Basic English Spell-check for OpenOffice.org Word Processor
Purpose:
This is a spell checking word list for use with OpenOffice.org Version 1.0.0 to 2.4.1 software as a Basic English spell checker, Hunspell.
- Open Office is a free Office Suite identical to StarOffice and similar to MS-Office Pro and runs on almost all computers and in many languages.
- Open Office is the free, open software, version of StarOffice.
- Read about OpenOffice at their website OpenOffice.org
- OOo has spreadsheets, multimedia presentations, drawing, database capabilities and all are include in the download, we are only interested in the Word Processing portion.
- All comes in one large download (115 MB) or by mail on a CD with only a copying and postage charge.
- The wordlist should also work with any other software that uses MYSPELL or HunSpell for spell checking.
- Install OpenOffice.org from their instructions.
Test OpenOffice "Write" to assure that it is working properly.
OpenOffice has multiple language capabilities -- dozens.
You can set a language to use and you can change the language for any document or for a division within a document.
After you have OpenOffice working and you are comfortable with using it, then you will add Basic English as a language for OpenOffice.
A . Simple Instructions to Install Basic English Spell Checking.
1 . Download the Institute Dictionary spell check for Basic English.
- a . Download : en_BE.zip
Unzip it to some temporary file. It will contain these files :
- en_BE.dic
en_BE.aff
dictionary.lst
b . Copy the three files to the OOo dictionary file.
- It may be on path : C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.4\share\dict\ooo\
If not, on your system, then search for "en_US.dic" and add the three files to that directory.
Note : "dictionary.lst" will already exist -- if asked to replace the old file, answer "Yes".
2 . Add our language to OpenOffice.
Start OpenOffice.org
On the taskbar, select Tools
- then Options at the very bottom of the list
- then Language Setting
- then Languages
- Under "Default languages for documents" | Western
- select English (Belize)
click "OK"
- then Options
- then Language Setting
then Writing Aids
-
Look at Options box on the bottom of that page and be sure that
these are NOT marked.
[ ] "Check in all languages"
[ ] "Do not mark errors".
click "OK"
Exit OpenOffice.org
Exit OOo QuickStart icon.
Restart OOo.
Any new writing in OOo will be spell checked for Basic English. Type a few words.
Look at : Tools | Spell check | Options , and be sure [x] [English (Belize)] is checked.
If you are interested in more information, a longer version follows of what you have just done that tells why you have done them and what is going on inside the program.
B . Same instructions with Greater Detail and Options.
1 . Download the Institute spell checking dictionary for Basic English.
- View : http://www.basic-english.org/down/download.html
Download: http://www.basic-english.org/down/en_BE.zip
If you don't want to use the ZIP form, click on any of the filenames below and SAVE AS to your disk.
| readooo.html | 12KB - this note |
| readoomore.html | 23KB - for techy types |
| readooword.html | 11KB - about the wordlist. |
| en_BE.dic | 181KB |
| en_BE.aff | 3KB |
| dictionary.lst | 2KB |
- Spellcheck version 0.3 is updated to be in agreement with IDP Translation Dictionary v0.6 plus has added contractions and possessives.
Note : a Translation thesaurus of English to Basic for OOo is in Beta release. It makes spell checking and translation available in the same OOo editor. See Read Translation
SETUP for Windows:
A . The path to the OOo working directory may be named :
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.4\share\dict\ooo
If not, on your system, then search for "en_US.dic" and add the three files to that directory.
It will contain dictionary files for several languages. Each language has files for spell checking that include : a dictionary, its affix file. There may be a hyphenation file, and maybe, a thesaurus file. We will select a country code known to OOo and pretend that Basic English is the dialect of that country name. We have selected English (Belize) [en_BZ] and tell it to use English (Basic) [en_BE]. This is what the dictionary.lst line means: en BZ en_BE.
The file en_BE.aff adds derivatives to the base word. en_BE.aff is simply a copy of en_US.aff with a new name. The new name is in agreement with en_BE.dic.
