Word 2004 Dictionary problems

[Bella Jones]

[Office 2004; most recent update; OS 10.3.9]

I wonder if anyone has seen these. I've been trying to tackle this stuff
for a while now. Thanks for any thoughts.

- My Main Dictionary seems to have absorbed a few mistaken custom
dictionary entries from previous versions (and from before I upgraded
from OS9, 18 months ago). I have scoured my Custom Dictionary for these
words and they are not there, but the spellchecker does not see them as
wrong. I have got 'English (UK)' in the styles I use. And I have
repeatedly checked that it is set to that. (This problem was also
present in Office X, BTW).

- In 'Language', the option '(no proofing)' does not seem to exist in my
version of Word. (This may or may not be relevant, but can be annoying.)

- I have created an Exclude Dictionary, but it doesn't work. First I put
it in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft. I have just read the 'help'
again, and it says it has to go in the same folder as the Main
Dictionary. I cannot see a file called that, so I tried putting it in
~/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office, where I have files called
'English Dictionary' and 'English Dictionary 2'. Still no go.

Any pointers gratefully accepted!

Thanks.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

In a rush, but.... (I added numbers)

Haven't a clue about #1. Might you possibly have multiple custom
dictionaries and they are in a different one you forgot about?

#2--Word 2004 has eliminated the (no proofing) option and replaced it with a
checkbox "do not check spelling and grammar". It works equivalently, and as
far as I know, is an improvement?

#3--exclude dictionary was just completely broken, it doesn't work, and I
suspect that creating one loads the words as a custom dictionary, so that
may be the root of #1? I've not yet tested to see whether SP2 fixed this,
and even if it did, it may require recreating the custom dictionary.

[Office 2004; most recent update; OS 10.3.9]

I wonder if anyone has seen these. I've been trying to tackle this stuff
for a while now. Thanks for any thoughts.

#1- My Main Dictionary seems to have absorbed a few mistaken custom
dictionary entries from previous versions (and from before I upgraded
from OS9, 18 months ago). I have scoured my Custom Dictionary for these
words and they are not there, but the spellchecker does not see them as
wrong. I have got 'English (UK)' in the styles I use. And I have
repeatedly checked that it is set to that. (This problem was also
present in Office X, BTW).

#2 - In 'Language', the option '(no proofing)' does not seem to exist in my
version of Word. (This may or may not be relevant, but can be annoying.)

#3 - I have created an Exclude Dictionary, but it doesn't work. First I put
it in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft. I have just read the 'help'
again, and it says it has to go in the same folder as the Main
Dictionary. I cannot see a file called that, so I tried putting it in
~/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office, where I have files called
'English Dictionary' and 'English Dictionary 2'. Still no go.

Any pointers gratefully accepted!

Thanks.

 

[Bella Jones]

Hi Daiya

Thanks for the reply. I've had a look, and:

#1 - There was another custom dictionary, but it was empty. (The
working one had 'Custom Dictionary 2' as its name. Have fixed all that.
No change.

#2 - Ah, now I understand. I didn't realise that.

#3 - I've dumped my Exclude dictionary. And then made another one. No
changes though.

Ah well. No idea how this happened, but a friend reports the same thing.

Thanks again

Bella

In a rush, but.... (I added numbers)

Haven't a clue about #1. Might you possibly have multiple custom
dictionaries and they are in a different one you forgot about?

#2--Word 2004 has eliminated the (no proofing) option and replaced it with a
checkbox "do not check spelling and grammar". It works equivalently, and as
far as I know, is an improvement?

#3--exclude dictionary was just completely broken, it doesn't work, and I
suspect that creating one loads the words as a custom dictionary, so that
may be the root of #1? I've not yet tested to see whether SP2 fixed this,
and even if it did, it may require recreating the custom dictionary.

[Office 2004; most recent update; OS 10.3.9]

I wonder if anyone has seen these. I've been trying to tackle this stuff
for a while now. Thanks for any thoughts.

#1- My Main Dictionary seems to have absorbed a few mistaken custom
dictionary entries from previous versions (and from before I upgraded
from OS9, 18 months ago). I have scoured my Custom Dictionary for these
words and they are not there, but the spellchecker does not see them as
wrong. I have got 'English (UK)' in the styles I use. And I have
repeatedly checked that it is set to that. (This problem was also
present in Office X, BTW).

#2 - In 'Language', the option '(no proofing)' does not seem to exist in my
version of Word. (This may or may not be relevant, but can be annoying.)

#3 - I have created an Exclude Dictionary, but it doesn't work. First I put
it in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft. I have just read the 'help'
again, and it says it has to go in the same folder as the Main
Dictionary. I cannot see a file called that, so I tried putting it in
~/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office, where I have files called
'English Dictionary' and 'English Dictionary 2'. Still no go.

Any pointers gratefully accepted!

Thanks.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Bella,

Are you sure that all the text you're trying to proof is marked as English
(UK)? If you copied and pasted text from another source, it may have
English (US) language settings.

Select all the text you're trying to proof, go to Tools> Language and be
sure the language setting is English (UK). Does that make any difference?

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

 

[Bella Jones]

Hi Beth

That's a good tip, thanks, and I'll remember to do it just in case. In
fact, the offending words causing the most problems are 'seta' and
'bleu', which started out as typos for 'seat' and 'blue', or at least I
think they did. They seem to have been absorbed into the system
somewhere at some point.

Bella