Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I tried the uninstall re-install fix and it did not help. What can I do now. (canadian English)

Hi and welcome to the forum!

See: [Troubleshooting] Spell check in OOo 3.x.

Please add '[Solved]' at the beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

I've tried everything here, my screens are a bit different from what you show, but in any case nothing has worked. If I type in capitals there are no wavy lines but no spell check either. I f I type in lower case every word has a wavy line.
I've been using Open Office for several years and never had a problem until I upgraded.

What is the language in the status bar?
Do you see the blue checkmark in front of the language in the Font properties?

NB: please don't post in a tutorial, I've deleted your other post.

"Check uppercase words" is unchecked by default in /Tools /Options/ Language settings / Writing Aids : options.
Every word with a wavy line is most probably an incorrect setting for default language or selection of a wrong language dictionary.

Edit: Note that each version of English uses its own dictionary; spellcheck will not work across different strains of English.

I think, there’s an all-in-one English spellcheck extension that covers all Englishes.

RoryOF wrote:... spellcheck will not work across different strains of English.

Pardon my butting in here--I'm not sure I understand what that means.

Doesn't the "all words underlined" most likely point to an internal problem with the profile settings or dictionary installation? I mean, the only way you get everything underlined is if OOo has (or thinks it has) a dictionary installed that matches the document language setting, but the dictionary is either broken, or the document language setting is completely wrong, set to a language that shares no words at all with the actual document text. If the document contained English (Canada) spellings and the language setting was English (US), you wouldn't find all words underlined--unless the spellcheck/dictionary system was broken.

I believe I had this problem when I installed AOO 3.4, until I had occasion to reset my user settings profile. I'm not 100% sure because I don't use the automatic spellcheck very often.

I have this exact problem. Spell check only allows words which I have manually added. If I run spell check it believes that every word is wrongly spelt and if I have 'check spelling as you type' enabled then it underlines every word in wiggly red.

It has English [English (UK)] enabled in Options/Language/Writing Aids and I'm at a loss as to what can be done to rectify this behaviour.

Thanks.

Have you gone through the tutorial linked above? Especially extension manager and the blue check mark?

Does the language shown in the status bar match the desired setting?

Under tools-options-languages I have the following -
User Interface Default English USA
Locale Setting Default English Canada

Default Language for Documents English Canada (with the abc spell check mark in front)

When you are in a document, on Status bar at screen bottom is English Canada shown? In /Tools /Options /Language Settings/Writing aids under Available Language Modules is Hunspell SpellChecker enabled?

yes to both.

Have you tried to uncheck and recheck the Hunspell module? See this post.

OK, here is another question.
Open the document in question where every word is underlined.
Call menu:File>Properties and activate the first tab of that dialog.
Near the bottom you find property "Template". Does it show any template name?

I tried the unchecking and rechecking Hunspell, no help there.
There is no name shown in the template area.

I'm at loss.
Can you upload a sample file (see How to attach a document here)?

Here is a sample from my Open Office files. All are the same.

Well, works fine for me so it's not a problem with the file: Do you confirm you had reset your profile?

I knew it wasn't the file as every file is the same and some I have had for years, they are all 100% underlined with wavy lines! If you mean the profile that you find under tools-options-user data, then it has not changed, if there is another profile you'll have to tell me how to find it. This is getting rather discouraging.

The User Profile of which Hagar speaks is accessed outside of OpenOffice, with OpenOffice closed. It should be a directory named something like
C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org\3\user
where <user name> is replaced with your login name under Windows. In your case I hazard that this may be Bill; rename this from (say)
C:\Users\Bill\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org\3\user to C:\Users\Bill\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org\3\user.old

Now restart OpenOffice; I'm oldfashioned and would recommend restarting the computer (Power off and on after a short delay).

Details are given in
Tutorial: The User Profile

I can't figure out how to change my user profile. I read the tutorial, but it doesn't seem to work for Windows 7, or perhaps I'm not doing it properly. When I open Widows Explorer there is no Tools, or File options shown. I'm opening Explorer by searching for it, but I just get it showing all the contents of the computer - desk top, libraries, documents, etc.

Bill Stephens wrote:I can't figure out how to change my user profile. I read the tutorial, but it doesn't seem to work for Windows 7, or perhaps I'm not doing it properly. When I open Widows Explorer there is no Tools, or File options shown. I'm opening Explorer by searching for it, but I just get it showing all the contents of the computer - desk top, libraries, documents, etc.

Close AOO. Click Start and type %appdata% in the Search box. Click "Roaming". Right-click the OpenOffice.org folder and select Rename. Type a different name and press Enter. Restart AOO. AOO won't find the OpenOffice.org folder and will create a new one.

Wonderful, that worked!! Can I delete the old renamed folder? Thanks for all your help.

Yes, you can delete the old renamed folder, unless it contains much customisation. If one had been writing a work over time and had specialised dictionaries, say containing proper names and terms, autocorrect lists and whatever else, these would be contained in the old renamed folder. Such individual items could be brought forward one by one to the new folder - one by one lest an individual item caused the user profile corruption - to restore that user's editing environment. But for a casual/non critical User, deletion is appropriate.

OMG! That totally worked! Ahh, I have been struggling with that for months now. Thank you!

I had to rename the "user" folder twice. Lordy knows why. But I did. And it worked. I now have "user", "userold" and "userold2" folders...but normal spell-checking. Hoorah!

I just wanted to pass along a HIGH compliment on this particular post. I had Open Office update itself fairly recently and somehow in the process I ended up with this problem. The solution posted by RoryOF, I believe, solved this problem for me and I just wanted to say THANK YOU! This problem has been driving me nuts!

Thank RoryOF,
I have had this problem since upgrading to open office 4.1. It could not even do a simple find and replace anymore as well. Now it is sorted out. Thanks for sharing!

In Windows, uninstall open office and delete the openoffice folder in the programmes group as well as the openoffice and openoffice.org folders inside the application data folder under documents and setting and renstall - It will solve the problem

quescence wrote:In Windows, uninstall open office and delete the openoffice folder in the programmes group as well as the openoffice and openoffice.org folders inside the application data folder under documents and setting and renstall - It will solve the problem

This is overkill. All that is usually necessary is to delete the OpenOffice folder in Documents and Settings.