One of the biggest complaints that we’ve heard from WordPress beginners about the post editor is that it cannot spellcheck.
This is why some users prefer to create their initial drafts using desktop apps like Microsoft Word which have basic spelling and grammar check options. Some users even depend on their browser’s spell check feature.
However, using these tools means you may still miss errors while editing articles in WordPress.
For those who want to create error-proof articles, we have the solution just for you. In this article, we will show you how to check grammar and spelling mistakes in WordPress.
Adding Grammar and Spelling Check Option in WordPress Post Editor
There are many WordPress plugins as well as some online tools to help improve your writing. We tried all the popular grammar-checking solutions and finally chose Grammarly as the best option for our team.
Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant which helps you avoid grammar and spelling mistakes in your writing. It automatically checks spelling and grammar as you write and highlights the errors, so you can fix it.
It is a free tool with paid upgrade for more features. With its free edition, you will be able to fix critical grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Premium edition comes with advanced grammar, sentence structure, and style features to further improve your writing. The premium version also has a plagiarism detector that checks more than 16 billion web pages.
Install Grammarly Extension on Your Web Browser
The easiest way to use Grammarly with WordPress is by installing their browser extension. It has a free browser extension for all major web browsers.
The best part of using the Grammarly browser extension is that it works across all websites. You can get instant proof-reading for your emails, social media posts, Google Docs, Slack, and more.
You can install the extension by visiting the official Grammarly website. It will automatically detect your browser and show you a button to add the extension.
You can click the button to get started and follow the on-screen instructions.
When the process is complete, you will see the Grammarly icon added to your browser. Upon clicking on the icon, a small popup will appear with a ‘Sign Up’ button. Click on the button to start the setup process.
Now, a new tab will open in your browser for creating a Grammarly account. You can sign up with an email address or by using your Facebook or Google account.
Next, you will need to enter a new password and your name. Then, click on the ‘Sign Up’ button to continue.
Grammarly will ask you to select why you write and which level of writing skills you have. You can answer these questions, or you can skip this step.
On the next step, you will be asked to choose a plan for your account. You can start with a free account or choose a premium plan.
With the free plan, you can fix critical grammar, basic punctuation, and spelling errors. The premium plan has advanced grammar checks, style suggestions, and other premium features.
If you choose the free edition, then it will take you to your Grammarly account page.
But if you want to use the premium edition, then you will need to complete the checkout process first.
After you have completed the signup process, your Grammarly browser extension will start working in your WordPress post editor as well as any other text field across the web.
Checking Grammar and Spelling Mistakes in WordPress
Now that you’ve successfully added the Grammarly extension to your browser, it will start giving you writing suggestions in WordPress post editor. It works with both, the new Gutenberg block editor and the old classic editor.
Simply open the WordPress post editor and start writing. Grammarly will start proofreading in real time and will notify you about spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
As shown in the screenshot above, you will see a red underline for critical writing errors, number of total critical issues, and the Grammarly icon on each text block.
Simply click on the underlined word to see the suggested correction.
If you want to accept the suggestion, then click on the suggested word in green color.
If you want your sentence to be just as it is, then you can click the ‘Ignore’ link next to delete icon. Doing so removes the Grammarly suggestion.
At the bottom, you will notice the ‘See more in Grammarly’ option. Clicking on that will open a new Grammarly window where you can see all the other Grammarly suggestions for your paragraph.
As shown in the screenshot above, you can see your critical writing issues underlined with red color and the advanced issues highlighted with yellow color.
Now you can review the suggestions by clicking on the underlined word or phrase.
After you have reviewed all the Grammarly suggestions, you can click the ‘Back to Edit Post’ icon. Doing so will take you back to WordPress post editor with writing errors fixed.
After proofreading your article, you can now go ahead and save your changes.
Other Ways to Use Grammarly
The Grammarly browser extension makes it easy to fix your grammar, spelling, and other writing mistakes in WordPress editor. However, there are few other ways to use Grammarly as well.
We will explain them briefly here.
1. Using Grammarly as a Web Application
Grammarly has a simple web application that you can open in your web browser. It provides you with a platform where you can type or upload a document.
Open Grammarly.com on your browser and log into your account. You will reach your Grammarly account dashboard. From here, you can create a new document or upload one from your computer.
Using the Grammarly cloud editor, you can write and proofread just like you would with the browser extension.