The file dictionary.lst is a list of languages that OpenOffice can use. We have simply added English (Belize) dialect and said that it is to use the Basic English spelling list. B . Start OpenOffice.org
On the taskbar, select Tools
- then Options at very bottom of the list
- then Language Setting
- then Languages
- Under "Default languages for documents" | Western
- select English (Belize)
click "OK"
- then Options
- then Language Setting
then Writing Aids
-
Look at Options box on the bottom of that page and be sure that
these are NOT marked.
[ ] "Check in all languages"
[ ] "Do not mark errors".
click "OK"
Exit OpenOffice.org
Exit OOo QuickStart icon. 2
Restart OOo. Any new writing in OOo will be spell checked for Basic English. Type a few words.
Look at: Tools | Spell check | Options and be sure [ x ] [English (Belize)] is checked.
Remember, you are able to change the language of OOo or any document within OOo at any time. The Institute uses Basic English as the default language. After you have exercised with Basic Spell Checking, you may prefer to set your native language as default and change the language only when working on a Basic document.
- 1 . All capitalized words can be considered as legitimate Basic English. No spell checking is required. But we include capitalized words in our spelling list so that your screen is
not cluttered with red underlining.
2 . OpenOffice must have a complete restart to see option changes. That means you have to close the QuickStart icon. Then open OpenOffice. QuickStart will be activated for the rest of the day. If you make additional changes to options today, you will have to close OOo and close QuickStart and open OOo again.
Thesaurus. The thesaurus is found on a drop-down from : toolbar Tools | Language | Thesaurus. Or, it is faster to use Cntl F7. You may test the thesaurus feature with the word "fractional". Multiple choices should appear. The thesaurus is not Basic English.
Note : a Translation Thesaurus of English to Basic is in Beta release.
The Beta Thesaurus works well and you should download and add it as soon as you are familiar with Open Office.
To Undo Basic English:
Change Tools | Options | Language Setting | Languages to your native language.
There are no registry changes. You can delete files you don't want.
TWEAKS
AutoCorrect is a useful feature. For example: the word "can" is not Basic. You may have this automatically changed to either "may" or to "be able to" by going to Taskbar, click : TOOLS | then AUTOCORRECT. . . Select the language English (Belize) and enter under Replace, "can", and under With, "may". Or to be more general "(be) able to". Hint : look under English (US) to see some how AutoCorrect works, there are likely a few spelling corrections or features already there, such as replace "(c)" with "©".
Commonwealth users (only) will want to use GB hyphenation.
Open [path] \OpenOffice.org 2.4\share\dict\ooo\ dictionary.lst with any text editor.
Change these lines in "dictionary.lst" from :
- HYPH en BZ hyph_en_
Link to : More ReadOOo More than you need to know. But computer oriented persons may want to make some personal enhancements.
About this Page: readooo.html -- Readme file of a Basic English version of OpenOffice.org versions 1.1 through 2.4 spellcheck wordlist (dictionary)
Last updated April 20, 2008 -- V 0.3c; add possessives; enlarge affix format.
History :
- April 7, 2008 -- Add contractions as 0.3b.
April 4, 2008 -- Version 3; update wording for OO0 2.4 ; accumulated updates.
Apr 28, 2007 -- work around a bug in OOo 2.2.0
Oct 04, 2006 -- same instructions for version 0.2
Jan 15, 2006 -- Simplify instructions for version 0.1b
Jan 14, 2006 -- Simplify instructions.
Dec 28, 2005 -- Add country dialect, rather than replace, another language. Separate out "more-than-you-need-to-know discussion" to a separate "ReadOOmore" page.
Oct 20, 2005 -- cleanup wording
Mar 18, 2005 -- OOo ver 2; Replace another language name, rather than English.
Feb 2 , 2005 -- OOo 1.1.4
Aug 14, 2004 -- simplified
Feb 13, 2003 -- for OOo 1.0
Apr 28. 2002 -- initial release