Using Spellcheck in NeoOffice

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NeoOffice/J activates the language tools (spell check, thesaurus, etc.) for the language that is set as the default in the System Preferences when you launch NeoOffice/J, provided your language is one of the 12 shipped in the default NeoOffice/J install or you have the appropriate language pack installed.

Contents

Activating the Writing Tools for Your Preferred Language

In order to active the writing tools for your preferred language, simply ensure that language is set as topmost one in the Languages: list in the Language tab of the International pane of the Mac OS X System Preferences before launching NeoOffice/J for the first time.

Enabling Writing Tools for Additional Languages

NeoOffice/J does not activate all available dictionaries because of a crippling bug in the OpenOffice.org code which causes tremendous slowdowns when more than one or two dictionaries are activated. By default, NeoOffice/J uses only the dictionary for your default language.

If you desire to use writing tools for additional languages (e.g., to work on a document in French and German), you can follow these steps to activate the writing tools for additional languages (again, provided you have the appropriate language pack installed for languages other than the 12 in the default NeoOffice/J install). If you use Norwegian (Nynorsk or Bokmål) and run a version of Mac OS X prior to 10.4, see the section Norwegian and Mac OS X 10.2.x and 10.3.x below for additional required steps.

For each additional language whose writing tools you wish to enable, perform the following steps:

  1. Install the appropriate language pack, if necessary.
  2. In the Language tab of the International pane of the Mac OS X System Preferences, set the language whose writing tools you wish to enable to be the topmost in the Languages: list.
  3. Launch NeoOffice/J.
    NeoOffice/J will enable the writing tools for the language selected in step 2.
  4. Quit NeoOffice/J.
    If you wish to enable writing tools for more languages, repeat steps 1-4 for each additional language.
  5. Finally, in the Language tab of the International pane of the Mac OS X System Preferences, set the language you wish to use for the user interface in NeoOffice/J to be the topmost in the Languages: list (i.e., choose the language that was set as topmost before beginning this process).

If you have multiple users on the same Macintosh, you will need to repeat steps 2-5 for each user, as the list of enabled writing tools is set per-user (each language pack needs only to be installed once, though).

Selecting the Dictionary to be Used in a Document or Section

If you have multiple languages and dictionaries enabled, you can control which dictionary is used by setting the appropriate preferences.

To set the language of an entire document, select Preferences… from the NeoOffice/J menu, then click the "plus in a box" next to Language Settings to expand that section. Next select the Languages item and set the "Default languages for documents" as desired (either for all new documents, or for the current document only with the appropriate checkbox).

To set the the language of a particular section of text, select the text and choose Character... from the Format menu; set the appropriate language via the appropriate Language box in the Font tab.

Be sure to set the language of the document and/or each section of text appropriately or spell-check will not work.

Sometimes this process gets convoluted; there is a trinity thread that attempts to walk through troubleshooting why language (and thus dictionary) settings "don't stick" sometimes.

Changing the language of the NeoOffice/J user interface

NeoOffice/J uses the topmost language in the list in the International pane of the System Preferences to determine the interface language. For details on using an interface language other than the one specified in the System Preferences, consult Changing the Language of the User Interface.

British English and Mac OS X 10.2x, 10.3x and 10.4x

Brits will find the spellcheck in NeoOffice a pain; something they may also experience in Open Office and MS Word. The default form of English in OS X is US English, which sets the NeoOffice spellcheck to US spellings. Changing the spellcheck itself appears to have no effect, each new document reverts to US English.

To fix this you need to create a blank document which you have preset to UK English as the default format. First start a new text document and save it as 'Blank'. Type in some random but correctly spelt English. I suggest harbour, centre and colour. Highlight the whole document. Then go to the Format menu, choose Character and set the Font to whatever you prefer and the language to English (UK). Save this and use it as the starting point for all new text documents. Remember to give the document a new file name once you have started entering new text. It seems to work.

Norwegian and Mac OS X 10.2.x and 10.3.x

Due to bugs in Apple's language codes in versions of Mac OS X prior to 10.4, dictionaries are not activated automatically when Norwegian is set as the top-most language in those versions of Mac OS X.

Workaround to follow

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