Once you are done editing, you can copy the article and paste it in your WordPress post editor.
2. Using Grammarly as a Microsoft Office Add-in or a Desktop App
If you prefer writing in Microsoft Word, then you can use the Grammarly Microsoft Office add-in and create great content. Similarly, you can also install a desktop app on your computer.
You can install both Microsoft Office add-in and the desktop app from your Grammarly web application. Once installed, you will need to log into your Grammarly account and then use it just as in other platforms.
We hope this article helped you check WordPress posts for spelling and grammar mistakes. You may also want to see our list of the best content marketing tools and plugins for WordPress.
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Ahmed elsayed says
Can I accept all suggestions on the WordPress page one time with one click to save them for the whole post instead of doing it one word by one word?
WPBeginner Support says
Not at the moment, if you wanted that feature, you could recommend it to their support.
Admin
George says
Thank you. I had totally forgotten about Grammarly!
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome
Admin
Cindi Dean Wafstet says
Grammerly was working great for me and then suddenly disappeared. I even upgraded to a paid account hoping that work, but it still isn’t on my WordPress account. What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?
WPBeginner Support says
We would recommend reaching out to Grammarly’s support and they would be able to assist.
Admin
Cindi Dean Wafstet says
Thanks… it’s working now. Seems like it was just a delay.
Jesseca says
I’ve struggled with this for a long time, and I *finally* found the answer.
Grammarly only works on WordPress IF you access it through the wp-admin interface. Go to the main page of your website and add “/wp-admin/” and then access the post or page you want to proofread with Grammarly.
It’s definitely a pain, but it does work. More or less.
George says
It’s good to know that Grammarly works for you with Gutenberg but for me, it doesn’t. I just recently updated my WP to V5.
Are you using FFox or Chrome for WP editing?
It doesn’t do anything for me in Chrome but before updating to Gutemberg it worked great…
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
WPBeginner Support says
We’ve used both browsers you may want to ensure that Grammarly is up to date and not disabled for your admin area for common reasons why it isn’t showing you the errors.
Admin
Luong Nguyen says
I do not know English but I want to create a blog to share in English, so is it ok to use it?
WPBeginner Support says
That would be a personal preference decision for deciding the language you use for your site.
Admin
Anastasios Lefas says
Great article with detailed usage explanation and easy to follow instructions Thanks for sharing
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you, glad you like our article
Admin
Vladimír Juroško says
Thank you for great post. I use for this purpose Grammarly.
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad you’re using Grammarly
Admin
Andrea Pilotti says
I’m looking for Italian grammar checking
WPBeginner Support says
We do not have a recommended grammar checker for other languages at the moment but we will keep an eye out
Admin
Jeremy says
It is a good extension but being that I do web design I have seen that it can glitch the saving post or pages in WordPress that is the main issue if using while editing or creating posts or pages
WPBeginner Support says
Thanks for sharing your experience with it, while we didn’t run into that issue we will keep an eye out
Admin
Brett Strydom says
The TinyMCE Spell Checker plugin has been abandoned. What a shame really. I would have used it in a heartbeat.
Daniel says
Hi
Firstly AtD is was done of my favourite addons – built originally by a talented lady developer as I recall. However, it seems to have an issue when it checks a update to a post ( not the initial check): it messes with the formatting e.g. images appear misaligned. In the end I uncheck the check on an amendment” option as it came a really pain. The pre-jetpack version also had this issue last time I used it in this way. Do you know if this issue has been resolved.
WPBeginner Support says
Daniel, we were unable to see the issue you described with this fork of the plugin.
Admin
Kathleen Fee says
Thank you for your generous free time to help us beginners! Should this plug in be giving us spelling suggestions or just showing us spelling errors? Thanks again!
WPBeginner Support says
It will show suggestions as well.
Admin
gkrish says
nice and useful article
Aditya Shirodkar says
I’ll definitely give tinycme a try right away :)… Thanks!
Jerry Zurek says
We use WordPress for a newspaper and so we have many users. Does each user have to turn it on for herself or is there a universal switch?
WPBeginner Support says
It will be available to each user in the post editor. But users can set how they want the button to proofread content for them,
Admin
Krish Murali Eswar says
We use Grammarly. We have tried the tinycme but not happy with the results.
Boby Kurniawan says
Great info thanks, now i can learn to post with english