HTMLElement: spellcheck property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The spellcheck property of the HTMLElement interface represents a boolean value that controls the spell-checking hint. It is available on all HTML elements, though it doesn't affect all of them.

It reflects the value of the spellcheck HTML global attribute.

Value

A boolean value that is true if the spelling and grammar of the text content in the element may be checked, false otherwise.

Examples

The following example shows how to control the spell-checking hint via script:

html
<div>
  <span id="sc-label">The spelling and grammar may be checked: </span>
  <span id="sc-element" contenteditable="true" spellcheck="true">test</span>
</div>
<input id="sc-controller" type="checkbox" checked />Enable spelling and grammar
check
js
const label = document.getElementById("sc-label");
const element = document.getElementById("sc-element");
const controller = document.getElementById("sc-controller");

controller.addEventListener("change", (e) => {
  if (controller.checked) {
    element.spellcheck = true;
    label.innerText = "The spelling and grammar may be checked: ";
  } else {
    element.spellcheck = false;
    label.innerText = "The spelling and grammar may not be checked: ";
  }
});

Note that you must enable the browser setting to check spelling and grammar.

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-spellcheck-dev

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
spellcheck
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 9 (Release date: 2011-02-03)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 12 (Release date: 2015-07-29)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 2 (Release date: 2006-10-24)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 12.1 (Release date: 2012-11-20)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 5.1 (Release date: 2011-07-20)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 18 (Release date: 2012-06-27)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 4 (Release date: 2011-03-29)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 12.1 (Release date: 2012-10-09)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 5 (Release date: 2011-10-12)
footnote Full support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 1 (Release date: 2013-04-27)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 3 (Release date: 2011-02-22)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 5 (Release date: 2011-10-12)
footnote Full support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also