I have such function in my code that works. I will share it with you once I get to the office later today.

Thank you Sami.

to use it:

Details

Private Sub SpellCheckBtn_Click()
    
    CheckSpelling Narrative
    CheckSpelling AssociateNarrative

End Sub



The Sub code :

Details

Public Sub CheckSpelling(C As Control)
    
    If IsNull(C) Then Exit Sub
    
    DoCmd.SetWarnings False
    C.SetFocus
    C.SelStart = 0
    C.SelLength = Len(C)
    DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdSpelling
    DoCmd.SetWarnings True
    
End Sub


Thanks again Sami,
Please explain

    CheckSpelling Narrative
    CheckSpelling AssociateNarrative

If you look at Samis code for the CheckSpelling function, you'll see (C As Control) that you're sending to it. It's basically the field name of the control you want to spell check.

CheckSpelling MyFieldName

As @Adam explained,

Narrative & AssociateNarrative are fields on the form that I want to spellcheck

Thanks for the code, Sami. This is very Similar to the code that I have been using in my applications for some time. I use Screen.PreviousControl to satisfy the parameter. This works for the current form, but the code needs to be included in all of the embedded Forms and Continuous Forms. As I indicated above, I was trying to accomplish just having one button on the parent form that would apply the spell check to whatever embedded form the user was on when the Spell Check button was clicked. I have some forms that use the Tab Control to list multiple subforms and seems redunddant to have a button on each form for the same purpose which is why I posted the code that I was trying to get to work.

Requery Subform
Value From a Form

use:



Forms!FName!Subform.Form!Field to refer to the subform field.

You can use this kind of code to interact with all the subforms as well
    Dim C As Control
    For Each C In Me
        If TypeOf C Is SubForm Then
         MsgBox C.Name
        End If
    Next

is it possible to have this run from the after update event of a field do the user doesn't have to click anything ?  I've tried but get errors.

Try in the Form not the Field "After Update"

This prevents the record from committing

Is this a question or a statement?
After Update: Record committed to the table and cannot be cancelled.
Before Update: Record completed but not yet committed to the table and can be cancelled.

apologies... Placing the script in the after update of the form, it did trigger the spellcheck, but then the record wont commit and stays dirty..actually it locks up the form and I have to close the form without saving. I did try it in the before update as well and it had the same result.

You're honestly better off with a spellcheck BUTTON to handle this. Events that need to wait and continue can be a nightmare... unless you open a spellcheck form as a DIALOG form where it can have the database WAIT until you're done with it to continue your code. See Custom Date Picker.