Checking Spelling and Grammar

TypeMetal can check your spelling and grammar, to help you produce error-free content.

TypeMetal’s spelling and grammar checking allows for mixed-language documents. When parts of a document are annotated with “lang” or “xml:lang” attributes, TypeMetal uses the provided language information to ensure that each part of your document is checked against the appropriate dictionary and grammar rules. When all or part of a document doesn’t explicitly specify a language, TypeMetal can usually make a good best guess based on the document’s content and the preferred language you’ve configured in macOS’ “Language & Region” settings.

Requesting Spell-Checking

TypeMetal uses macOS’ standard “Spelling and Grammar” panel, menu items, and key bindings, which you’re likely to be familiar with from other applications.

Typing Command+; initiates spell-checking of your document’s text content, starting at the current insertion point or the end of the current selection. This corresponds to the Edit → Spelling and Grammar → Check Document Now menu command.

If spell-checking finds no issues in your document, TypeMetal briefly displays a “✔ Spelling OK” notification over your content area.

If spell-checking identifies a suspected misspelling, TypeMetal selects the possibly misspelled word and shows the Spelling and Grammar panel, which offers suggested replacements.

The Spelling and Grammar panel works the same as in other applications, as outlined below.

Correcting a Misspelling

To replace the text that’s selected in your document (the suspected misspelled word), you can:

• Double-click a desired replacement in the panel’s suggestion list, or
• Click a desired replacement in the panel’s suggestion list, and then click the “Change” button, or
• Type some other replacement in the text field at the top of the panel (if none of the panel’s suggestions is the intended word), and click the “Change” button.

TypeMetal performs the replacement, then proceeds to the next suspected misspelling.

Skipping a Word

If the word TypeMetal has highlighted isn’t actually misspelled, you can click the “Find Next” button, or type Command+;, to disregard it and proceed to the next suspected misspelling (if any).

If you want, you can click the “Ignore” button, which causes TypeMetal’s spell-checking to ignore the suspect word throughout the current document, for the duration of your current editing session.

If the word is a correctly spelled word that isn’t in the system dictionary (perhaps a technical term or other recent coinage that you use often), you can click “Learn” to add it to the system dictionary. This has essentially the same effect as “Ignore”, but it’s applied permanently across all applications and documents. “Learn” is handy, but take care to use it only with words you’re really sure about.

Requesting Grammar-Checking

You can check the Spelling and Grammar panel’s “Check grammar” checkbox on, or do the same to the Edit → Spelling and Grammar → Check Grammar With Spelling menu command, to ask TypeMetal to also check your document’s grammar and offer suggested corrections. The conventions for replacing, skipping, or ignoring suspected grammar issues are the same as for spell-checking. To ensure correct grammar-checking, TypeMetal starts from the beginning of a sentence when grammar-checking is enabled.