Multilingual spell checking in OS X

The system-wide spell checking facility of Mac OS X allows you to use the spellchecker not only in dedicated text editors, but virtually in any textbox in a user interface. However, if you are writing regularly in different languages, you will find yourself switching between languages frequently.

I was recently asked, whether there is a way for switching between different languages rapidly. Yes, there is! And the solution is much more convenient than you might think! OS X is able to guess the correct language for spell checking if you enable the multilingual dictionary in the settings for the spell checker, as shown in this screenshot

Screenshot of dialog to enable multilingual spell checking on Mac OS X

Written September 7th, 2006