Disable spellcheck Word 2016

[jthompson]

We set Deny permissions on a DLL component of the Office spell checker for our Exam user group. This seems to work pretty well. Disables the manual spell check, the red underlining and suggestions. If they try and run a spell check via the Ribbon or F7, they get the standard "Spelling and grammar check is complete", but no checks are actually performed.

The DLL files are:

Office 2010 - %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office14\PROOF\MSSP7EN.DLL

Office 2016 - %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\PROOF\msspell7.dll

Haven't tried this in Office 2013 or Office 2019, but I'd imagine it will work the same, although the specific dll may have changed, and the path of course.

We set the deny permission on this file via GPO. This doesn't disable the "Replace as you type" autocorrect feature, but the standard MS Office GPO Templates and Disable UI controls mentioned above can mop up these little bits.

 

Office 2013 - %programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office15\PROOF\msspell7.dll

 

Most of the GPO approach works fine for Office 2013. Most GPO guides for this are Word specific, but the same stuff can be applied against other Office apps, where there are similar GPO options. The numeric lists of commands and keystrokes to block need to be replicated for PowerPoint, Excel, etc.

 

The exceptions seems to be that F7 still brings up spellcheck in Excel 2013 and I get wibbly blue lines in Word. I've therefore gone the extra step and created a suitable security group and used a separate machine GPO to set deny privileges for this group on the msspell7.dll file. F7 in Excel now gives "Spelling and grammar check is complete". I just need to remember to apply the GPO and/I] drop relevent users into the security group as well.

[jthompson]

Setting deny privileges on %programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office15\PROOF\1033\MSGR3EN.DLL (the English grammar DLL) gets rid of the blue wibbly lines in Word 2013.

[ass17]

Just use Exam WritePad and you don’t have to worry about anything word/wordpad related.

 

I’m not bias, but it’s now being used in many many schools.

[jthompson]

Pupils here are still overwhelmingly using Word for everyday typing and there's a strong argument for allowing them to use the more familiar software for their exams. This is all mainly in the service of SEN arrangements, as well as pupils with anxiety issues, so I'm happy to provide LS staff with this option still.

[fredbayker]

Hi guys, I’ve set all this up with 2016 admx templates and ran a gpresult and also policy modelling. Everything seems to point to it applying correctly to the user yet it has no effect. All the proofing works as expected.

Does anybody have any suggestions please?

 

All I can think of at this point is we have 2013 admx templates too and maybe this is causing an issue.

[Si2100]

Does anyone know how to disable Synonyms via either gpo or reg key?

Thanks

 

+1 We also have this issue

[simpsonj]

Did anyone find a solution to the synonym issue?

 

If not, how would I deploy ExamWritePad, or is the best method to run it from the server?

[ass17]

Did anyone find a solution to the synonym issue?

 

If not, how would I deploy ExamWritePad, or is the best method to run it from the server?

 

Run if from server or like us we run a script that copies it to the local PC.

[georgeescott]

You can block the "Natural Language Thesaurus Service" DLL's (or the equivalent .LEX dictionary files) which should stop synonyms from working in Word.

In Office 2016 they exist here:

 

English:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\PROOF\msth8EN.DLL

Spanish:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\PROOF\msth8ES.DLL

French:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\PROOF\msth8FR.DLL

[georgeescott]

Microsoft Word 2016/Disable Items in User Interface/Custom

[TABLE=class: info3, width: 1165]

[TR]

[TH=align: left]Policy[/TH]

[TH=align: left]Setting[/TH]

[TH=align: left]Comment[/TH]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]

Disable commands

[/TD]

[TD]Enabled[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=colspan: 3][TABLE=class: subtable_frame, width: 1148]

[TR]

[TD=colspan: 2][TABLE=class: subtable, width: 1117]

[TR]

[TH=align: left]Enter a command bar ID to disable[/TH]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]2[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]2566[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]2349[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]15780[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]9056[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]6111[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]12842[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]14453[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]4025[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]3997[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]3958[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]790[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]3217[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]2349[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]329[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]3219[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]2469[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]2788[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]11323[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]7343[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]7387[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

You'll also need to add ID 27964 to block the 'Editor' button on the 'Review' tab in Word

[evasion]

There is however, this anomaly: "Turn off autocorrect misspelled words" under Regional and Language options (User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Control Panel):

You will have to do the opposite of what description says, to make it work. Tested and confirmed! I do not understand how designers of GPO templates pass quality control stage.

