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! 😊

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.

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.

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.

This does NOT work. It is only for preventing automatic handwriting refinement rather than for turning off the spell check as a whole. These are 2 different functionalities and let’s not confuse the two of them.

To reiterate - we are looking to turn OFF the blue squiggles underneath handwritten words (and also underneath drawings/scribbles, erroneously enough). This means we want to turn OFF spell check for anything rendered through the Apple Pencil on Apple Notes.

We really need this resolved. It’s making me really really sad every time I use Notes. It’s one of the best note taking apps, why ruin it like this. Please Apple consider giving us the option to turn off spell checks.

the issue is system wide . you are correct . For example in goodnotes there is a button "check spelling" .With this feature on the blue lines appear .If you turn it off disappear .

that is what notes app need (and again goodnotes will still be better )

probably apple is very busy to fix that

Hi uux. Imagine that magiaros is actually correct - if so, I'm surprised nobody is elaborating and telling you how to enable it... Or perhaps they are, and their posts keep getting removed for some reason? Idk though, just pure speculation!

On an entirely unrelated note, Liquid Glass is very pretty - really looking forward to trying it out in the next version of iPadOS... A great shame that there's just no possible way to try it out sooner. I think the prettiness of Liquid Glass would fix a lot of my problems with the current version of iPadOS. Guess I'll have to wait and see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it is a good thing that apple listens

ok this issue was for some time now but finally apple listens and fixed it

this is important to listen to customers

the probability of selling something is far less if a lot o people cannot use it or cannot use it the way they want especially with this kind of competition from other manufacturers

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

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?

I hate those ugly spell check blue dots too. I have mathematics notes and even if I turn math suggestions off, it still spell checks all math letters and is outright irritating.

Thank you, this is what I came here to disable, I don’t care about the lines, but I don’t like that it fixes my handwriting automatically lol

Thanks for the link to make the suggestion! I’ve submitted a request! Hopefully all of the creatives will be heard

I cannot find the option 'Auto-refine handwriting’ to turn off!!!