Did you know Photoshop could …. underline text and spell check?

There are two must-know Photoshop techniques that every designer should be aware of, especially those of us working in the web space. Content is said to be king and thus designing for that content is all essential. For those of you out-of-the-know, since at least Photoshop 7.0 you’ve had the ability to underline and spell check your text. From simulating the underline text-decoration to ensuring your copy-n-paste didn’t bring with it a typo – these techniques will make your life easier, save you time and perhaps even save your ass.

How to underline your text

Okay, I will be the first to admit it – I had no idea you could do this! It wasn’t until a developer I was working with a while back took a look at my Photoshop file and asked why I had a layer set called “links”. I used to use the line tool to simulate underlines on text I wanted to look like hyperlinks. I was embarrassed to know there was such an obvious function built into the latest versions of Photoshop.

I won’t complicate things by rambling. Underling your text is so simple many of you probably think I’m wasting your time even talking about it. Obviously located in the character’s window (from your menu -> window -> character). Typically your character window will have two tabs, “Character” and “Paragraph”. Ensure you are on the character tab within the character window. Simply highlight your text within your Photoshop canvas and then go to the Character tab and you will notice a horizontal selection of text options (noted most commonly by the “T”), it is the second row from the bottom of the window. With your text selected all you have to do is click the “T” with an underline (usually located second from the last). Wow, so simple and obvious you understand why I was so embarrassed to learn this so late in the game.

If the text formatting options are new to you, I’d highly recommend playing around with the other options or combination of options – they’ll blow your mind.

I can spell check?

This is a technique that I find most older designers know little about. Since spell check wasn’t introduced into Photoshop until version 7.0; most of us probably just gave up hope and stopped searching for it in recent releases. But yes, spell check is now a built in feature that has proven ridiculously useful! I mean, we are all for the most part designers by trade, writing probably isn’t our strongest talent [insert joke about my writing here].

So, lets’ get right to it; spell check being so crucial was placed in a not so obvious location, but is conveniently located! Click into your text layer and simply right click at any point and within your third grouping of options you should see “check spelling …”. Click that selection and away you go! No more awkward conversations with the editorial team as they try and understand how you’ve once again managed to misspell a word they mastered in the third grade.

So, you’ve got the ability to underline text and spell check your work – now that I know, I can’t believe I was functioning professionally without these tools at one time.

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