ieSpell - Spell Checker for your Browser

October 25th, 2006

Face it–most computer applications have a spell check feature that removes the pressure of us having to really know how to spell. They do a good job at trying to guess what we really meant when we mangle the letters of a word. Programs like Microsoft Word show us right away when a letter is misspelled, and sometimes even fix the most common errors automatically. This can perpetuate bad spelling habits as we aren’t even reminded that we have made a mistake. However, with so much content being typed directly into web forms, our spelling safety net is gone, exposing our ignorance to the world.

Blogs, forums, Wikis, feedback forms, commenting systems–all of these ask for input directly into the browser, but alas, Internet Explorer (still the most popular browser) does not have a spell check tool. Some of us type or copy the text into Word (or any other program that has a spell check), do our proofing, and then copy into the form. This is hardly elegant.

Enter ieSpell, the Spell Checker add-on for Internet Explorer. I have been using this for a few weeks, and I can’t believe I had been getting along without it. It is available free, and once installed adds a button to your Standard Toolbar and some options to your Tools menu. You can expect it to work just like your Word spell checker, however personal dictionaries are not shared, so you will have to build this as you go.

click to enlarge

 If you do a lot of text entry on the web, you need this tool.

Link: ieSpell - Spell Checker add-on for Internet Explorer

Entry Filed under: Technology

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