Edited June 16, 2023 by evasion

[petben]

Has anyone found a way to disable Spelling & Grammar from the 'Review' tab in Word365? I dont mind turning off the review tab completely if that's an option. GPO/Reg etc?

 

Thanks

[petben]

Has anyone found a way to disable Spelling & Grammar from the 'Review' tab in Word365? I dont mind turning off the review tab completely if that's an option. GPO/Reg etc?

 

Thanks

 

found it.....

 

I added ID - 11540 to kill the entire ‘Review’ tab in Word365

[broadld]

If you use the search box you can just search for spelling and grammar options and just change all the option back on Office 365 version of office. I can't find any way to disable this.

[KK20]

For 365 using your favourite MDM or GPO, have the exam user group denied access to the following folder:

 

Microsoft Office\root\Office16\PROOF

 

It may or may not affect you but dictate will also correct spellings for you. This would be a little harder to get away with in an exam though. You can block command ID 27914.

 

Yes I know many people use examwritepad but we need to offer "normal way of working" as dictated by our exams officer. They say, I do

Edited January 11, 2024 by KK20

[ITB0SS]

Hey my first post here

 

How's everyone rolling with this?

 

I had previously locked the laptops down and had been using WordPad but as a few have mentioned I'm also being forced to be using MS Office Word.

 

Decided to download Word 2016.iso ONLY from VLSC (don't know if this is the best version to use, using this as most policies seem to refer back to Office 2016)

 

I've just put everything above in place, testing now!

[Gongalong]

Thanks to all that have contributed to this. I have followed @thimon's excellent guide, and added the other subsequent bits. I've also denied student access to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\root\Office 16\Proof. I can see that it's all had some effect although I have two issues:

 

1. Word is still highlighting spelling errors with the red wavy line. I note that the GPO setting only mentions grammar, seems odd there isn't a separate setting for spelling.

2. Students can still use the search bar to find spelling which enables the editor.

 

Anyone know how to disable these?

 

Thanks

[saundy88]

Hi,

 

My first post here and we too are having to move to use MS Word for our exams (used wordpad previously but because we are on W11 24H2 this is now been removed). We've followed all your wonderful advice and we have block the grammar/spelling/predictive text and stop the red and blue lines and they are all disabled in the ribbon. But we have found that if you use the search bar in either office 2019 or 2021 you can turn the feature back on!

 

Has anyone found a workaround for this?

 

Many thanks

[thimon]

@Gongalong Thank you for the mention. Whilst the GPO / registry settings used to work with older versions of Office, I have found that nothing we did would permanently lock down Office 365, which we now only use. Because of that, all Office apps are now blocked from running in our exam settings, we now only use ExamWritePad. Hope that helps!

[Gongalong]

I was being a numpty and forgetting that enabling spelling via search did in turn enable the underlining of misspellings. So ordinarily misspellings won't be underlined. Oh well, a decision for our exams officer in terms of what to do!

[thimon]

Yeah I could not find any way to forcibly lockdown spelling / grammar settings in Office. Everything I put into place a user could just undo. Was the final push for us to go 100% ExamWritePad.

[CrootUK]

Anyone figured out how to disable "Text Predictions" in latest office 2510? I have found the registry to turn it off by default "Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\word\options\EnableInlineTextPrediction" but obviously kids can do into options using this button and reenable it.