Custom Dictionary difficulties

[cs]

Hi Folks:

I know this subject has been discussed before and I've searched answers
in this forum. I'm about out of ideas how to resolve our custom
dictionary problem. Maybe someone can offer a suggestion.

We're using Office 2008 at our ministry on our one Mac and Office 2007
on our PC. We have a custom dictionary which we're using in Office 2007
that contains Biblical names and places. We have tried to copy the
custom dictionary from Office 2007 in order to use it in Office 2008.

That didn't work. We then copied the custom dictionary to a text file
and opened it in OS X. (We're using Leopard 10.5.4) We created a new
custom dictionary in Word 2008 and pasted all the words from the text
version of the copied dictionary into the new blank custom dictionary.

Word didn't like that and gave us an error: "Custom Dictionary not
available". We even tried to paste the new words into the custom
dictionary Word created by default. That didn't work. Same error.

We then tried to save the file as a dictionary file (dic) and that too
didn't work. To make a long sad story short, nothing seems to work
except to let Word create its own custom dictionary and add words to it
as we come across them in our writings. In other words, we have to
start over again creating a new custom dictionary. A definite
inconvenience.

Apparently we're not the only ones running into this problem. Hopefully
this is something that perhaps MS can address in a future update? If
anyone has a suggestion, we would be most grateful.

Thanks and regards.

 

[John McGhie]

Why does everyone have this obsession with hiding their NAMES? I come in
here to indulge in social interaction with real people. When I see an item
where the poster does not give their name, I often feel like saying "If you
don't want me to know who you are, I don't want to answer you."

You need to save the file as Text, open it in TextEdit and convert it to
Plain Text and save again. Then you need to delete your current custom
dictionary from Word.

Create a new custom dictionary in Word 2008. Edit the Custom Dictionary in
Word and paste the Entries in from TextEdit.

Save and turn the Spelling back on, and it should work.

The issue is that a Custom Dictionary must contain ONLY MacRoman text, with
NO formatting. They did a quick-and-dirty fix to enable Word to read
Unicode characters from it, but it wasn't a complete fix.

If there is anything in the dictionary apart from Characters, Word will
refuse to use the dictionary. This includes bad line-enders, and that's why
you must create the dictionary in Word 2008.

A custom dictionary is NOT a "document", and it will fail if you try to
treat it like one.

This whole mechanism is absurdly flaky, and I cannot understand why
Microsoft is taking so long to fix it. Sorry, Microsoft: you are going to
have to fix this one, the operation of the Spelling functionality is a
train-wreck!!

(Yes, I told them that in person in April...)

Cheers

Hi Folks:

I know this subject has been discussed before and I've searched answers
in this forum. I'm about out of ideas how to resolve our custom
dictionary problem. Maybe someone can offer a suggestion.

We're using Office 2008 at our ministry on our one Mac and Office 2007
on our PC. We have a custom dictionary which we're using in Office 2007
that contains Biblical names and places. We have tried to copy the
custom dictionary from Office 2007 in order to use it in Office 2008.

That didn't work. We then copied the custom dictionary to a text file
and opened it in OS X. (We're using Leopard 10.5.4) We created a new
custom dictionary in Word 2008 and pasted all the words from the text
version of the copied dictionary into the new blank custom dictionary.

Word didn't like that and gave us an error: "Custom Dictionary not
available". We even tried to paste the new words into the custom
dictionary Word created by default. That didn't work. Same error.

We then tried to save the file as a dictionary file (dic) and that too
didn't work. To make a long sad story short, nothing seems to work
except to let Word create its own custom dictionary and add words to it
as we come across them in our writings. In other words, we have to
start over again creating a new custom dictionary. A definite
inconvenience.

Apparently we're not the only ones running into this problem. Hopefully
this is something that perhaps MS can address in a future update? If
anyone has a suggestion, we would be most grateful.

Thanks and regards.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[MC]

Why does everyone have this obsession with hiding their NAMES? I come in
here to indulge in social interaction with real people. When I see an item
where the poster does not give their name, I often feel like saying "If you
don't want me to know who you are, I don't want to answer you."

Hmmm... I wonder who's the more obsessed!

Matthew.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Mathew:

Me

I come here to meet people. It's the "people" I enjoy. If they don't want
me to know them as people, welll.... I do this for a living, call me at the
office and let's talk money...

Cheers

Hmmm... I wonder who's the more obsessed!

Matthew.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Whereas I am totally happy to just call people MC or cs and tend to
refer to Bob J as CyberTaz even now that he has a more common name....

 

[cs]

John McGhie wrote:

Hi John:

Replies are in line.

Why does everyone have this obsession with hiding their NAMES? I come in
here to indulge in social interaction with real people. When I see an item
where the poster does not give their name, I often feel like saying "If you
don't want me to know who you are, I don't want to answer you."

