Tardis:Spell checking with Chrome

Use British English Spelling → What SpellBot actually corrects → Spell checking → Spelling cheat card → Spell checking with a Mac → Spell checking with Firefox → Spell checking with Opera → SpellBot → Full sentences → Grammar → Spelling we've agreed by discussion → Spell checking with Chrome

Spell checking using the Chrome browser is easy to set up and requires no add-ons or extensions. It's important to be spell checking in British English while editing this site, because that's the way we roll on this site.

Shortcut:

T:CHROME SPELL

Chrome has fairly intelligent British spell checking included by default. Selection of the target spell check language is often done seamlessly.

Windows

During Windows installation, you're prompted to select a language. If you choose British English at this point, you'll be spell checking in British English. If you didn't choose British English at installation, then you'll have to manually change it by going to

Settings > Show advanced settings > Languages and spell-checker settings

and follow the intuitive menus you see there. If you need more help, search your Chrome help files, looking for the term "spell-check".

Mac

In Mac installations, Chrome simply grabs the primary language from OS X's Language & Text preference pane, and assumes that you'll want to spell check in whatever language OS X itself believes is primary. In other words, if you've already set up your machine to work in British English, you won't have to do a thing to be spell checking in British English with Chrome.

If you're not set up to spell check in British English read this explanation of how to make the necessary changes.

Mac users: Safari versus Chrome

Safari for Mac offers the best British spelling environment, as of 2012. That's why we generally recommend that Mac users edit with Safari only.

However, because Chrome is mostly integrated with OS X, many users will have British spell checking by default with Chrome, as long as they've followed the instructions at Help:Spell checking with a Mac. Again, if your OS X installation is set up such that British English is the preferred flavour of English, Chrome will automatically spell check in British English. And the quality of British spell checking is far superior to that which Firefox offers.

Nevertheless, although Chrome offers a solid British spell checking environment, we still recommend that you edit with Safari, especially when you're making larger edits. Why? Chrome doesn't auto-correct or auto-suggest like Safari does. So although it flags misspellings accurately enough, you'll still make fewer British spelling errors with Safari than Chrome.