Some rules for Autocorrect

Discuss the word processor
Post Reply
Elaura
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:10 pm

Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by Elaura »

Mods: please append to existing thread or delete if this information is erroneous; I have not tested all versions.

Through the use of online tutorials and a lot of trial and error, I have discovered the following rules apply to valid entries in the Autocorrect DocumentList.xml :
  • HTML Entities (special characters) are Unicode HEX
  • entries cannot include smart quotes double or single (apostrophes)
  • entries cannot include double quotes, except those required for formatting
  • regardless of the order you put them into the xml document, they will be sorted alphabetically (by error) in the Autocorrect list inside OO
  • Although the original .dat file has no line breaks, LFCR (line feed carriage return or line break) does not affect whether or how entries appear in the AC list in OO
  • Regardless of installation path, the relevant .dat file is found in a folder called:user\Autocorr\
The reason I am sharing these rules is because I am totally new to Opensource office programs. This past week, I finally decided to move away from my dependency on MS software. After the relative ease of migrating my spell-check entries, I found the Autocorrect migration a good deal more complicated. After doing a lot of Googling I found several exact copies of the same instructions, but they were lacking in details as to why the program would choke on certain entries that worked perfectly well in MSWord.

Though much, if not all of this may seem as if someone capable of editing the XML document in the first place should have already know it, I didn't and someone else out there might not know it either.

The tutorial I used as my guide can be found here: raywoodcockslatest.blogspot.com/2010/05/importing-microsoft-word-autocorrect.html

The programs I used to achieve the migration are 7zip, Notepad++, and LibreCalc.
Last edited by acknak on Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: disable live link
LibreOffice 4.1.4.2 on Windows7
User avatar
Villeroy
Volunteer
Posts: 31270
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:35 am
Location: Germany

Re: Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by Villeroy »

why not auto-text? (the F3 thing)
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
Ubuntu 18.04 with LibreOffice 6.0, latest OpenOffice and LibreOffice
Elaura
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:10 pm

Re: Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by Elaura »

I use autocorrect mostly for diacritics. I've never used auto text so there is nothing to migrate. I don't use macros, either. I'm a fiction writer and I generally type faster than it takes to remember a set of keystrokes, When I want to write cafe, I want it automatically changed to café as I type, rather than stopping the flow and searching my mind for a new, unfamiliar procedure.

I feel there is probably a lot more people, like me, who are used to doing things a particular way and want to continue doing it that way, just not in MSWord.
LibreOffice 4.1.4.2 on Windows7
User avatar
acknak
Moderator
Posts: 22756
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:25 am
Location: USA:NJ:E3

Re: Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by acknak »

So the goal here is to take a correction list from MS Word and migrate it to OO Writer, is that it?

I'd never heard of DocumentList.xml before. This link turned up in my search; it has some translation tools/suggestions:
http://docs.translatehouse.org/projects ... e.org.html
AOO4/LO5 • Linux • Fedora 23
Elaura
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:10 pm

Re: Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by Elaura »

acknak,

That guide is actually a bit more complicated than the one I worked from. The archive acor_en-US.dat (located in user\acorr\) contains the file DocumentList.xml, which can be directly edited from within 7zip. None of the files listed need to be regenerated and it isn't necessary to run a script to put an existing Word autocorrect .dot file into the correct format for DocumentList.xml.

The process is almost entirely cut and paste and search and replace. My "rules" are for people who have already followed the published guidelines, but Autocorrect is still choking on their entries.
LibreOffice 4.1.4.2 on Windows7
aarwdc
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 6:54 pm

Re: Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by aarwdc »

Replacing the given autocorrect list with my hundreds of MS Word autocorrect entries worked using this method, however it took a bit before I figured out that I needed to leave in the first 2 < > bracketed entries:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<block-list:block-list xmlns:block-list="http://openoffice.org/2001/block-list"> :bravo:
LibreOffice 5.3.4.2 (x64) on Windows 10
aarwdc
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 6:54 pm

Re: Some rules for Autocorrect

Post by aarwdc »

On more thing: If there are ampersands (&) in your replacement text, the list will hang up until they are removed.
LibreOffice 5.3.4.2 (x64) on Windows 10
Post Reply