Sorry about that, I'm so used to the typical nonsense one runs into when
posting in newsgroups that old timers like myself are very cautious
about using a real name and email address. I realize this isn't a
typical newsgroup. Again, I apologize.

You need to save the file as Text, open it in TextEdit and convert it to
Plain Text and save again. Then you need to delete your current custom
dictionary from Word.

I believe we tried that approach but will try again.

Create a new custom dictionary in Word 2008. Edit the Custom Dictionary in
Word and paste the Entries in from TextEdit.

Save and turn the Spelling back on, and it should work.

The issue is that a Custom Dictionary must contain ONLY MacRoman text, with
NO formatting. They did a quick-and-dirty fix to enable Word to read
Unicode characters from it, but it wasn't a complete fix.

When we first copied the custom dictionary from Office 2007 and
displayed it on the Mac, many of the words were garbled and double
spaced. We edited it using Textedit to remove any garbage and the
double spacing.

If there is anything in the dictionary apart from Characters, Word will
refuse to use the dictionary. This includes bad line-enders, and that's why
you must create the dictionary in Word 2008.

A custom dictionary is NOT a "document", and it will fail if you try to
treat it like one.

That may be part of our problem. We also tried to use Word to edit and
save the dictionary.

This whole mechanism is absurdly flaky, and I cannot understand why
Microsoft is taking so long to fix it. Sorry, Microsoft: you are going to
have to fix this one, the operation of the Spelling functionality is a
train-wreck!!

(Yes, I told them that in person in April...)

Cheers

Thanks for your quick response and regards from Dallas, Texas

Charlie

 

[Phillip Jones]

John its because of all the spam attacks and bots harvesting names
either for Spam, denial of Service, Phishing schemes and such.

Heck I even have basically abandoned for all intents and purposes an
email address at my ISP and just let it hang around for Spam Collection.

I get more hits with it than I get real mail from from the one I use.

If you need to know anything about me look in my signature file.
Everything is there except that I am 59 years Old , Disabled, and Male.

Every couple of days I'm have to delete 200-300 pieces of spam and other
junk from the other email box. I even have my ISP spam filters turned on
and spam filers within SeaMonkey which are some of the best and still 10
to 20 pieces still get through on the one I use and 30-50 on the other
address. So I can see why people are afraid to show their real name.

Why does everyone have this obsession with hiding their NAMES? I come in
here to indulge in social interaction with real people. When I see an item
where the poster does not give their name, I often feel like saying "If you
don't want me to know who you are, I don't want to answer you."

You need to save the file as Text, open it in TextEdit and convert it to
Plain Text and save again. Then you need to delete your current custom
dictionary from Word.

Create a new custom dictionary in Word 2008. Edit the Custom Dictionary in
Word and paste the Entries in from TextEdit.

Save and turn the Spelling back on, and it should work.

The issue is that a Custom Dictionary must contain ONLY MacRoman text, with
NO formatting. They did a quick-and-dirty fix to enable Word to read
Unicode characters from it, but it wasn't a complete fix.

If there is anything in the dictionary apart from Characters, Word will
refuse to use the dictionary. This includes bad line-enders, and that's why
you must create the dictionary in Word 2008.

A custom dictionary is NOT a "document", and it will fail if you try to
treat it like one.

This whole mechanism is absurdly flaky, and I cannot understand why
Microsoft is taking so long to fix it. Sorry, Microsoft: you are going to
have to fix this one, the operation of the Spelling functionality is a
train-wreck!!

(Yes, I told them that in person in April...)

Cheers

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[cs]

John McGhie wrote:

Reply is in line.

Follow up to my original post and reply:

You need to save the file as Text, open it in TextEdit and convert it to
Plain Text and save again. Then you need to delete your current custom
dictionary from Word.

Create a new custom dictionary in Word 2008. Edit the Custom Dictionary in
Word and paste the Entries in from TextEdit.

Save and turn the Spelling back on, and it should work.

We did that and it still won't work. Same error: "Custom Dictionary not
Available".

The issue is that a Custom Dictionary must contain ONLY MacRoman text, with
NO formatting. They did a quick-and-dirty fix to enable Word to read
Unicode characters from it, but it wasn't a complete fix.

If there is anything in the dictionary apart from Characters, Word will
refuse to use the dictionary. This includes bad line-enders, and that's why
you must create the dictionary in Word 2008.

I believe Word 2008 "thinks" our custom dictionary (Biblical names and
places) is a foreign language dictionary. Here's why I think that....

I loaded the custom dictionary text file in Word and started a spell
check on the file. 99% of our Biblical names and places are flagged by
the speller as "double words". Say what? When it does that, the word
can not be added to the Word 2008 generated custom dictionary.

