[Solved] Spell check not working in 4.1.1

[jmrathbun]

For some reason my spell checker has quit working. I went through finding and renaming the \user folder that supposedly contains settings that might have become corrupted, but that didn't help. My editor told me about a misspelled word in a document I'm working on, but the spell checker doesn't flag it. I experimented with deliberate misspellings of several words, none of which was flagged. All the settings I can find seem appropriate. I can't find a dictionary with any of the misspellings I tried. Can you offer a constructive suggestion?

[RoryOF]

When you renamed the user folder, did OpenOffice prompt you for name and initials on next startup? If it didn't the rename didn't take, possibly because you had OpenOffice open at the time.

[jmrathbun]

It did so prompt me.

[Bill]

Resetting the user profile is the usual fix if all words are being shown misspelled. If a misspelled word isn't flagged, then check the language setting for the word and make sure that a dictionary is installed and enabled for that language. If the language setting is correct and a dictionary is available but the word is not flagged, then you may need to add the word to a custom dictionary.

[jmrathbun]

http://theinfosite.org/OO.jpg

[jmrathbun]

By the way, as often as I set the language preferences to English, it always resets to German for new documents. Does 'Hunspell' mean what I think it does?

[Hagar Delest]

See: [Tutorial] Spell check and Language configuration.
There is no language set for your text (see status bar).

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

[jmrathbun]

As should be clear from the attached photo, language settings are as they should be despite what is in the status bar, and the spell checker still doesn't work.

[RoryOF]

Open your testfile in Writer and Select All (Ctrl A). Then /Tools /Language /For all text: if you select English(Us) from the popup, does that fix the spellcheck (for that file)?

It can sometimes happen in OpenOffice that settings get stuck. The fix for this is to set them to something else, close OpenOffice (I used always reboot computer) then on next OO startup set the settings correctly.

[jmrathbun]

Well, it works but only for that specific document. Each new document I open, I have to go through the same little ritual to get the spell checker to work. This is true after restarting Open Office. Bit of a kludge, what?

[RoryOF]

It shows that the dictionary is correctly installed. Why the default template is not being set to the chosen language is now the problem. Are you using some form of customised default template?

[jmrathbun]

Nope.

[Bill]

Well, it works but only for that specific document. Each new document I open, I have to go through the same little ritual to get the spell checker to work. This is true after restarting Open Office. Bit of a kludge, what?

How are you opening new documents? Opening new documents using File > New in Writer should open a new document with the language set in the language options. Opening new documents by right-clicking in Windows Explorer and selecting New > OpenDocument Text will create a new document which is a copy of the template document soffice.odt in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Templates in Windows XP. If I recall correctly, in legacy versions of OOo, that template document had a German language setting and new documents would also have the German language setting. In that case, you would have to change the language setting to English in the soffice.odt template document.

[Hagar Delest]

As should be clear from the attached photo, language settings are as they should be despite what is in the status bar, and the spell checker still doesn't work.

My emphasis.
Have you checked the tutorial I've linked? The status bar does tell you that there is a problem: no language setting has been applied to your text!

[jmrathbun]

Bill... thanks for the input. Indeed I do normally start by right-clicking on my desktop to create a new document. Unfortunately, Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 is having a particularly snooty day: it won't let me access the folder you mentioned. I did find soffice.ini next to soffice.exe but for some reason I am not allowed to edit it. It has a key STARTLANG= which is blank. Since I am logged on as administrator, I don't quite get this infantilizing OS BS from MS. One might also ask why OO has to make this so damned hard!

[jmrathbun]

Bill... I managed to bully GD MS OS into letting me edit the file soffice.ini to STARTLANG=English but the language for each new document still defaults to German.

[Bill]

You signature says that you're using OOo 2.3 on Windows XP. If you're using a different version on a different operating system, you should correct your signature to show what you're actually using.

Administrator accounts in XP may have had full administrator privileges, but that went out with Vista. Administrator accounts now do not have administrator privileges unless privileges are elevated. The folder I mentioned for Windows XP also went out with Vista.

In Windows 7, click the Start button and type writer in the Search box. When OpenOffice Writer appears on the Start Menu, right-click OpenOffice Writer and select Run as Administrator. This elevates privileges for this session of Writer. In Writer, select File > Open. On the Open dialog navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Templates, select the soffice.odt file and open it. In Writer, select Tools > Language > For all text > English. Save and close the soffice.odt file and AOO. Your files opened from the context menu in Windows Explorer should now open with English as the language.

[jmrathbun]

I carefully performed all these steps several times and it still defaults to German any time I open a new document.

[Bill]

Run Writer again "As Administrator". Open the soffice.odt file. Right-click in the document text area and select Default Formatting. Right-click in the document text area again and select Edit paragraph style. On the Paragraph Style dialog, select the Font tab. Select English in the Language box. OK out, save and close soffice.odt and see if your new documents now open with English as the default language.

[jmrathbun]

Nope. German is the required tongue regardless.

[Bill]

The only other possibility is that a copy of the soffice.odt has been installed in the user's appdata folder which is being used instead of the soffice.odt file in ProgramData. Copy and paste %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Templates in the Windows Explorer Address Bar and press Enter. If there's an soffice.odt file at that location, modify its language setting.

[jmrathbun]

Success! A copy of soffice.odt was found in C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates. After I corrected BOTH language settings and closed that copy, the new document I created by right clicking showed English as the chosen language in the task bar, and the spell checker worked correctly. I still wonder how this became a problem so recently when the file date is 1/28/11. Based on this experience, I hope the programming community will make such an extensive fixing process unnecessary for future users.

[Hagar Delest]

This is an old problem described in the corner case 2 in the linked tutorial.
Note that there was a problem in the link (fixed), perhaps that's why you didn't see it.

[jmrathbun]

Well, thanks for sticking with me to the end!