The spellcheck global attribute is an enumerated attribute defines whether the element may be checked for spelling errors.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

It may have the following values:

true , which indicates that the element should be, if possible, checked for spelling errors;

, which indicates that the element should be, if possible, checked for spelling errors; false , which indicates that the element should not be checked for spelling errors.

Note: The spellcheck attribute is an enumerated one and not a Boolean one. This means that the explicit usage of one of the values true or false is mandatory, and that a shorthand like <textarea spellcheck></textarea> is not allowed. The correct usage is <textarea spellcheck="true"></textarea> .

If this attribute is not set, its default value is element-type and browser-defined. This default value may also be inherited, which means that the element content will be checked for spelling errors only if its nearest ancestor has a spellcheck state of true .

This attribute is merely a hint for the browser: browsers are not required to check for spelling errors. Typically non-editable elements are not checked for spelling errors, even if the spellcheck attribute is set to true and the browser supports spellchecking.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub Desktop Mobile Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari Android webview Chrome for Android Firefox for Android Opera for Android Safari on iOS Samsung Internet spellcheck Chrome Full support 9 Edge Full support 12 Firefox Full support Yes IE Full support 11 Opera Full support Yes Safari Full support Yes WebView Android Full support 47 Chrome Android Full support 47 Firefox Android Full support 57 Opera Android Full support 37 Safari iOS Full support 9.3 Samsung Internet Android Full support 5.0 Legend Full support Full support

See also