Global AutoCorrect

Most spell checking lives inside one application. Global AutoCorrect works system wide, so the same corrections apply in your email, your browser, the company database and the chat window where nobody has ever offered you a spell checker.

For a dyslexic typist that is the whole point. The errors do not stop at the edge of Word, so neither should the help.

• Start with your own mistakes. The default word list is fine, but the value comes from adding the specific words you get wrong. A fortnight of adding them as they happen builds a list that fits you.
• Use expansions for the tedious things. An address, a signature, a reference number or a standard paragraph you type twenty times a week are all worth a short abbreviation.
• Keep abbreviations distinctive. Short codes that could be real words will fire when you do not want them. A leading character or an unusual pairing avoids that.
• Turn sound feedback on at first. Hearing a correction happen tells you it is working. Once you trust it, you can turn the sound off.

• It corrects something you meant to type. Add the word to the exclusions. Names and technical terms are the usual culprits.
• It interferes in password fields or code. Most people exclude those applications entirely rather than fighting it case by case.
• It clashes with another correction tool. Two tools correcting the same keystroke produces strange results. Pick one for a given application.
• Nothing happens in one particular program. Some applications draw their own text boxes in ways that system wide tools cannot reach. Typing in a supported app and pasting across is the workaround.

Dyslexic employees whose work spans a dozen systems, and anyone who types the same standard text repeatedly. It is quiet, cheap and it works in the places other tools leave you on your own.