The new spell checker is available in Chrome Canary

Jul 8, 2019 12:39 GMT  ·  By

As one of the largest contributors to Chromium after deciding to use this engine for Microsoft Edge browser, software giant Microsoft is now bringing quite a lot of features to the likes of Google Chrome.

Most recently, Microsoft started the work on a new feature that essentially brought the Windows spell checker to Chromium browsers, a thing which for the Redmond-based company makes total sense.

In a commit describing this implementation, Microsoft explains that the Windows spell checker can be included in Chromium browsers, allowing the switch between it and the existing Hunspell checker.

“This CL aims to implement windows spellchecker integration in Chromium project, so that user can switch to use windows spellchecker or hunspell spellchecker at run time. We need to implement platform agnostic interfaces to integrate windows spellchecker into Chromium. We also need to refactor some code to enable runtime switch between Windows spellchecker and hunspell spellchecker,” the commit reads.

Needless to say, such capabilities would only be possible on Windows, and not on Mac, despite Microsoft Edge (and other Chromium-based browsers, also available on Apple’s platform).

Windows spell checker in Google Chrome

Despite this feature being developed by Microsoft, it takes a while until it makes its way to Microsoft Edge, especially since the browser is a work-in-progress and there are several other improvements that could be prioritized.

Meanwhile, the Windows spell checker was integrated into Google Chrome, so the search giant moved a little bit faster to give this new implementation a try.

The Windows spell checker was introduced in the latest Canary version of the browser, so anyone running this experimental build of the browser can give it a try right away.

Before anything, it’s important to keep in mind that this just the first implementation of the Windows spell checker in a Chromium browser, so you may not notice too many substantial differences in the browser. Also, given it’s only part of the Canary build, you shouldn’t use it as you daily driver, but only to see what this new feature is all about.

The Windows spell checker is part of Google Chrome Canary version 77.0.3847.0, so you must be running at least this build to be able to give it a try.

The first step is launching the browser and entering the experimental flags configuration screen, which you can do by typing the following code in the address bar:


chrome://flags
Using the search box at the top of the screen, perform a search for the following flag:
Use the Windows OS spellchecker
There is also a shortcut, just in case you want to do the whole thing faster, and you need to copy the following link and paste it in the address bar of Google Chrome Canary:
chrome://flags/#win-use-native-spellchecker
The drop-down menu next to this flag lets you control its state. By default, this feature is still disabled because, as I said earlier, the Windows spell checker in Chromium browser is still an experiment and Google and Microsoft still need to implement additional refinements before shipping it as enabled for everyone.

So click the drop-down menu and select the enabled setting to activate the spell checker. Once you do that, the browser should ask for a reboot, which is necessary to save your settings and enable the flag. After relaunching the browser, the new spell checker should be up and running.

Microsoft hasn’t provided any ETA as to when this flag could become available in Microsoft Edge Canary, but it shouldn’t take too long given Google has already included it in its Chromium browser.

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Google Chrome already features the new flag
Windows spell checker in Google Chrome
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