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

You are a star! Thank you so, so much! I lost some important information before I even realized that this stupid feature was on. I write notes in a language other than English, and it corrected some names—now they’re gone for good. I can’t recover them, and it’s so frustrating.

I had been trying to fix this for several days without any success, and then you came to the rescue. I am so grateful for your help—thank you once again!

Now I can finally write in my own language without worrying about this silly autocorrect changing everything. The fact that it still underlines things is super annoying, but at least it’s less harmful than altering the text entirely. Thanks for making it possible for me to write in my own language again without worry! 😊

Alternative option: Go to General > Dictionary > turn off "Apple Dictionary". This removes any spell-check related dotted lines in Apple Notes. However its more of a global setting and Apple Notes should have a local spell-check off option for Apple Notes.

Hayythere wrote:

Apple notes with pencil is now unusable due to this **** blue dotted lines with every words.. Is it their new AI??

Have you tried the tip outlined in jkirton2’s reply of 8th January?

"The option is imbedded within the options where you can change the types of pen tips (eraser, pen, ruler, etc.) of the Apple Pencil! Click the 3 dots and unselect the ‘Auto-refine handwriting’!"

A short run with my Pencil Pro shows me just how many half-baked elements cripple it. This is just one. The pencil is virtually unusable in the notes app as it constantly makes line breaks and starts converting writing into small text boxes. Maybe being left handed has something to do with it. I can see apple try to explain to me that I should simply write with my right hand.

The issue of blue dots appearing under all types of handwritten text and drawings when using an Apple Pencil extends beyond the notes app; it is system-wide. 

When annotating PDFs, presentations, screenshots, or even when writing my signature iPadOS starts autocorrecting, assuming I’m writing a word. Suggested words are often nonsensical—for example, “afternoon” may be changed to “alj 7momn”. When drawing a line or underlining text blue dots can appear because Apple somehow interprets a drawing as a word. It’s utterly ridiculous.

These blue dots appearing across presentations and during online meetings when sharing my screen are highly unprofessional. I purchased an Apple Pencil Pro and can no longer use it effectively.

Despite submitting feedback via Apple’s official website for eight months, this bug remains unaddressed.

Quite a few posts by different authors in this thread have been removed by moderators. This doesn’t seem an appropriate way to handle paying customers.

I strongly recommend contacting Apple and requesting to speak with a senior advisor to report this issue. It’s worth mentioning that the bug persists in the latest iPadOS, introduced at the recent Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Resetting an iPad does not resolve the problem. Every iPad in every Apple Store exhibits this issue.

i went settings / apple intelligence & siri / apps / notes/ and removed everything (learn from this app / show on home screen / and suggest app )

blue lines disappeared for now

lets hope never return and it was just apple intelligence causing the issue

edit : reappeared

there is no hope in this life

maybe in 10 years apple reinvent notes app and make a press conference to announce that blue lines will disappear only with the apple pencil ultra pro 8 special edition (that will cost 350 euros )

I've experienced this too. I use Notes as a space to journal, free-associate, scribble, and play with words, often bending the rules of spelling and language to unleash my creativity and foster outside-the-box thinking. The constant underlining of words—even when they're spelled correctly—becomes a major distraction, like having a strict teacher hovering over my shoulder, shouting, "That's wrong!" It's baffling that there's no way to disable this feature. Apple, please, for the sake of creatives everywhere, give us the option to turn it off.

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…

I have used the notes app for years, I'm left handed and have a unique writing style that is all my own. I don't want it changing my handwriting. I like that only I can read it. now I cant get rid of these blue lines. they are so distracting! whenever I'm mid flow it just pulls at your attention. I've been looking everywhere for a forum and so glad you all feel the same. I've filled in the feature request but am so annoyed. I want my keyboard settings separate from my writing settings. I did try googling this but its seems to mistake the writing feature with basic spell check or how to simply turn off the rewrite feature. Either way, dear Apple Overlords could I please disable the blue squiggle

Its been like 6 months since i reported this issue. no response.

Imagine Ipad + Apple Pencil = NOTES is like most popular application, and most desirable.

And yet, they don't fix it for months.

Apple - is all about User Experience and Aestethics

Apple have killed all my notes, everywhere i see its blue underline... boils my brain... it is sooooo annoying... imagine going back to refer my notes and i get 200+ spelling underlines.

I've stopped using notes and freeform completely, I suggest using "notes+" app from app store, its good enough for most scenarios (but had some glitches around)

This is absolutely absurd & outrageous that we cannot shut this off. I guess they don't know their users at all. This radically impacts my job as a creative & I will need to redo my work flow and switch to a different product if this isn't resolved in a matter of days.

it also happens to do an incredibly poor job at identifying mispelled words.

Apple is a 3.5 trillion dollar company, this isn't an accident. They are doing this on purpose, and the masses will be okay with it. Oh well, apple will just create a market for remarkable. This is clearly unaccaptable for anyone that writes handwritten notes, it's impossible to think with all the distractions.

I'm really baffled by how Apple implemented this. Why would you screw up one of the best apps you have and one of the best handwriting experiences on a mobile device....!?! why?

I'm referring to the annoying spelling correction blue underlines that appear under our text.

There's an option to disable spelling checks when typing, why is there no way to disable this?! makes no sense.

The devs behind this feature didn't test it? we waited for many iterations on the hope that the options to disable this will be provided, and now we're at 18.4 and still nothing????

Can we at least get this acknowledged as a problem?