Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Spell check is not working, seems there is no dictionary - either every word or none is underlined red. Have tried resetting language and downloading a new version of Open Office, but problem persists. Have been using Open Office with no problems for several years. Would be grateful for any suggestions on how to fix - thanks.

Try resetting your user profile. First, shutdown OpenOffice. Open any folder and enter
%appdata%\openoffice\4
in the address bar near the top. That will take you to a folder containing a folder name user. Rename that to user_old . Restart OpenOffice. You should get the registration screen.

See the first post in the writer forum for a full explanation.

Thanks very much - but there's no 'user' folder in the folder which comes up when I type in the formula you suggested. 'User' does comes up at the end of address of the first folder and I tried to change it to 'user_old' but just got message that username wasn't recognised. Is there any other way of getting to the registration screen?

It's there.

Google for how to display hidden files.

Or see the first post in this forum or the Writer forum for a full explanation.

Type the address in the Address Bar of File Explorer. Do not type it in the Search box. This works in every version of Windows.

Resolved - thanks very much.

The fix for "Spell Check Not Working" by changing "user" folder to "user_old" works like a charm. Thank you. It was driving me crazy.

THANK YOU, FJCC!!
I too was becoming quite irritated by this problem and your solution was fast, easy, and flawless.

I've tried to reload my user_old and it still doesn't work. The best I can tell the default language is set to English (Australia) in the spell checker, I try to edit it but it never saves just stays (Australia), which isn't an option for my language just spell check. I hate this thing how frickin hard it is to just have spell check work seriously.

Reloading user_old will restore the earlier situation. Delete user, or rename it to user_old2, then restart OpenOffice. It will make a new user and spellcheck should work correctly.

I've tried and fixed some of the open office applications. So I got it to work properly in OO Writer but still can't figure out how to get it to work in OO Impress. Any ideas for that? I'm using windows 10 Pro.

Rgraveling78 wrote:The best I can tell the default language is set to English (Australia) in the spell checker, I try to edit it but it never saves just stays (Australia), which isn't an option for my language just spell check.

What is the language setting for Writer documents where SpellCheck does work? What is the language setting for the Impress documents where SpellCheck does not work? I suspect they are not the same. If they are the same, then SpellCheck should work in both.

The default language setting is a language attribute setting for the text of new documents. If you want to change the setting for an existing document, you have to check the "For the current document only" option when changing the default language.

RoryOF wrote:Reloading user_old will restore the earlier situation. Delete user, or rename it to user_old2, then restart OpenOffice. It will make a new user and spellcheck should work correctly.

This is not a solution. It's the equivalent of doing a factory reset because your computer is behaving oddly, or buying a new car because your current car won't start.

But if you keep a copy of your former profile, you're able to retrieve your customization.

wmvmeyer wrote:The fix for "Spell Check Not Working" by changing "user" folder to "user_old" works like a charm. Thank you. It was driving me crazy.

trainman2k wrote:THANK YOU, FJCC!!
I too was becoming quite irritated by this problem and your solution was fast, easy, and flawless.

While FJCC's and RoryoF's renaming of user to user_OLD is quick and works it loses all your customisation, all your added words to your dictionaries, any macros you have written, your autocorrects and autotexts, your backup files, extensions, gallery files, templates etc. As Hagar says, you need to copy them back if you need them.

The best way to fix spellcheck faults it is to follow Hagar's detailed instructions at [Solved] Spell Check Not Working (words red underlined). It explains how to get your customisation back and points to an alternative method Spell checker "red wriggly lines" - beta test fix for AOO which fixes spellcheck without losing anything.

I read in the Survival guide that this is not a customer service but I am completely frustrated trying to use the Haga Digest for "Resetig the user profile".
Perhaps I am not technical enough to understand or find all the different terms described under "open your file browser" for the "windows" bullet.
HELP!
And thanks.

With pictures:
viewtopic.php?f=74&t=99158

Thanks very much David ... the pictures did the trick.
Bob

I have no spell checker. I have carefully tried all the solutions here but still no spell checker. The language options are ticked, the language installed. The user file was renamed user_old an a reset changed nothing. Is there any other way of enabling spell checker . I had access to spellchecker in the past but no more.

@chetnich: Resetting the user profile enables SpellChecking in the default language for the AOO version installed on your computer. The only other possibilities are that you have the language set to "None" in the document (that turns off Spell Checking in that document), or you have the language set to some other non-default language in the document and haven't installed the dictionary for the non-default language.

This problem has been multi posted - further discussion can be found in viewtopic.php?f=6&t=102260

this works thanks

I have verified this as well. Thanks for the help.
I had this problem for the longest time, but didn't have time to fix.
This method of renaming the user settings, aka resetting, is the easiest method for those who don't have any customisation settings created, and simply want to 'get it to work'.