What do you do if you spelled a word wrong on a typewriter?

Answer 1

Use white out. Besides who uses typewritters any more?

Depends on the vintage of the typewriter, and on how finicky you are. Some electric typewriters has an erase function, whioch basically allows you to overwrite the old text with the exact same letter in white. Other mechanical typewriters had the possibility to shift to red lettering, which then could be used to cross out the wrong word and to add the correct one. Another option is simply to back the machine, type XXX over the fault and then continue typing as if nothing had happened.

Yet another is to cover the faulty letters with something. Can be either a paint (with Tipp-ex) probably being most well known. Looks a bit like a nail polish bottle but contains something that dries into matte white. Once dried it can be typed on /over again.

Or you can have something like a really narrow roll of tape in a fine-tipped applicator, which allows you to tape over the flaws and then type on the tape strip.

Yet another way was to use special erasers which were supposed to allow you to erase typewriter text. I never liked those, IME they caused too many smudges.