The job of the proofreader has been made considerably easier since the advent of Microsoft Word. Gone are the days where corrections were pencilled into margins of typewritten A4 sheets as the spell check function highlights all of those grammatical gaffes and keyboard clangers . To be honest I just see these squiggly lines as saying something is wrong, but they are colour coded, the main ones being green highlighting grammatical errors and red spelling ones. So thanks to the introduction of the spell checker, proofreading that novel is simply a matter of hitting F7 and sifting through the squiggles, isn't it?

Well no actually, not at all.

The spell checker is a useful tool to have at your disposal, but it is not infallible. Obviously if you make a typo that still spells an existing word, for example, if you typed slop instead of slip then this sloppy typo would slip under the radar of the spell checker because slop is also an existing word. So no matter how many or few squiggles there are on your document, you will still have to check for this type of error and it will not be highlighted.

Similarly, if you accidentally hit the space bar before the final letter of a word, and this can happen when typing at speed, then the spellchecker will not highlight this either. The reason for this is that stand-alone letters are often used phrases such as class A, plan B and courtroom C. Therefore if you wanted to type the word plane, but accidentally hit the space bar and typed plan e, then it would go unchecked because, as far as the spell checker is concerned, it refers to the fifth strategy, i.e., plan E. So again these un-highlighted errors need to be weeded out.

You may also have noticed a long green squiggle under a passage of text that, when you hit F7, brings up a message telling you that you have used the passive voice. This is not a mistake - the passive voice is allowed, but careless use of it can result in a lack of clarity. So what is the passive voice?

In a nutshell the passive voice is where the object becomes the subject in a sentence. This may sound a bit complex, so I will demonstrate with an example. These two sentences say basically the same thing, but one is in the passive voice and the other the active voice.

The goalkeeper was hit in the face by the ball. (passive)

The ball hit the goalkeeper in the face (active)

It is a subtle difference but the ball is the subject of the sentence as it is the object of the action. Using the passive voice, the goalkeeper becomes the subject of the sentence and he has the action happen to him. If you look at the two sentences above you will see that the latter is far more direct.

However, it may be that you don't wish to have the spell checker scold you every time you use the passive voice and so you can turn it off.

To do this in pre-2007 versions of Word, go to Tools/Options and select the Spelling & Grammar tab and at the bottom right click Settings. In the Grammar and Style options, uncheck the Passive Sentences box. Click OK and OK.

For Word 2007 you should click the Office button then Word Options. In the Word Options dialog box click Proofing then Settings to bring up the Grammar Settings dialog box. Uncheck the Passive Sentences option then click OK and OK.

You will, of course, notice that while in the Grammar and Style options there are many other options that you can check or uncheck. Explore them and familiarise yourself with them as they are all part of the extremely versatile application that is Microsoft Word.