British English Spell Checker for Abiword won't work

[Old Woman]

I downloaded British English dictionary for Abiword, but I can't get it to work!

[rcrsn51]

Your first step is to find where the language files are being stored. They will either be in the folder /usr/share/Abisuite-2.4/dictionary or the hidden folder /root/.Abisuite/dictionary.

You are looking for a file named something like "british.hash". The quickest solution is to rename it to "american.hash".

[Old Woman]

That didn't work I'm afraid. By renaming the .awt files in the template folder(s) I have successfully changed the default template to English UK, so the default language is already British English. I would have thought Abiword would default to the British English dictionary as well - however all that happens with the spell checker is it claims the spell check is complete when it isn't.

I checked earlier forum entries, and it appears that others have had the same problem - but no solution.

[mikeb]

I checked earlier forum entries, and it appears that others have had the same problem - but no solution

Same here..never had it working

I tried rehashing the dictionary from source and still no go.

Was american working?

Aspell seems reliable...could abiword be recompiled to use that?

mike

[rcrsn51]

Sorry it didn't work for you. I have used both the Windows and Linux versions of Abiword for years and I always got spell checking to work. I just left the default template as en-US and renamed the language file to american.hash.

My language file is in /usr/share/Abisuite-2.4/dictionary

It also requires the file ispell_dictionary_list.xml in the same folder.

[Old Woman]

Yes, American spell checker worked, it seems to default to American spell checking even though I used en-GB to replace the normal template and the default language is UK English. Incidentally I've used Abiword in earlier versions of Puppy without this problem.

[Bruce B]

Yes, American spell checker worked, it seems to default to American spell checking even though I used en-GB to replace the normal template and the default language is UK English. Incidentally I've used Abiword in earlier versions of Puppy without this problem.

I know about that. It used to work. Good luck finding a solution to this one. Seems easy, until you try it.

[muggins]

Did you try rcrsn51's suggestion, of renaming the british .hash file as the american one? Symlinking should work as well.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=30671

[mikeb]

I mentioned aspell as this works in kword but ispell does not..be it american or uk...as it won't in abiword.
From the other thread it seems like the situation is very version dependant.
Hashing is done independantly of abiword..I wonder if this is where descrepancies lie....I'm young and confused

mike

[Old Woman]

What is symlinking? Forgive me, I'm just this old girl. Willing to try anything when I know how!

[mikeb]

What is symlinking?

A sneaky way of having a file in 2 places with a new name if needed without affecting/moving the original.

Open 2 rox windows in two separate folders...(the file manager).
Drag and drop a file from one window to another...(might need middle click) when you drop you get 3 options...choose click.
Voila , you have a symlink...it should have a little arrow...and as far as any program is concerned the file is in both places...handy for saving space or convenience.

Right click on a file , choose link, a box pops up where you can change the name...do that...and voila a link to the original with the new name.

Example...I symlink /mnt/hda5 to /root/Documents so my shared storage appears as a 'Documents' folder in /root.

Hope that makes sense

mike

[Béèm]

What is symlinking?

A new trick for an old woman.
Google being your friend, it takes 1 second to find this.
Mikeb explained how to do.

[Old Woman]

Thank you for the explanations.

Being a resourceful old woman, I'm firm friends with Google, and Wikipedia as well, but all those words make my head spin somewhat. Mikeb's instructions suit my learning pace somewhat better; I'll give them a try, though what I'm supposed to link to what to make Abiword's spell check work isn't yet quite clear!

Just think of me as a Linux granny...

[Béèm]

Did you follow muggins link and did you download the en-GB dictionary?

[Old Woman]

Yes, it installed to ~/.Abisuite/dictionary, and I copied it to /usr/share/AbiSuite-2.4/dictionary. But only the American Spellchecker works.

[Béèm]

You are looking for a file named something like "british.hash". The quickest solution is to rename it to "american.hash".

You answered to his suggestion that you tried, but you were speaking of the awt files.
Did you actually try to rename the British hash file to American?
(the American ones renamed first for sure)

And for my personal interest, what is the subtle difference between the US and UK?

[mikeb]

And for my personal interest, what is the subtle difference between the US and UK?

anything ending in 'our' and 'ght' eg colour and light

and centre.......

mike

[Béèm]

[OT]
Oh boy, the English tower of Babylon strikes here.
And now you're gonna tell me there is also a difference with Canadian English and Australian English?
[/OT]

[mikeb]

Oh boy, the English tower of Babylon strikes here.

I gave a straight forward reply to your question...there's no need to be offensive.

mike

[r__hughes]

I am experimenting with a frugal-mounted pup411 (2.6.25.16) and am using abiword with english(UK) spellchecker as follows -----

My quick & dirty fix for puppy411 is to put british.hash in /usr/share/enchant/ispell .after deleting the 2 original symlinks.

Then make a symlink from british.hash & call it american.hash (right-click on british.hash/link & name it american.hash)

This may completely screw up the custom dictionary but otherwise it seems to work