Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I have been using OOo for about a year and it is good, but for some unfathomable reason every now and again, at least 3 times in the past year the spellchecker and thesuarus become disabled (grey) and wont work. I use these a lot in my work and it is a big problem for me. Two days ago I used my word processor and they were both working great. Today I switch on and nothing !
I am using OOo 2.3 with Windows XP Home SP1. I loaded the Australian English dictionary and thesaurus and they work well.
I have checked and find that they are still installed on my hard disk on C:>Program Files>OO.o 2.3>share>dict>ooo>
As: en_AU_dic and th_en_AU_v2.idx (also as dat)
What I have done so far: Checked Tools>OPtions>Languages Here I find User interface = English (USA) default, I cant change this. Locale setting = English (Australian) I reset this, restarted the computer, but still no Spel or thesaurus.
In the Writing Aids > Available language modules, OpenOffice o. Hunspell Spellchecher - Hyphenator - OO.o New Thesaurus are all checked (tick in the box) when I select Spellchecker and Edit I find that Language is Afrikaans (Namibia). When I scroll down and choose English (UK) or USA ticks come on in all spellcheck and thesaurus boxes, but to close this page the only options are:
Close or Back
Both of these sends the setting back to Afrikaans (Namibia), neither of which languages I understand.
I have erased OpenOffice and reinstalled it but still have the same problem. Unfortunately I cant remember how I solved the problem on previous occassions.
Can any body help, I have run out of ideas?

I t think the availability of dict files doesn't have anything to do with the enabling of the spellcheck buttons. If you mark text as Australian English and enable spell checking while typing, do you get to see the typical curly waves underneath words the spellchecker regards as wrong?

No I dont get the curly red line under incorrect spelling even though the Autospell check button indicates that it is active. If I use spell check it just says 'the spellcheck is complete' even though there are mistakes, and the thesaurus is grey ie not active.

Moved this thread to a more appropriate forum for a bit more exposure..

Have you read that thread : [Tutorial] Spell check and Language configuration ? Check it and if there is still an issue, tell us what you've tried.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' in your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

I looked at the Spelcheck & Language Tutorial. I have made a default Template as described and it works well, all new documents now have spell check and thesaurus. Making the Template I was only able to make the language in paragraph style English (UK), the Character style is English (Australia), which does not have the blue check in front of it. When I try and change it to (UK) as soon as I close the window it reverts back to Australia, but the thesaurus/spelcheck still work.

My problem now is that some of the documents I have been working on have a spelcheck and thesaurus, but most dont (wierd??), although all the settings are the same as the Template I made. What I cant under stand is that every thing was working well untill acouple of days ago when it all fell appart for no logical reason, I have not recently installed any new software or changed any of my computer settings!

On the bright side if I open a new page/document, using my Template and paste in the data from my old one that I have been working on the Spelcheck and Thesaurus work. It is rather cumbersome but at least I can now work on them again.

If anyone can come up with a solution I would be grateful, but other wise I guess that the problem is sort of solved. At any rate it is a damn sight better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick, but I must admit I have not tried the burnt stick in the eye.

Can you upload a sample file based on your template here so that we check the paragraph and characters styles ?

Have you tried to disable all the unnecessary dictionaries ? see post #2 of the tutorial. Sometimes, too many dics confuse OOo.

For the old documents, if changing the language of their Default paragraph style has no effect, select the text afterwards and apply the default formatting (either CTRL+SHIFT+Space or right click then Default formatting or Clear formatting in the Formatting toolbar).

[img]Here%20is%20the%20copy%20of%20my%20template%20I%20hope%20it%20down%20loads%20OK[/img] I am not sure how to download a copy of my template. I have opened a new document (using template) selected all > cut > pasted into Img. How should I do it, remember you are dealing with an amature when it comes to anything but straight wordprocessing.

AMAZING!! I have just tried the CTRL+SHIFT+Space, after selecting one of the offending documents and now every thing is working. Many thanks for the help

Mangoman wrote:I am not sure how to download a copy of my template.

There is a Upload attachment tab at bottom of this page when you write a message, click on it, click the Browse button and select the file on your HD. The [Img] tag is for pictures, not attachments.

Mangoman wrote:AMAZING!! I have just tried the CTRL+SHIFT+Space

Well, that's just the way it does work!
Read the tutorial to understand how styles control the language and how a direct formatting can override it.

