diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 208fb91c..54af3501 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+2015-03-23  Benno Schulenberg  <bensberg@justemail.net>
+	* src/text.c (do_alt_speller): Avoid the spell checker reporting
+	an error when the marked region is zero bytes long.  The message
+	is not needed -- it gets printed by the caller.  This generalizes
+	the fix for Savannah bug #29393.
+
 2015-03-22  Chris Allegretta <chrisa@asty.org>
 	* src/text.c (do_alt_speller): timestamp can just be a __time_t.
 	Fixes compilation on win32.
diff --git a/src/text.c b/src/text.c
index 4495c467..816f7616 100644
--- a/src/text.c
+++ b/src/text.c
@@ -2692,15 +2692,14 @@ const char *do_alt_speller(char *tempfile_name)
     }
 #endif
 
-    if (openfile->totsize == 0) {
-	statusbar(_("Finished checking spelling"));
-	return NULL;
-    }
-
-    /* Get the timestamp of the temporary file. */
+    /* Get the timestamp and the size of the temporary file. */
     stat(tempfile_name, &spellfileinfo);
     timestamp = spellfileinfo.st_mtime;
 
+    /* If the number of bytes to check is zero, get out. */
+    if (spellfileinfo.st_size == 0)
+	return NULL;
+
     endwin();
 
     /* Set up an argument list to pass execvp(). */