Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

Change the spell check default language System
Here's how to change the spell-check language default. It's a bit of an odd way to do it but it seems to work...
  1. Type something in any application you want that supports spell-check (Mail, TextEdit, etc.).
  2. Control click on any word at all.
  3. From the pop-up menu you want Spelling > Spelling...
  4. Choose your preferred language from the pop-up.
And there we go, it definitely works for British English, not sure about everywhere else. The one problem is that it still recognises the US spelling as correct, so flavor is just as correct as flavour.

The test I used was to mistype aluminum/aluminium as "alumiium". If you're in British English version you are offered "aluminium" and if in US English "aluminum"
    •    
  • Currently 0.00 / 5
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  (0 votes cast)
 
[10,228 views]  

Change the spell check default language | 3 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Change the spell check default language' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Can we edit the Dictionary?
Authored by: biscuit on Sep 05, '02 12:03:32PM

Glad to see the spell checker now has language support. With regard to the recognition of US spellings as correct, can't we just edit the dictionary file to remove them? I realise I'm over simplifying, but surely somewhere theres a list of words which are correct?

biscuit



[ Reply to This | # ]
Change the spell check default language
Authored by: starwxrwx on Sep 18, '03 12:49:44AM

I found when I changed to "British English" it no longer recognised the US spelling (tested on the word "centre/center")

Also, any words I had added to the "English" dictionary were not recognised any longer... this makes sense, but perhaps it would be more useful to be able to assign a "custom" dictionary based on a copy of English or British English to keep my own strange mix of spellings (including strange words like subsubsection for latex loving...)

Also, being able to delete words from the dictionary would be useful, since Learn and Ignore Spelling are just a slip-and-click apart.

Also, changing the dictionary in an application wont change it in any others until you quit them all and relaunch (understandably, but good to know).



[ Reply to This | # ]
Change the spell check default language from the command line
Authored by: tkld on Oct 28, '03 07:02:18AM

To do this from a terminal window or script:

defaults write "Apple Global Domain" NSPreferredSpellServerLanguage en_GB 

You may want to copy the relevant section of ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist to the /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences folder, so that all new users will also have the correct dictionary.



[ Reply to This | # ]