When opened in the "Document Browser," text documents and tables are read-only by default to prevent unintentional changes during analysis. You can switch to Edit Mode directly within the "Document Browser" at any time to modify the content—for example, to correct a typo. Edit Mode is also required when creating new text in MAXQDA.
To turn on Edit Mode:
- Click the Edit Mode icon in the "Document Browser" toolbar.
- Or use the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+E (Windows) or ⌘+⌥+E (macOS).
For text documents, standard text formatting options, such as font size and style, are available in Edit Mode. When Edit Mode is active, a separate formatting toolbar appears below the coding toolbar.
For table documents, you can edit the content of cells, but not the visual appearance of the text. To insert a new paragraph within a table cell, hold down the Alt key (Windows) or the Option key ⌥ (macOS) and press Return.
Saving text edits
Changes made in Edit Mode are saved to the MAXQDA project file when Edit Mode is closed. In addition, your edits are automatically saved every 5 minutes while you work. You can adjust this interval in the General Preferences of MAXQDA.
Undoing text changes
You can undo changes made in Edit Mode in the same way as in common word-processing applications. For example, if you delete or reinsert a passage of text, each step can be undone. To do so, either right-click in the "Document Browser" and select Undo Text Changes, or click the 
Undo icon in the toolbar.
Use Undo All Text Changes to revert all edits made since you last activated Edit Mode with a single click.
Spellchecking
MAXQDA includes a built-in spellchecker for editable text documents and memos. Spellchecking is available for English (UK), English (US), German, and Spanish.
Enable or disable spellchecking
Spellchecking is managed centrally in the General Preferences. In the "Spellchecking" section, you can turn it on or off and select the spellcheck language.
Correcting spelling errors
When spellchecking is enabled, MAXQDA underlines words that are not found in the dictionary for the selected language or in your custom dictionary. Right-click an underlined word to open the spellcheck menu:
- Select a suggestion to replace the word.
- Select a suggestion to replace all occurrences of the word in the current document or memo.
- Click Add to Dictionary to add the word to your personal dictionary. The word will no longer be marked as incorrect in any project.
- Click Ignore to ignore the word once.
- Windows: Press Windows key + R and enter "%appdata%\MAXQDA".
- macOS: Go to "Users/(USERNAME)/Library/Preferences/MAXQDA".
Editing the custom dictionary
Your personal dictionary contains all the words you have added manually. You can edit this dictionary at any time to add or remove entries. The file is named "(language)_UserDictionary.txt" and can be opened with any text editor.
