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

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

Hey! I believe you can disable the feature by pressing the three dots when the Apple Pencil menu is open, and disabling the switch ‘Auto-refine handwriting’. I also got frustrated with this because it would end up making my writing unintelligible, found this and it is working for me. Let me know if it works :)

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.

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

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)

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…

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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.

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

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.