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Use Alt+Enter in Microsoft Word for spell checking quick-fixes

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Alex Berezoutsky

Sometimes we receive feedback on the most popular ReSharper keyboard shortcut, Alt+Enter, not being available outside of Visual Studio. This is a bit confusing for ReSharper users working in Microsoft Word where spell-checking comes with a curly underline for grammar and spelling errors in document — similar to how ReSharper highlights errors and warnings in Visual Studio. Proofing suggestions in Word are by default applied with a right mouse click or an unfamiliar shortcut, which kind of slows down document editing for ReSharper (or IntelliJ IDEA) users.

Here are some easy steps to make the renowned Alt+Enter shortcut to apply “quick-fixes” as well as navigate between errors in Microsoft Word documents. The following guide is based on Microsoft Word 2010; however, the steps are very similar in previous versions (for example, Word 2007 or 2003).

Open the Word Options dialog box by choosing File | Options (Word 2007: Office button | Word Options.)
Click Customize Ribbon (Word 2007: Customize.)
Click Customize in the Keyboard shortcuts area (in Word 2003, the button can be reached by selecting Tools | Customize | Commands.)
In All Commands category, find a command called NextMisspelling. It is mapped to Alt+F7 by default.
In the Press new shortcut key field, press Alt+Enter (it will be displayed as Alt+Return in the dialog):
Click Assign, and you’re done!

Now gently close all dialogs and enjoy Alt+Enter displaying the spelling correction menu in Microsoft Word! Note that you can even press it anywhere in a Word document (not necessarily directly on a curly underline) to navigate to the next spelling or grammar error, and open the correction menu upon it:

#fun #ReSharper

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6 Responses to Use Alt+Enter in Microsoft Word for spell checking quick-fixes

terrorix says:
April 19, 2011
Nice one, first when read the title i think that you integrate R# within Word 😀
Roland says:
April 19, 2011
You should integrate R# with everything ! that would be awesome ! (but most features would not be used :S)
If I want to find something in my mail, its automatically CTRL+T. Too much coding I guess….
Joseph Guadagno says:
April 19, 2011
I’ve been looking for this in Word and Outlook for a long time. I have hit alt+return so many times when typing an email.
Laurent Kempé says:
April 19, 2011
No that alt+enter is done ! it would be nice to have ctrl-space in Word 😉
veeresh says:
March 2, 2015
thanks for this looking for this from ages
Robert Gale says:
October 26, 2016
For those not wishing to use Alt-Enter, Shift-F10 does this by default (Word 2016, and I presume earlier versions).