Spell checker in TWebBrowser (TEmbeddedWB) control

Question

Internet Explorer 10 has built in spell checker and it works just fine. I tried to create a small HTML page to test it with following contents:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML lang=en xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><HEAD>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 10.00.9200.16721"></HEAD>
<BODY spellcheck=true contentEditable=true style="MARGIN: 0.5em">
<P>Theze ara mispeled wordz</P>
</BODY></HTML>

All that is needed is to put properties spellcheck=true and contentEditable=true.

I also tried adding <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=10" /> e.g.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML lang=en xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><HEAD>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=10" />
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 10.00.9200.16721"></HEAD>
<BODY spellcheck=true contentEditable=true style="MARGIN: 0.5em">
<P>Theze ara mispeled wordz</P>
</BODY></HTML>

For that matter, using IE=edge instead of IE=10 doesn't make any difference: What does <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"> do?

I then tried adding setting FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION to registry: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/May/21/Web-Browser-Control-Specifying-the-IE-Version

This improved rendering of certain elements which had CSS styles like border-radius so at least I could see it is in IE10 mode, but still no spell checker.

The above page works in Internet Explorer browser and spell check is working.

However, when same content is loaded into TWebBrowser (I use TEmbeddedWB but it is just the same wrapper anyway) it doesn't work.

After googling and googling for solutions, still haven't found one. Do you know is this even possible in WebBrowser control? I need the solution that would work on Windows 7 not just Windows 8. I've seen the registry entry FEATURE_SPELLCHECKING but it applies only to Windows 8.

Are there any alternative solutions that would work within DesignMode of TWebBrowser control? I am looking for curvy red underline thing like in Word or other programs and possible GUI window to offer alternative words.

Web Browser Control uses IE 7 rendering mode by default. maybe you need to switch it to a higher rendering mode. see this article — kobik
Thanks, I didn't know about this setting. It helps in getting my editor more compliant. But unfortunately it is not working for spell checker. I also added <META http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=10"> (without it - it doesn't work). I can see curved border-radius now, but spell check is not working. — Coder12345
From your link: "For Windows 8 and later, the FEATURE_SPELLCHECKING feature controls this behavior for Internet Explorer and for applications hosting the web browser control (WebOC). When fully enabled, this feature automatically corrects grammar issues and identifies misspelled words for the conditions described earlier.". It is Windows 8 specific, doesn't apply to Windows 7. It might make it work on Windows 8 though, I'd have to try that, but I need it for Win 7 too. — Coder12345

whosrdaddy whosrdaddy · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-11T06:52:42

I think you are out of luck here. There was a bug report on Microsoft Connect concerning FEATURE_SPELLCHECKING and windows 7. Unfortunately it has been closed "as Designed".

This is the official answer from Microsoft:

Thank you for your feedback.

After additional review, the spelling feature is only supported on Windows 8 and higher and is not supported on Windows 7. This is because the spelling feature was built into the Windows 8 platform.

Best regards,

The Internet Explorer Team

Spell checker in TWebBrowser (TEmbeddedWB) control

2 Answers