Bindars Outlook Express Help Desk

Spell Checking does not work in Outlook Express

(Most of the information on this page is courtesy of Frank Saunders MS-MVP)

  1. First of all, do you have a program with spell checking on your system? Outlook Express itself does not support spell checking but instead calls the spell check feature from a program such as MSWord.

  2. Is spell checking enabled?  Go to Tools>Options>Spelling and make sure all the boxes are checked.

If all of the above is OK proceed through the rest of this page.

If you are using Windows XP;

You are probably missing CSAPI3T1.DLL in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\PROOF You can expand it from CSAPI3T1.DL_ in the \i386 directory on your WinXP CD.
Go to Start | Run and type this command:

expand x:\i386\CSAPI3T1.DL_ C:\CSAPI3T1.DLL

Where x: is your CD drive. Then move it from the root directory of C: to the PROOF folder. Some people also have to put it in the Outlook Express program folder.

If you do have a compatible spell checker installed then please see these articles which also apply to OE6:


If you do not have a compatible spell checker try these links;
Free spell checker for Outlook Express
http://www.quinion.com/mqa/spell.htm

Tiny Spell Checker
http://www.megspace.com/computers/tinyspell/