Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hi, Just a quick note of my experiences. When I installed OpenOffice onto a clean Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop I discovered that the spell checker was not working. I fiddled around inside OpenOffice wondering why it was not working, all the suggestions where to download language packs, add default languages etc. Nothing helped. The answer however was very simple. If you have changed the default system language inside Ubuntu (as had I), I was using UK English and not US English. When you look at the setting inside OpenOffice, the spell checker lists just one language (US English) It is in the drop down list under the spell checker settings, but can not be selected.

To resolve the problem, I went over to Ubuntu's settings for 'Language and Region', then choose 'Manage Installed Languages'. As soon as I did this, Ubuntu automagically suggested I download a bunch of apt packages that support application specific language functions. Included in the list was everything that OpenOffice needed. Hey Presto as soon as I restarted OpenOffice spell check was working perfectly.

Hope this helps, it was simple but not too obvious.
Aidan

Welcome to the Forums.
I'm happy to hear that you found a solution that, to my knowledge, had not been reported previously in regards to this common problem.

On a secondary note, I noticed that your forum signature shows OpenOffice 6.602. This can not be correct as the latest release of OpenOffice is 4.1.6
If the version number is correct, then it appears you are using LibreOffice. Please update your forum signature so that any questions you have in the future can be accurately responded to.
There are differences between LibreOffice and OpenOffice and those differences can mean that an answer for LibreOffice might not work in OpenOffice and vice-versa.

I don't think this could apply to Apache OpenOffice. OpenOffice uses an extension to install dictionaries in the user profile. The English extension includes dictionaries for English (AU), English (CA), English (UK), English (US) and English (ZA). If the extension is disabled, AOO won't check any spelling at all. LibreOffice that is installed by Ubuntu apparently uses the Hunspell dictionaries installed by Ubuntu. No dictionary extension is shown in the Extension Manager of LO.

I just installed Ubuntu Mate 18.10 and found that LO would only check spelling for English (US). After installing AOO 4.1.6, I found that it would check spelling for English (AU), English (CA), English (UK), English (US) and English (ZA) without adding any more language support in Ubuntu.