word. 

Disadvantages. It's a lot of work. And it can take forever, but you might need medical spelling help  right now. You can't always be sure of the quality of the sources of the words either.

Download a free one.

You could download a free medical custom dictionary from the Internet using your web browser.
There are several reputable websites, such as Download.com,  offering them. Advantages. They are free. You save a lot of time because they are already compiled for you. Just drop them into Word. 

Disadvantage. They may not be as comprehensive as some of the dictionaries you can purchase. Quality may be questionable in some cases.

Buy one.

You could purchase a Microsoft compatible ready made dictionary from a third party  software developer such as Spellex, Stedman's, Medispell, Sylvan, or Inductel. Advantages: More words. Technical support. Updates (free in some cases). Affordable. Warranty. 

Disadvantage. You have to pay for them. 

Hope that helps.

Thanks for reading.

Teddi Gray for Inductel, Inc.

email: info.inductel@gmail.com