Call the Microsoft Word Spell Checker

This sample shows how to add spell checking and thesaurus capabilities to your VB application using the Microsoft Word Object Library.

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To use the MS Word spell checker, a variable of type Word.Application is declared and a call to the CreateObject function is made to create an instance of MS Word. The instance has its visible and windowstate properties set so MS Word is not visible to the end user. Next, a new document is created within the MS Word application.

A loop is entered which parses the text entered into the textbox into space delimited words. For each word found, a document range is defined and its content is set to the word just parsed out.

A call is then made to the document's SpellingErrors method which checks the word and returns a collection of misspelled words. If the collection's count property is greater than zero, the suggested replacement words are sought.

A call to the application's GetSpellingSuggestions method, passing in the incorrectly spelled word, populates a SpellingSuggestions collection of suggested replacement words. This collection is enumerated and its contents are added to a listbox so the user can select a replacement word.

Once a new word is chosen, it replaces the bad word in the textbox and the parsing continues.

Using the thesaurus is a bit simpler. Instead of parsing the entire text, you highlight the single word to check. As before, a range is created and populated. Then a call the document's CheckSynonyms method is made. This method displays its own selection dialog. Once a new word is selected, the range's content is used to replace the original word.

This program references the Microsoft Word 8.0 Object Library. If you are running a different version of Word, select the correct object library from the Project | References menu.

Run the program and enter some text with a few incorrectly spelled words into the textbox. Click the spell check button and select the correctly spelled word from the list of suggestions. You can also enter in your own word.

To use the thesaurus, enter some text, highlight a word, and click the thesaurus button.