Spell-check is everywhere these days; just about every program offers the feature. It’s taken for granted. What’s also taken for granted is real-time spell-check. Life wasn’t always so good.

Back in the dark times, before Microsoft blessed us all with Windows 95, spell check was an added feature for a word processor — and only in that program. In fact, the first spell-checkers were separate utilities.

For example, you would write your document using Electric Pencil or WordStar. Then you’d save the document. You’d quit the word processor and start up the spell checking program. It would munch through your document, presenting words of questionable spelling. You could then fix the words. Sometimes replacements were suggested. (Yes, even that was a novel feature.)

Over time, the spell-checkers were integrated with the word processors.

The first version of WordPerfect I bought didn’t have a built-in spell checker. It came later. The “convenience” was that you could run a spell-check while still using WordPerfect (which could edit and spell check only one document at a time). On non-hard drive PCs, you have to shuffle in and out the spell-check diskette, but the feature was worth it.

Even in early versions of Microsoft Word, spell-check wasn’t interactive. You had to enter Spell Check mode, where the document was scanned for grotesque violations of the English language.

I forget the version, but eventually Word offered real-time, or interactive, spell-checking. When you typed a suspect word, it was underlined in a vicious red zigzag, kind of like this, but not exactly. While startling at first, eventually this concept became the standard way spell checkers behaved.

Joining the word processors were other programs that featured spell check. Today it’s everywhere. I remember when the first web browser offered on-the-fly spell checking. Man, how I could have used that back in the modem days! I’m a terrible speller. But today, I simply look for that squiggly red underline, right-click, and the word is fixed.

Simple. Easy. Fast. Never take spell check for granted.