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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08 Apps
One of the Pages '08 features I was most interested in testing out was the support for Word's Track Changes function. At Macworld, we use this all the time as articles fly between writer, editor, and tech reviewer. If it worked well, it would mean I could switch from Word to Pages for my final writing and editing duties (mostly for print; I typically write online stuff in Smultron).

After a trial run, everything was looking great -- the test file exported out, opened in Word with the comments and changes properly tracked, and could pretty much be moved between the two word programs without any issues. Well, there was this one issue, and I'm still not sure if it's local to our setup (somehow), or more widespread. I thought it was only my file that had an issue, but since then, I've edited two others from different writers, and both had the same problem. So I offer this hint in case the issue is more widespread (and in hopes that someone will comment to confirm they've seen this as well).

The only issue we had when moving the files back and forth while using track changes had to do with spelling. Somewhere along the line, the document decided that we should really be writing in (I thought) British English. Words like color were suddenly flagged as incorrect, with the correction showing colour as the correct spelling. I have no idea why this is happening -- perhaps an original style in Word is set up incorrectly, or maybe it's caused by the combination of moving from Word to Pages while using track changes.

The fix is easy, if somewhat annoying to have to do. Select all the text in your document, open the Inspector, go to the Text section, and click on the More tab. Click the Language pop-up menu, and select English as the language. I had track changes enabled when I did this, and I noticed that it flagged many sections of the document to indicate the language change.

As an aside, when I opened this panel for the first time, I discovered that Pages thought we should be using Australian English, not British English as I had assumed. I'm not sure what the differences are, but I do know that regularAmerican English is what we needed to use for our spelling!
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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: jspivack on Aug 16, '07 07:51:42AM
you mean "I do know that American English is what we needed to use for our spelling!", right?

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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: frgough on Aug 16, '07 08:07:03AM

Friend, when you are the most powerful, wealthiest, culturally influential nation on the planet, you don't need to put a prefix in front of your brand of English. I know that grates the fine people in Australia, Britain, Canada, etc. but the answer of course is for them to become the most powerful, wealthiest and culturally influential nation on the planet, and then THEY get to drop the prefix.



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: Tiny Clanger on Aug 16, '07 08:34:52AM

So you'll be renaming your country to England, then?

Thought not :)



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: meikokun on Aug 16, '07 09:13:39AM

1) since you (I assume you feel grand enough to represent your country on this little stage) are in more debt than ANY nation in the world, I don't think you qualify as the wealthiest. Anyone can by a mercedes on the drip, that doesn't mean you're rich. (as an aside, notice how no one ever uses an american car as a paragon of automobile excellence?)
2) just as none of like that awful little bully in the playground, and most everyone secretly - or openly - hopes he'll get a real good kicking someday, nations and their *ahem* representatives should be careful about how they wield, and talk of, power. one should also remember that power is a fragile and transient thing, especially when all that power is paid for on the drip (see point 1)
3) in your nation you speak English, have a greco-roman system of representation, have a law system base on British common law, have derivative tv shows, and a movie system that trots out the same old crap on a regular basis. I could go on, but I'm bored already - even though I've barely scraped the concept of culture. If you mean you have brought to the world obese, obnoxious, arrogant fools, I think other cultures in history even have prior art of you there too. Even Apple won't let americans build their computers, so how home-produced are *those* cultural icons? (their chief designer is British, dontchaknow?)

you see, prefixing things is often a case of simple manners; perhaps as you mature as a nation (and, dare I say it, an individual) you'll learn such things. We are called 'old europe' because we have been around the block a bit, not like some snot-nosed little shit trying to hustle you for quarters on the street corner. Friend.



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: macosx4me on Aug 19, '07 04:23:51PM

As an American who lived for years in Canda, speaks French and German (although that's fading fast), and actually knows how most English speakers outside America spell (the colourful nature U.S. "spelling" took some serious adjustment - and I use "color" euphemistically), let me just say:

One obnoxious American does not represent all Americans. I hate it when myopic, misguided arrogant types puff up their chest and presume to speak for others in this country. It's become endemic :/



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: ascanio on Aug 19, '07 11:19:57PM

When you read comments like this, and realize that it could be not the opinion of just one, you easily understand why US is not so popular on the planet. And, please, leave "culture" out of this.



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: robg on Aug 30, '07 09:14:42AM

Jeez, I didn't realize my wording would cause such a firestorm. I really did *not* mean to offend anyone by my choice of words; it's just what rolled off the keyboard. I have edited the original now, leaving the original wording showing so that people can see just what my mistake was...

Again, mea culpa, and really, I didn't mean to come across as a snobbish American. It was just a random word, but a poorly chosen one at that.

-rob.



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: jurg on Aug 16, '07 11:01:43AM

I noticed the same problem when copying text from Word documents, either opened in Word or in Pages. In my case the language for spell checking changed to German all the time, while I was writing in Dutch and use a Dutch Finder. Selecting all the text and changing the language for spell checking did not work for all parts of the text. Tables, for example, need to be selected separately. An annoying problem, since most of my previous documents are in Word format and I really prefer the new Pages above Word.



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: mpemulis on Aug 16, '07 01:11:16PM

I had the exact same problem this week - suddenly got a doc from someone and it was tagged with Australian English. Wonder what the trigger is?



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Override a strange dictionary quirk in Pages '08
Authored by: jksellors on Aug 18, '07 05:21:55AM

Pages seems to use the System Preferences/International/Languages tab to determine the default document dictionary.
Under the System Preferences/International/Languages tab only the English was enabled on my computer.
I enabled the US English, Canadian English and British English in the Edit List pull down menu.
I then dragged the Canadian English to the top of the list.
After re-logging in and opening Pages— Canadian English was the default language.
If you change the Pages Inspector/Text/More tab Languages pull-down to Australian English and then File/Save as Template…/ with a meaningful name, then you can open this template and it will use Australian English by default.
You can also choose this template to open by default when you open the Pages application.



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