A much improved way to spell check documents using VoiceOver on iOS beginning with iOS 12.1

Posted on November 6, 2018

There was a way, reproducible though not very convenient to spellcheck documents in iOS 11 using VoiceOver and at the time I thought it was cool though somewhat difficult to remember, but wrote a blog post about it anyway.

A big thank you to Scott Davert, who discovered that in iOS 12.1 the spell checking process was made much more efficient. He recorded it in a recent Applevis podcast from where I learned about it. I have to admit even though I wrote the blog post defining how to correct spelling in iOS 11, I rarely if ever used it and just wrote things on my iPhone as I am now but then corrected the spelling on my MacBook. I think I can honestly say I will correct spelling much more or — probably whenever I write anything beyond a sentence or 2 on my iOS devices in the future. This VoiceOver improvement, truly makes any iOS device a real writing device for blind users.
In fact, I just spell checked the last paragraph possibly in less than 30 seconds on my iPhone, This will be the coolest feature for me in iOS 12.1.

Let’s figure out how to do it.

1. Set VoiceOver rotor to misspelled words.

2. Swipe up or down, or press up or down arrows on your keyboard or braille displays to find the previous or next misspelled word.

3. Move right with a finger or keyboard each time will show you the next in a list of correctly spelled suggestions.

4. If you find the word you want, double tap on it or activate it with your keyboard and it will replace the misspelled word.
5. If the word you want is not in the list, the offensive misspelling you’re on is selected so pressing delete or backspace will erase it. Then you can enter another attempt.

Now maybe I can start blogging directly from iOS. If still in school, I think I could seriously write a paper completely on iOS. Since I almost always use a Bluetooth keyboard, I could even do it on an iPhone. Hey, When not writing blog posts or school papers, spell checking emails will also be a snap.