Looks like someone didn't do a very good job of programming this whole
dictionary business for Office 2008 as the same custom dictionary works
quite well in Office 2003 and Office 2007.

A custom dictionary is NOT a "document", and it will fail if you try to
treat it like one.

This whole mechanism is absurdly flaky, and I cannot understand why
Microsoft is taking so long to fix it. Sorry, Microsoft: you are going to
have to fix this one, the operation of the Spelling functionality is a
train-wreck!!

(Yes, I told them that in person in April...)

Thanks for passing that on to them. And, if you get another chance to
speak with someone that has influence at Redmond, you might inform them
about the little problem we're having. Generally, we're happy with
Office 2008 (sure wish they would add VB back in the next update) but
it's not as nice as 2007.

Cheers

Regards, and thanks for your help.

Charlie from Dallas, Texas

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Charlie:

Sorry about that, I'm so used to the typical nonsense one runs into when
posting in newsgroups that old timers like myself are very cautious
about using a real name and email address. I realize this isn't a
typical newsgroup. Again, I apologize.

No need to apologise. I just like the "community" we have in here.

I believe we tried that approach but will try again.

It's a train-wreck -- good luck. If you work very carefully in the sequence
I suggested, it "might" work

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Phillip:

See this: John McGhie. That's my real name

See this: (e-mail address removed) That's my real email address.

Those have been at the bottom of every post I have made in every newsgroup,
going back to 1995.

This week, I think I have had "one" spam. Maybe none. Last week, I think I
got one also.

So: What are we doing differently?

Yes, I do have a spam filter running, and yes, it is an industrial-strength
server-side spam filter than deletes the rubbish before I see it. But I
have had my real name and email address on the web and on the newsgroups for
13 years and I just don't get the spam you guys complain about

It's not just luck

Cheers

John its because of all the spam attacks and bots harvesting names
either for Spam, denial of Service, Phishing schemes and such.

Heck I even have basically abandoned for all intents and purposes an
email address at my ISP and just let it hang around for Spam Collection.

I get more hits with it than I get real mail from from the one I use.

If you need to know anything about me look in my signature file.
Everything is there except that I am 59 years Old , Disabled, and Male.

Every couple of days I'm have to delete 200-300 pieces of spam and other
junk from the other email box. I even have my ISP spam filters turned on
and spam filers within SeaMonkey which are some of the best and still 10
to 20 pieces still get through on the one I use and 30-50 on the other
address. So I can see why people are afraid to show their real name.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Charlie:

OK, so it didn't work. Can you please email me a copy of the custom
dictionary and I will batter them around the head and body with it.

But I think you have put your finger on the problem: they just haven't done
it properly and all the promises of better efforts in future have yet to
produce much result

If you want some real frustration, try mounting a couple of custom
dictionaries for different languages in different network folders and
sharing them with the whole company.

You can do this easily in WinWord, so one person can properly maintain the
company's spelling standard. Try it in Mac Word and you might as well call
the nice men in white coats to take you away right now...

Cheers

John McGhie wrote:

Reply is in line.

Follow up to my original post and reply:




We did that and it still won't work. Same error: "Custom Dictionary not
Available".



I believe Word 2008 "thinks" our custom dictionary (Biblical names and
places) is a foreign language dictionary. Here's why I think that....

I loaded the custom dictionary text file in Word and started a spell
check on the file. 99% of our Biblical names and places are flagged by
the speller as "double words". Say what? When it does that, the word
can not be added to the Word 2008 generated custom dictionary.

Looks like someone didn't do a very good job of programming this whole
dictionary business for Office 2008 as the same custom dictionary works
quite well in Office 2003 and Office 2007.




Thanks for passing that on to them. And, if you get another chance to
speak with someone that has influence at Redmond, you might inform them
about the little problem we're having. Generally, we're happy with
Office 2008 (sure wish they would add VB back in the next update) but
it's not as nice as 2007.


Regards, and thanks for your help.

Charlie from Dallas, Texas

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[cs]

John McGhie wrote:

Hi John:

OK, so it didn't work. Can you please email me a copy of the custom
dictionary and I will batter them around the head and body with it.

But I think you have put your finger on the problem: they just haven't done
it properly and all the promises of better efforts in future have yet to
produce much result

If you want some real frustration, try mounting a couple of custom
dictionaries for different languages in different network folders and
sharing them with the whole company.

You can do this easily in WinWord, so one person can properly maintain the
company's spelling standard. Try it in Mac Word and you might as well call
the nice men in white coats to take you away right now...

Thanks for your help and support. Mail on it's way to you.

