Spelling and grammar
 

In Word 2000 you may compose your documents without turning on the spelling and grammar checks, if you find all the underlining disconcerting, but it is sometimes useful to use these features from time to time.

First turn off both features in the Tools/Options dialogue box. Then, as you work, select the text you want to check and click the Spelling and Grammar button on the toolbar. If you don't like using your mouse, press F7 on your keyboard. Word 2000 checks only the selected text, though you are given the opportunity to check the rest of the document as well. This might work on other versions of Word.

OpenOffice does not have a grammar checker, but you can check spelling in the way described. You'll find the button in the side toolbar in versions prior to 2.0. In version 2.0 use the Tools/Auto-Correct dialog box to tailor the spell checking to your way of working.

StarOffice is built on OpenOffice.org and has the same features. Version 8.0 of StarOffice is the equivalent of version 2.0 of OpenOffice.