This tutorial shows how to use the Editor in Word for Microsoft 365.
Hello, my name is Erin.
I’m a professional copy editor who shares writing tips for the real world on this channel
and on my blog at erinwrightwriting.com.
Today’s tutorial shows how to use the Editor in Word for Microsoft 365,
which is formerly Office 365.
Editor is the new name for Word’s spelling and grammar check.
If you are using an older version of Word
or your spelling and grammar check looks different than the one shown here,
please see my previous tutorial titled “How to Use Microsoft Word 2016’s Spelling and Grammar Check,”
which is linked below.
This tutorial covers five topics: How to select grammar issues and refinements.
How to run the editor.
How to review the Editor’s suggested corrections.
How to finish the edit.
And, how to run a fresh edit.
In addition to spelling, the Editor can check for over sixty-five grammar issues and refinements
such as hyphenation, passive voice, Oxford comma, and clichés.
You should select your grammar issues and refinements before running the Editor the first time.
After that, the software should remember your selections so you shouldn’t have to make
these selections every time you run the Editor on your current document.
To begin, select the File tab in the ribbon.
Then, select the Options tab in the Backstage view.
Next, select the Proofing tab in the Word Options dialog box.
Note that if your Editor pane is already open, you can access the Word Options dialog box
by selecting the Settings button at the bottom of the pane.
If you want issues to be marked in the text as you type,
ensure that "Check spelling as you type"
and "Mark grammar errors as you type" are selected.
Ensure that Check grammar and refinements in the Editor Pane is selected
to include grammar and refinements.
And, ensure that "Hide spelling errors in this document only"
and "Hide grammar errors in this document only" are not selected.
On a side note, always run the Editor,
even if you chose to have spelling and grammar issues marked as you type,
because you may not notice all the in-line edits.
Plus, the Editor pane seems to be more thorough than the check provided as you type.
Next, select Grammar & Refinements or Grammar in the Writing Style drop-down menu.
Most users will want to choose Grammar & Refinements because it offers more options.
If you want to finetune your grammar and refinement options, select the Settings button.
And then select or deselect options from the Grammar Settings dialog box.
Finally, select the OK button to close the Grammar Settings dialog box.
Followed by the OK button to close the Word Options dialog box.
To run the Editor, begin by selecting the Home tab in the ribbon.
Then, select the Editor button.
Note that the Editor button is also available in the Review tab.
The Editor will start running immediately.
The Editor pane tells you how many potential errors you have in each category.
A green check mark indicates there are no errors in the category.
To review the Editor’s suggested corrections, select the category you want to review.
The options are spelling, grammar, clarity, conciseness, formality, and punctuation conventions.
Or, select Total Suggestions at the top of the pane
to review all the suggestions in order of appearance in your document.
If you have a spelling error, choose a suggestion to change the individual error.
Or, open the drop-down menu for the suggestion and select Change All to change every instance of the error.
You can also choose Ignore Once to ignore that spelling one time,
Ignore All to ignore that spelling every time it appears in the document,
or Add to Dictionary to add the word with its current spelling to your custom dictionary.
If the Editor is unable to provide any spelling suggestions,
it will still let you add the word to your custom dictionary, ignore the word once,
or ignore all instances of the word.
Once you have made your decision, the Editor will automatically move to the next spelling error.
Note that you can also use the navigation arrows at the top of the pane to skip to the next error.
If you have a grammar or refinement issue that you want to change, choose a suggestion from the pane.
Or, select Ignore Once to ignore that instance of the issue
or "Don’t check for this issue" to stop checking for that type of issue in the rest of the document.
Select the down arrow toward the top of the pane if you want additional information about the issue.
As with spelling, remember that you can also use the navigation arrows at the top of the pane
to skip to the next issue.
The Editor will automatically stop after you have accepted or ignored all its suggestions.
If you included readability statistics in your proofing options in the Word Options dialog box,
the Readability Statistics dialog box will appear now.
Select the OK button to close the Readability Statistics dialog box.
Whether or not you chose to include Readability Statistics,
a dialog box will appear stating that the Editor is complete.
Select the OK button to close that dialog box.
If you updated your text since running the Editor, you may want to run a fresh check.
To begin, select the File tab in the ribbon.
Then, select Options in the Backstage view.
Followed by Proofing in the Word Options dialog box.
Now, select the Recheck Document button.
A dialog box will appear stating that the new spelling and grammar check, which is the Editor,
will recheck issues that you ignored during the last check.
Select the Yes button.
Then, select the OK button to close the Word Options dialog box
and return to the Home tab or the Review tab to rerun the Editor.
The companion blog post for this video listing all the steps we just performed appears on
erinwrightwriting.com, which is linked below.
Feel free to leave me a comment if there’s a specific topic related to Microsoft Word
or Adobe Acrobat that you would like me to talk about in the future.
And please subscribe to my channel and give this video a thumbs-up if you found it helpful.
Thank you so much for watching!