How can I spell check web pages from the browser?

Question

How can I spell check web pages when browsing them? I've added the After the Deadline Chrome extension, but it only seems to work on forms and not whole web pages. I'm happy to use Firefox if that provides a solution.

Answer 1

In Chrome, open the console by pressing Ctrl + Shift + J. In the console, type the following and hit Enter.

document.body.contentEditable = true;
document.designMode = 'on';

This will make the page editable and the built-in spell checker of Chrome will be able to highlight anything misspelled.

Answer 2

Use the bookmarklet from Switched.com: how-to-spell-check-any-web-site-using-firefox

You can drag-n-drop the bookmarklet link on your bookmarks bar.
You may have to drag-select the content of your page to force refresh spell check on the website's content.

Works in Chrome.

Answer 3

I have found out a way to do it.

First you need to make the content editable:

document.body.contentEditable = true;
document.designMode = 'on';

Then as you are proofreading the page, select the text you want to spellcheck, then Ctrl+X to cut and Ctrl+V to insert it back. This should trigger the spellchecking of that block of text.

Answer 4

I can recommend SpellcheckEverything extension for Firefox. I’s very simple – it just forwards all the work to the spellchecker used for textareas in forms.

Inside, it works pretty much like this well-known bookmarklet:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true';document.designMode='on';void%200

From SpellcheckEverything @ Mozilla Addons, with typos fixed:

This add-on brings the body-tag of the current webpage into the contendEditable-mode. Thus the whole page will be treated as editable content and therefore the whole text will be spellchecked.

The add-on requires the Firefox-Spellcheck-Feature to be enabled. You will also need download the language files for the Firefox-Spellcheck-Feature.

This only applies to version 0.2 which is available by clicking on "Versions" before it will get reviewed: A "SpellCheck" button will appear in the statusbar. A click on that button will enable SpellcheckEverything and indicate the status by changing its color to green. Turn it off by a second click on that button.

_{Kudos to How can you check spelling on an existing webpage? @ Mozilla Support. Without that Q&A, I would miss this addon.}

Answer 5

Use Spell Checker (it hasn't been updated for newer versions of Firefox).

Answer 6

LanguageTool (for Chrome, for Firefox) can do that. Select the text and click on the "LT" in the browser's toolbar to check static text. Text that you write yourself into forms gets checked automatically. (Disclosure: I'm the author of these add-ons).