Spelling Question

[Kim]

How many misspelled words must there be for MS Word to automatically check
mark Hide Spelling Errors in Document on it's own?

We have this happen a lot because we do not have a pharmaceutical and
chemical dictionary added so there are lots of spelling errors in some of our
documents and it just out of no where, check marks to hide the spelling
errors. It also prompts us that there are too many errors to spell check.
This amazing me. There should be no limit.

Is there a way to stop this? And does anyone have any recommendations on
pharmaceutical/chemical and/or bio dictionaries as an add on? Thanks all.

Kim

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It doesn't seem to take very many, or at least it didn't when I was typing a
document some years ago in which the author had used a lot of unusual names.
But I suspect that this may depend a lot on the resources available (amount
of RAM and available HD space), and I imagine the machine I was using then
was underpowered for the job.

If you don't want to add all the pharmaceutical and chemical terms to a
custom dictionary (because they don't occur regularly enough to bother
with), there is another workaround. Define a character style as "Default
Paragraph Font + Do not check spelling or grammar," and apply this style to
the terms that you know will be marked as "misspelled." This should allow
Word to handle the remaining verbiage without overload.

 

[Kim]

Suzanne, that is an excellent idea. I only hope they will apply the style.
I have told them numerous times to press Add to the custom dictionary, but no
one listens to me. If I want to add a word globally, I would just add it to
the Normal.dot and then update everyone's normal.dot with the new one, right?
Or is there another way to put these words in everyone's dictionary. I have
about 160 users and would like to add about 300 words to the dictionary, if
we don't get a pharmaceutical dictionary add-on.

Thanks again.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Kim,

Words you add to the custom dictionary don't go in normal.dot (and
don't even *think* about replacing other users' normal.dot files with
yours -- you'll kill off all their customizations). They go into a
file named custom.dic that lives in the folder C:\Documents and
Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof -- but it's
possible to create other custom dictionaries and load more than one at
a time.

What I suggest is that you make a separate file containing your terms;
you might name it pharm.dic. It's just a plain text file, the kind you
can write in Notepad, with one word per line. Put that file in the
same folder with the custom.dic file. In Word, go to Tools > Options >
Spelling & Grammar. Click the Custom Dictionaries button, put a
checkmark next to pharm.dic, and click OK. Now Word will check both
custom dictionaries (in addition to the main dictionary), and it won't
complain about any word it finds in either file.

Distribute the pharm.dic file to the other users, with instructions on
where to place it and how to enable it. Updating it with more terms is
just a matter of overwriting it with a new copy.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
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[Kim]

Not to worry, I wouldn't have never just replaced anyone's Normal.dot. I
will take your advice and create that file and just add it to everyone's
computer. Excellent idea. Thank you so much.