Regards from Dallas, Texas

Charlie ([email protected])

 

[Phillip Jones]

I've been on the internet since the days of SE/30 a 300 Baud Modem, and
Dial up and using WhiteKnight as the Bulletin Board Software.
the about 14 years ago I signed up my my current ISP, I was using Dial
up and still using that 300 Baud modem to start but then moved up to
first a 28K the 56K Modem on Dial up (both from US Robotics) using a
7100/66.
Now I am still with the same ISP but now a 1mbps DCL/SDSL connection
on a G4-500 using OSX.3.9 or a Laptop PB17" 1.67GB. The equipment Modem
and Router are provide by ISP along with the Line.

So I expect I have been on line as long as you. I've never hidden, nor
made an attempt to hide my email address and Name. For a while I was
reporting Spam to Spamcop and decided I was spending more time doing
that and not as much of the reading and responding to messages. And it
looked like reporting only caused increases so I quit.

I don't know why your lucky but one of these day you will begin to see
Why so many are afraid to show their real name.

Hi Phillip:

See this: John McGhie. That's my real name

See this: (e-mail address removed) That's my real email address.

Those have been at the bottom of every post I have made in every newsgroup,
going back to 1995.

This week, I think I have had "one" spam. Maybe none. Last week, I think I
got one also.

So: What are we doing differently?

Yes, I do have a spam filter running, and yes, it is an industrial-strength
server-side spam filter than deletes the rubbish before I see it. But I
have had my real name and email address on the web and on the newsgroups for
13 years and I just don't get the spam you guys complain about

It's not just luck

Cheers

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Charles:

Eeeewwwww..... Serious weirdness

I replied directly to Charles. For the benefit of others with "Custom
Dictionary Unavailable" problems, here is what I said:

* * * * *

What you sent was NOT a "Custom Dictionary" At least: It is not a Word
2008 custom dictionary

Word can't use the dictionary unless the format is exactly correct. It's
not actually a "Text File", it's a "Database Table". And it should have NO
file name extension.

To fix that is easy: You create a NEW Custom Dictionary in Word
Preferences>Spelling and Grammar>Custom Dictionaries>New...

Then COPY from the text file and Paste>Special>Unformatted Text into the new
custom dictionary. Make CERTAIN that you have your Show/Hide on so you can
see your paragraph marks and spaces when you do this, because otherwise you
cannot see what you are doing.

The TXT file you sent me was very strange. It had Windows line endings in
it: that will prevent Word from using the thing. That's easy enough to fix:
you search for "^p^p" and replace with "^p".

But it also had a very strange symptom: I think the character-set must have
been an Arabic character set (or maybe an Asian character set) originally.
Because every letter had a space after it! I don't know how it got into
that condition!! Because of this, Search/replace for spaces wouldn't work.
So I copied the whole thing back out of the custom dictionary and pasted
into a blank document.

I then Searched for " " (a space) and replaced with "" (nothing). A custom
dictionary should have no spaces in it. Then I pasted from the document
back into the custom dictionary, and used Edit>Clear>Clear formats to remove
the formatting.

I then ran the thing and spell-checked a lump of biblical scholarship I
found on the Internet. I added a few Hebrew words, so I hope they spelled
them right! It's working OK here.

Cheers

John McGhie wrote:

Hi John:






Thanks for your help and support. Mail on it's way to you.

Regards from Dallas, Texas

Charlie ([email protected])

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Phillip:

I've been on the internet since the days of SE/30 a 300 Baud Modem, and
Dial up and using WhiteKnight as the Bulletin Board Software.

Hell, you must have been one of those rich people that could afford a
Faaaaast modem I started with a 75 baud Acoustic Coupler

first a 28K the 56K Modem on Dial up (both from US Robotics) using a
7100/66.

USR were GREAT modems But I saved up and spent an entire week's wages
on a real Hayes modem. Remember them? The thing looked like it should have
been part of a battleship, and it probably was, once. But it got hold of
that hone line in a death-grip that nothing the phone system could do to it
would dislodge it

So I expect I have been on line as long as you. I've never hidden, nor
made an attempt to hide my email address and Name.

I know. So I was a bit puzzled when you responded to a thread complaining
abut people who DO hide?? But I often do not understand what you do, so I
just went with the flow

I don't know why your lucky but one of these day you will begin to see
Why so many are afraid to show their real name.

I am not lucky. I subscribe to professional-grade tools.

I use a dedicated email provider with a proper "paid-for" Spam Filter. I am
an MVP. There are people out there that think we work for Microsoft, so
they send us all sorts of junk, or try to. I remember during the Love Bug
or whatever it was called my server was apparently dumping about 1,800
viruses a minute!

If you don't want ANY Spam, ping me privately and I will tell you which
company I use. I know you have my email address

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]