Update - April 9 - Microsoft has revealed it is now rolling out the Notepad update with the spellchecker feature to members of the Windows Insider program in the Beta and Release Preview channels.
Original story - March 21 - Recently, enthusiasts spotted a big new feature coming to Notepad in Windows 11: spellchecker. Today, Microsoft made the thing official, and it is now rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev and Canary Channels.
The latest Notepad update (version 11.2402.18.0) will help you keep an eye on your writing by highlighting misspelled words and offering suggestions for quick proofreading. You can fix typos by right-clicking underlined words or pressing Shift + F10 on your keyboard. In addition, Notepad will autocorrect common mistakes to save you some clicks.
No spellcheck is perfect, so Notepad will let you ignore a suggestion or add a word to the dictionary so it is no longer flagged as a mistake.
Since many customers and developers use Notepad to edit log files and code, Microsoft lets you toggle off autocorrect for specific file types. Some, such as log files, have spellchecker turned off by default. You can change that in the settings section.
From the official announcement post:
Getting started with spellcheck in Notepad is easy as misspelled words are automatically underlined in red. To fix a spelling mistake, click, tap, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift + F10 on the misspelled word to see suggested spellings. Selecting a suggestion immediately updates the word. You can also choose to ignore words in a single document or add them to the dictionary, so they are not flagged as a mistake again. Spellcheck in Notepad supports multiple languages.
This feature is enabled by default for some file types but is off by default in log files and other file types typically associated with coding. You can toggle this setting on or off globally or for certain file types in Notepad app settings or temporarily for the current file in the context menu. We’ve organized the settings page as well to make it easier to find and adjust Notepad app settings.
Spellcheck for Notepad is now rolling out to Windows Insiders. The rollout is gradual, which means some users will get the update later than others.