I tag this thread as solved.

OK here is the sample file. I hope it comes out this time

As it is a .doc file, I cannot say much because I'm not sure the paragraph and characters styles are well exported in MS Office format. In your file, both paragraph and characters Default styles are set to English (UK) so I don't see any problem.

I do all my stuff in MS Office format, as none of the people I deal with have OO.o. Previously both paragaraph and characters Default styles were in English (Australia), but for some reason, known only to my computer and possibly people who are able to communicate with it, I am unable to get Eng(Oz) to work, there is no blue check mark in front of it, even though it is installed on my hard drive, so I have reverted to Eng(UK) as a subsitute. At least it works now. Thanks for your help, I was getting so desperate that I was even contemplateing buying MS Office!!!

Mangoman wrote:I am unable to get Eng(Oz) to work, there is no blue check mark in front of it

What is English (Oz) ???
The blue checkmark means that the spell checking file is installed so if you can't see it, it's not recognized by OOo.

English (OZ), just slang for English (Australia), these files are installed on my HD under C:Program Files>Share>dict. they were working well up till a couple of days ago, but it would appear that they have ceased to be recognised by OOo. At least I have a spellchecker and thesaurus that works now.

Maybe download and install the OZ files again helps?

Are the files declared in the dictionary.lst file ? see the tutorial.

Yes in the ooo file I have:
DicOOo.sxw
dictionary.1st
dictionary.1stold
en_AU.aff file size 28KB (this is the Australia dictionary)
en_AU.dic file size 545KB " " " " "
en_GB.aff file size 28KB (this is the UK dictionary)
en_GB.dic file size 516KB " " " " "
en_US.aff file size 3KB (this is the USA dictionary)
en_US.dic file size 680KB " " " " "

No, I mean in the dictionary.lst file that is in that very same folder. See that post : 2. I want to remove all these extra dictionaries I don't nee.

I am probably thick but you have got me totaly confused. I have been fooling around with this stuff for the past couple of days. I looked at the "I want to remove all these extra dictionaries I dont need" tutorial. I have not checked the 'Check in all languages' box under options in 'Writing aids'. When I go to OOo install >share>dict>ooo>dictionary 1st, I get the list displayed in my previous email, and I cant open dictionary 1st I just get a message 'unable to open'.

The main thing is that at least I have a spelcheck and thesuraus that is working at the moment.

Mangoman wrote:When I go to OOo install >share>dict>ooo>dictionary 1st, I get the list displayed in my previous email, and I cant open dictionary 1st I just get a message 'unable to open'.

I don't follow you. Do you manage to open that file or not ? It's just a plain text file. Note that it's not dictionary1st but dictionary.lst (for dictionary list).

I tried opening dictionary.lst and it claimed to be a LST file, but once I tould it that it was a Text file it opened OK. There are a heap of files here, but none of them are the English Australia that I used to use.

Follow the tutorial to remove all the unnecessary dictionaries and add the lines for en_AU.

You little ripper, many thanks Hagar I have finally got my OOo back working with my Australia dict and thesaurus. Thank goodness there are people like you out there who know their way around OOo, as there is no way I would have been able to work that lot out by myself. I think we can now consider this problem well and truly SOLVED!

Great! Glad you've fixed it.

BTW, it seems you've had some troubles setting the dictionaries. Can you say:
1. what was wrong exactly on your system ?
2. what you missed in the tutorial ? perhaps it needs some additional explanation.

1 No I dont know what caused my Dict. & Thes. to stop working. One day they were fine and the next time I opend a wordprocessor document they had stopped. The biggest mystery is how come my Australia dict & thes. had become unlisted when they were still in my 'ooo' folder. The only thing I can think of is that my computer crashes on a regular basis, at least a couple of times a week, I have probably got some serious compatibility problems between some applications, but I definately dont have the knowlege or patience to try and work out why. But it could have been during one of these crashes that some things got messed up in OOo.
2 The tutorial was great, I think where I got confused was with dictionary.lst when I tried to open it my computer tould me it could not open it. It was only after I realised that I had to select Word Pad and open it in that to get it to display. Since I have opened it the first time in WordPad it now opens every time I select it with out any problems. At least I know now where to go if it happens again.
Once again many thanks for your patience and help.