What Are Those Wavy Lines In Word?

The area I live in used to have a big typewriter factory. Then they started making word processors. It's been explained to me that the biggest difference between a typewriter and word processor is that a work processor would check your spelling and let you make corrections before the ink actually touched the paper. Nowadays, word processors are programs on computers that let you type things up. From there you can print it, email it, save it, and many other things.

The most common word processing program is Microsoft Office's Word. If you use a Mac there's iWork's Pages, and if you like free things there's a slew of free programs you can get from the Internet (Note: Be careful when downloading programs off the Internet. Not everything is what it claims to be!) In most word processing programs you can do things like make your text bold or underlined, center justified, and even add pictures, but the most basic thing is still the ability to have your spelling checked for you. If you've ever used one of these programs you may have noticed red lines appear under your misspelled words.

If you see a word with a red wavy line under it, right-click on it (that means pressing the button on the mouse that's on the right instead of the left like we usually do) and the program will suggest words it thinks you meant. Keep in mind that this will only catch misspelled words, not misused words. It won't catch "their, there, and they're" problems or "to, two, and too", but it's a very handy tool.

You may also see another kind of line; a green one. If you see a green wavy line under a section of your text that means that the program thinks there's a grammatical error. This will often find things like a word typed twice on accident, sentence fragments and other obvious errors, but again, there are things that it won't be able to detect. Just like with the red wavy line, if you right-click on the text that has the green line under it, the program will tell you what error it detects so you can make the correction.

Practical Tip of the Day:
If you're writing something that you're going to share with other people, always proofread it. I know this isn't a technical tip, but you can't replace an actual person reading something. Re-reading your document will find things spelling and grammar check can't catch like run on sentences and nonsensical grammar.