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Spell checker quirky running Outlook mail with Firefox, works fine when running Windows

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Using Firefox with Outlook mail. Spell checker misses many obvious typos and misspellings. After correcting an error or two with spell checker underlining of remaining uncorrected errors disappears.

Spell checker works properly when using Windows with Outlook mail.

Using Firefox with Outlook mail. Spell checker misses many obvious typos and misspellings. After correcting an error or two with spell checker underlining of remaining uncorrected errors disappears. Spell checker works properly when using Windows with Outlook mail.

All Replies (9)

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Are you using Microsoft's webmail service (formerly Hotmail, formerly Live Mail), or "Outlook Web App" on an Exchange Server?

Either way, spell checking shouldn't just stop working... If you save your draft and reload the page, does it start working again?

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Am using Outlook (......@live.com) on a home PC, no server. Problem is evident only when working Outlook with Mozilla. Spell checker works fine with with same message but in Widows Internet Explorer.

Thanks for picking up on this.

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Thanks. It is extremely weird what it does. I can't even describe it in a couple of sentences. Maybe I'll try to create a video.

What I suggest for now is: right-click the message and click Check Spelling to turn it off. Then right-click and click Check Spelling again to turn it back on. You may need to do this a couple of times. I hope I come up with a better workaround.

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It is possible that there are some hidden formatting characters in the text for some reason that make the spell checker not see the words correctly.

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Hi cor-el, when I look at the text in the Inspector, it's very basic, just characters and line breaks (<br> tags). But I suspect there is a huge amount of scripting going on behind the scenes that is involved with intercepting the keyboard and rewriting the message content.

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I'm not using the MS mail service very much these days as there have been too often issues in Firefox that took too long to get fixed by MS, so I hadn't noticed these issues, but with checking it out I can see the same happen if there are multiple errors marked.

function clk() { parent && parent.rteOnClick && parent.rteOnClick() }function kyu() { parent && parent.rteOnKeyUp && parent.rteOnKeyUp() }function drg(event) { parent && parent.rteOnDragOver && parent.rteOnDragOver(event) }function drp(event) { parent && parent.rteOnDrop && parent.rteOnDrop(event) }function Init(){var wl = window.location, d = document;var hn = wl.hostname, dmn = hn.substr((hn.lastIndexOf('.', (hn.lastIndexOf('.', hn.length)) - 1)) + 1).toLowerCase();if (("live.com" == dmn) || ("live-int.com" == dmn)) d.domain = dmn;if (d.addEventListener) { d.addEventListener('dragover', drg, false); d.addEventListener('drop', drp, false); }d.body.hideFocus = true}
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I discovered the workaround suggested by jscher200 too and just found it too cumbersome and annoying so reverted to Windows for Outlook email.

Other than the spell checker, found no problems running Outlook with Firefox.

Interesting to note that spell checker works fine on this forum.

How do problems such as this one generally play out toward a solution?

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Hi bobinri, sometimes a person at Mozilla will reach out to the other company (in this case Microsoft) to work on a solution. I don't know exactly how that gets prioritized.

Another possibility is to post the problem on Microsoft's forums in case they are not aware of it. I still think it would be very helpful to make a screen recording illustrating the behavior; will try that if I get time.

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Here's a screen recording demonstrating the problem: http://www.screencast.com/t/oJJskr6t (Flash)