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How do I turn OFF blue underlining in iMessage?

How do I disable the blue underlining when I dictate a message on my iPhone (iOS 8.2)? I have never had this feature before and it just started. I know what happened – I was in iMessage and I was frustrated because I could not get the control center to come up. So I swiped up a bunch of times (like 20) in frustration to try to get it to come up. The control center did not come up, but I did somehow manage to turn on predictive text and the blue underlining. I turned off predictive text in Settings, but how do I turn off the blue underlining? Thanks.

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.2

Posted on Mar 25, 2015 7:41 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 18, 2015 9:27 PM

This is the most annoying issue I have with my iPhone 6 (iOS 9.1) and I have not seen an adequate response at all to the problem.


Almost every time I dictate a text message, it seems at least one full sentence (sometimes 15 to 20 words) of the dictation is completely underlined with blue dots. If I want to add a new word in the middle of the underlined sentence (I'm already satisfied with the it grammatically), I will tap the location where I want the cursor to be to add the word, but it will not allow the cursor there; rather, suddenly the entire underlined sentence now becomes highlighted in blue. Sometimes, above the highlighting, a suggestion shows up as to what it thinks the sentence should be, but that's not allowing me to add a new word to the sentence. If I tap the location again where I want the cursor to be (the sentence is already highlighted), it still will not allow the cursor there; instead, after this tap, the entire sentence remains highlighted now in a slightly different hue of blue with a menu appearing above the sentence to "cut, copy, paste, define, share..." Those choices are for the entire highlighted sentence, not a part of it. I am never allowed to place the cursor inside the highlighted area. And if I double tap where I want the cursor to be to insert a new word, an existing word close to where I double tap is then highlighted with the same menu choices to "cut, paste, define, share..." I am never allowed to conveniently place the cursor where I want to add a new word. I have seen the suggestion of clicking on the space next to the last highlighted word of the sentence but that only removes the underlining of the last word, the rest of the sentence remains underlined and the same inability to place the cursor remains. I know others have asked how to remove or disable this underlining/highlighting function, but the question seems always ignored and, instead, further explanations of underlining are given which is not what I want.


There is no blue underlining, highlighting, etc. when dictating email and notes. They work perfectly in the normal fashion.


I desperately want to remove or disable this underling/highlighting function. It basically stops me from wanting to dictate text messages, which is how I have prepared my texts for years!


Please let me know how!

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 18, 2015 9:27 PM in response to weharlow

This is the most annoying issue I have with my iPhone 6 (iOS 9.1) and I have not seen an adequate response at all to the problem.


Almost every time I dictate a text message, it seems at least one full sentence (sometimes 15 to 20 words) of the dictation is completely underlined with blue dots. If I want to add a new word in the middle of the underlined sentence (I'm already satisfied with the it grammatically), I will tap the location where I want the cursor to be to add the word, but it will not allow the cursor there; rather, suddenly the entire underlined sentence now becomes highlighted in blue. Sometimes, above the highlighting, a suggestion shows up as to what it thinks the sentence should be, but that's not allowing me to add a new word to the sentence. If I tap the location again where I want the cursor to be (the sentence is already highlighted), it still will not allow the cursor there; instead, after this tap, the entire sentence remains highlighted now in a slightly different hue of blue with a menu appearing above the sentence to "cut, copy, paste, define, share..." Those choices are for the entire highlighted sentence, not a part of it. I am never allowed to place the cursor inside the highlighted area. And if I double tap where I want the cursor to be to insert a new word, an existing word close to where I double tap is then highlighted with the same menu choices to "cut, paste, define, share..." I am never allowed to conveniently place the cursor where I want to add a new word. I have seen the suggestion of clicking on the space next to the last highlighted word of the sentence but that only removes the underlining of the last word, the rest of the sentence remains underlined and the same inability to place the cursor remains. I know others have asked how to remove or disable this underlining/highlighting function, but the question seems always ignored and, instead, further explanations of underlining are given which is not what I want.


There is no blue underlining, highlighting, etc. when dictating email and notes. They work perfectly in the normal fashion.


I desperately want to remove or disable this underling/highlighting function. It basically stops me from wanting to dictate text messages, which is how I have prepared my texts for years!


Please let me know how!

Dec 13, 2015 5:49 AM in response to Conrad C.

I totally agree. This is a ridiculous feature! Its grafted over from word processors -- probably MS Word -- where you actually DO care about grammar, and will tolerate a certain percentage of false flagging of correct grammar for the sake of catching other actual errors. BUT THESE ARE MY QUICK LITTLE TEXTS TO FRIENDS. THE GRAMMAR DOESNT HAVE TO BE PERFECT. I cannot believe there is not a switch for this in the settings. Please someone tell me there is, and I just missed it. I just want to make it stop. Please make it stop. It makes what Ive written quite a lot harder to re-read, with the dashed line (could it least be a solid thin line!?!? Hello?). Come on, Apple! Get it together!! Give us back the customizability THAT ORIGINALLY MADE YOU FAMOUS / SUCCESSFUL. Duh!

Dec 13, 2015 9:20 AM in response to Warner62

OMG, How wrong could I be?


A) Is not a grammar-checker. On my phone, the blue line appears when I use Siri for dictation, so its really Siri making sure she heard me correctly. Heres Macworlds description Take advantage of autocorrect: While you can’t correct mistakes in iOS dictation by voice, you will occasionally see words that iOS thinks might be incorrect. They appear with dotted blue lines underneath them. Tap an underlined word or phrase, and you’ll see one or more options you can choose from.


Also,

B) There IS a switch to turn it off, thank Jobs. In Settings>General>Keyboard, turn off Auto-Correction. Of course that turns off Auto-correction across the board, but I find auto-correct (the red line) fairly annoying as well, so that works out for me. Also, my speling is impecable. I hardley ever need corection.

How do I turn OFF blue underlining in iMessage?

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