iPadOS 18 Notes - How do I turn off spell check for handwriting?

It cannot be disabled at the moment, but I can imagine that more people want to use this feature without the spell check

`you can submit a future feature request through this form, to tell Apple that you want this to be an option ]

Product Feedback - Apple

Same, i stopped using Notes, makes me angry every time. Bit dissapointed in Apple, 6 months and no fixes. Bleh

That just turns off the auto refine feature. The blue line still shows up for words that the device is unsure of.

I agree. I do not want my handwriting adjusted or be continually alerted to spelling suggestions when using my Apple Pencil. There must be a way to turn it off, right?

Thanks for the tip! That disables the auto-“refining” but still leaves annoying blue lines under virtually every written word.

I wish there was a way to disable the stupid, distracting blue lines. I submitted requests to get the feature to disable blue lines.

inevo wrote:

As a Hebrew speaker, to me it’s a horrible user experience. Not only that apple doesn’t support Hebrew for many of its features like scribble, but while I simply want to journal in Hebrew I can’t do so due to these spell check underlines. Every word I write seems to it like a total gibberish (understandably).

I would really appreciate that if they don’t spell check other languages other than English, at least give us the option to turn that thing off…

This is a user-to-user technical community. Contributors here are all end-users, just like you. Other than the site Moderators, Apple neither monitors nor participates within this Community. As such, your comments here will not be seen by Apple Support.

Apple invites submission of constructive comments via its Product Feedback portal. For iPad and iPadOS:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

this is soooo annoying!! Who in the right mind would not add in a disable feature? Does the product manager even use pencil in Note? How can this not be annoying to him/her??v

As several others have already stated, turning off "Auto-refine Handwriting" does NOT turn off spell check for handwriting. Come on Apple; this is ridiculous!

Same for me. Please add feature to disable spell check for handwriting

I have the same problem with the blue dots. No fix so far

100%. It is distracting to the point that I'm transitioning to notability. Such a shame.

It’s a system-wide issue for me, and not only does it ruin the handwriting experience, but it’s also incredibly unprofessional during meetings. I’ve annotated PDFs and screenshots in four different languages, and most words end up underlined with blue dots. Even when signing a PDF, Apple isn’t satisfied with my signature and wants to change it to a random word. I spent a significant amount of money on the latest iPad Pro and Apple Pencil Pro, but I can’t use them for handwritten notes because Apple doesn’t like my handwriting. The incompetence of some managers at Apple is mind boggling.

i can’t wrap my head around how apple just casually destroys one of its most important apps. i was considering buying more apple devices, but witnessing how they handle this specific issue I realized that this would be asking for trouble.

what I did to disable the blue dots:

Disable every auto correction in General > Keyboards

Disable auto-refining

Disable every Dictionary in General > Dictionary

Restart in General > Shut Down

But the blue dots come back after some minutes

I think I have to ditch Apple Notes

I have been searching for a fix for this for months and I’ve pretty much given up. It is so aggravating that not only is there no fix, but there’s not even any advice here. I use apple notes every day, and it’s such a clean, workspace. For that to be cluttered up with wavy diagonal blue requests and suggestions which are no help whatsoever is disappointing. I am sure this is a simple fix. PLEASE allow us to turn this feature off.