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Admin: Spell checking and dictionary settings (SWOOP for SharePoint Intranet)

Introduction

Spell checking reviews SharePoint content and highlights words that may be misspelled.

It supports different language settings so the check can better match the language used in your content. This is important because the same word may be correct in one language or regional variant and incorrect in another.

The feature also lets you manage words that should not be treated as mistakes. This helps reduce repeated false positives for organisation-specific terms, names, acronyms, and other accepted words.

If enabled, AI spelling can be enabled to improve checking. SWOOP for SharePoint Intranet also supports multilingual content, although results can be mixed when more than one language appears on the same page.

Why you would use it

You would use this feature to:

  • improve the quality and consistency of SharePoint pages
  • reduce obvious spelling mistakes in published content
  • make results more accurate for your organisation’s preferred language
  • avoid repeated false positives for accepted words
  • support content written in English variants such as Australian, British, Canadian, or US English
  • help reviewers and content owners focus on genuine spelling issues

How spell-checking works and how to configure it

SWOOP will automatically attempt to detect which language the page is written in. There are country-specific spelling of English so it is recommended to select the dominant country. Use ‘Choose a region for English’ to do this. Currently this feature only applies to different versions of English, but may be expanded to other languages in the future.

There are cases where it is not possible to detect the language automatically (for example, there is very little text on the page, ie on a few words). In these cases you can set the default language using the ‘Choose a language’ dropdown selection. Choose the main language that best matches the content in your SharePoint environment.

For organisations where English is the standard language used on the intranet, set English (and the local variant) for both ‘Choose a region’ and ‘choose a language’.

AI spelling

AI spelling is available in all SWOOP regions apart from Germany, and you can turn it on to use AI-assisted spelling checks.

AI spelling does not directly depend on language detection in the same way as standard checking. However, when the system checks AI output, language detection is still used at that stage.

Ignored words

You can manage ignored words so accepted words are not repeatedly flagged.

This is useful for:

  • product names
  • brand names
  • internal terms
  • abbreviations
  • proper names commonly used in your organisation

Do not rely on ignored words to fix a poor language setting. If many ordinary words are being flagged, review the language settings first.

What happens after you save

When you save language settings, the changes are sent to the data miner.

The miner will pick up the changes, but you should not expect the updated language settings to appear immediately. Changes to language settings may take from 24 hours to one week to be noticed.

Ignored words are faster to update. They usually take effect after the cache is refreshed, when the miner updates the analytics engine. This normally happens within 6 to 12 hours.

Because of this delay, it is normal for older spell check results to remain visible for a period after saving changes.

Common Examples

Example 1: Your organisation uses Australian English

If your SharePoint content is mainly written in Australian English, set:

  • the ‘Choose main language’ to English (Australia)
  • the ‘Choose a region for English’ to English (Australia)

This helps prevent correct words such as local English spellings from being treated as mistakes.

Example 2: A brand name keeps being flagged

If a product name, team name, or internal acronym keeps appearing as a spelling issue, add it to your ignored words so it is no longer flagged after the next refresh.

Example 3: A page contains mixed languages

If a page includes more than one language, SWOOP will still try to check it for spelling. However, mixed-language pages can produce mixed results. In these cases, use the main language setting carefully and review results with extra attention.

Example 4: English content appears on a multilingual site

If the system detects the content as English, it will use the selected English variant. This helps keep English spelling checks consistent even when the wider site contains other languages.

Best practices

  • set the main language to the language most commonly used in your SharePoint content
  • choose the English variant that matches your editorial standard
  • use ignored words for accepted business terms, not for ordinary misspellings
  • allow time for saved changes to take effect before reviewing results again
  • review mixed-language pages carefully, as results may be less consistent
  • keep language settings aligned with how your authors actually write content
  • use ignored words sparingly so genuine mistakes are still easy to spot

Limitations or important notes

  • This documentation covers spell checking and dictionary-related behaviour only
  • The main language is used as a fallback when language detection does not work, or is not used for small sections of text
  • The English variant is used when the content is identified as English
  • Mixed-language pages are supported as well as possible, but results can be mixed
  • Changes to language settings are not immediate and can take from 24 hours to one week.
  • Ignored words usually update faster, within 6 to 12 hours after refresh