How to: Enable Windows Spell Checker in Google Chrome

Google chrome has been using the open-source Hunspell Spell check library for a long time. But this lacks support for the email address, URLs, abbreviations, alpha number words, some location names, etc. This at times creates confusion and the users need to recheck the respelling.  Windows Spellcheck API solves this issue. Microsoft is working for the Chromium project with Google, to add the Windows Spellchecker API to Chromium-based browsers. These include their native browser Microsoft Edge and the commonly used browser Google Chrome. As per the design, if the browser needs to utilize the Windows Spellcheck API, the OS supports starts from Windows 8.1 and above. In the case of the Microsoft Edge browser, Windows Spellchecker is enabled out of the box starting in Edge v83, but for Google Chrome, as of now, it needs to turn on manually. So let’s go throw the steps which need to be performed.

Below is the snapshot of the difference in Hunspell Spellcheck and Windows spell check:

Steps to: Enable Windows Spellchecker in Google Chrome

1. Open the Google Chrome browser and navigate to flags by opening the typing below in the address bar.

   chrome://flags/

2. Search “Spell” in the search flag option.
3. You will get the below two option which needs to be enabled.
   • Use the Windows OS spell checker: Use the Windows OS spell checker to find spelling mistakes and provide spelling suggestions instead of using the Hunspell engine. – Windows. (Or, you can directly type below keyword in the address bar to directly navigate to this option)

     chrome://flags/#win-use-native-spellchecker

   • Use hybrid spell checking on Windows: Use both the Windows OS spell checker and the Hunspell engine to find spelling mistakes and provide spelling suggestions. Use the Windows OS spell checker first, but if a language isn’t supported, fall back to the Hunspell engine. The “Use the Windows OS spell checker” feature flag must be enabled, otherwise, this will not affect. – Windows. (Or, you can directly type below keyword in the address bar to directly navigate to this option)

     chrome://flags/#win-use-hybrid-spellchecker

4. Once both the flags are enabled, the browser needs to be relaunched. You will be able to see the relaunch popup on the bottom of the screen.
   
5. That’s it, once the browser is launched again, the Windows Spell check will be used automatically going forward.

Let us know if you were able to enable it or not. In case you faced any issue then do let us know in the comment section below, to enable us to check if we can help you in getting it resolved.