A I see that sort of error regularly, along with misspellings of homonyms such as "its" and "it's"; "to", "too", and "two"; and "their", "there", and "they're". It is possible to automatically flag words you commonly mistype in Word 7, 97, and 2000 and in WordPerfect 8. Getting set up takes a little time, but once the arrangement is in place, those errors will jump out at you during proofreading.

Word 7, 97, and 2000

Click File-New to open a fresh, blank document. Type a short sentence containing the word you want to flag. Double-click the word to highlight it, and select Format-Font. In the Font dialogue box, scan the drop-down Color or Font color list, select a colour, and then click OK.

Leave the word highlighted, and select Tools-AutoCorrect. Click the AutoCorrect tab, if it's not active. Make sure the Replace text as you type check box is marked. Type the same word in the Replace field of the AutoCorrect dialogue box, click Formatted Text to mark the option, and then click Add and OK.

Caption: Highlight spelling errors with AutoCorrect

Now, whenever you type the problem word, it will appear in colour as soon as you press the spacebar or a punctuation character. As you proofread, make any corrections needed, then double-click the word and press <Ctrl>-<Space> to remove the word's colour formatting. (Hint: if you choose red as the colour, it will print as black on any monochrome printer; this means you can skip the step of reverting the colour to black.)

WordPerfect 8

Click File-New to open a new document. Type a short sentence containing the word you want to flag as potentially incorrect. Double-click the word, then select Format-Font. In the Font dialogue box, click the Text color button, select a colour, and click OK. Leave the word highlighted, and select Tools-QuickWords. Make sure the Expand QuickWords when you type them box is marked. Type the same word in the Abbreviated form field of the Quick-Correct dialogue box. Click Add Entry.

From now on, whenever you type the word you've set up, it will appear in colour as soon as you press the spacebar or a punctuation character. While proofreading the document, press <Alt>-<F3> to open the Reveal Codes window. Make all necessary changes in flagged words, click the color code button preceding the word in the Reveal Codes window, and press <Delete> to revert to black type.