[Solved] Add word to User dic (lang. specific) AOO 3.4

[Etymologist]

Hi,
Since I updated from OO 3.3 to 3.4 my user dic for German is not available for me to add new words to during a spell check, although it is still assigned to German and checked in the language tools. What to do?
Thanks,
Monica

[RoryOF]

Try unchecking your User dictionary, then restarting OpenOffice (including the quickstarter) and then re-checking the User dictionary selection.

[Etymologist]

Thanks, but it didn't help (and the quickstarter is disabled)!

[Hagar Delest]

Make sure that you've enough rights on your dictionary, it's in the user profile, see [Tutorial] The User Profile.
If you create another one, does it work?

[Etymologist]

I'm the only one with rights on my computer. My *.dic files are all in user\wordbook. They were all listed under the "Add" button in the spell check in OO 3.3.
When I create a new dic and assign it to the language German, it doesn't appear under Add, although the text is in German.
But when I create a new dic and assign it to "all", it does appear. Thanks for that tip!
So how do I change the assignment of my existing German dic to "all" (since it does seem to be a bug doesn't it)?

[Hagar Delest]

Hmm, seems to be a bug then.
It works fine for my custom dictionaries (on Vista with imported profile from 3.3.0).
Any special character in your Windows user name? It can cause troubles.

For the record: [Issue] Editing Standard/Custom Dictionary.
You can open your dictionary with AOO, select the Unicode (UTF-8) format. You'll get your list with some #. Use regular expressions to replace them with paragraph breaks and get a list of words. Then you can copy it in a newly created dictionary: when created with AOO 3.4, they are editable as mere .txt files.
I made a quick test and the only problem I've found is with the special characters. Perhaps there is a trick to preserve them.

[Etymologist]

No special characters in my user name.
Suddenly it is possible to change the existing dictionary's language affiliation to "all" in the "edit user dictionary" window (don't know why this didn't work before), so I can now add words to the proper dictionary.
But I wish I could add words to the right dictionary wihout having to select it each time -- why doesn't the language assignment function work?
To be honest, this didn't work in OO 3.3 either. I didn't realize it was supposed to. The dictionaries ALL appeared under the "Add" button, no matter what language they were assigned to. After the update to 3.4 only the "all" ones appear. Is this a problem only I have?

(By the way, when I open my dictionary with AOO and select the Unicode (UTF-8) format, I get a list of words with correct paragraph breaks and correct special characters.)

[Hagar Delest]

I tried both on Vista and Ubuntu and it works fine. You could try to reset your OpenOffice user profile. Don't delete it, and then create dictionaries with the same name as the former ones, close AOO (including quickstarter if enabled) and replace those new ones by your backups.

[Etymologist]

I reset my user profile (the whole user folder), then created a dictionary Deutsch assigned to German, and a dictionary English-USA assigned to English-USA. Under the Add button only the standard dic shows up, no matter what language is set in the text language box in the spell check window. What's going on?

[Etymologist]

P.S. I discovered that a new exception dictionary I created for German does apply correctly to German texts and not to English ones during a spell check. So the problem involves only the Add button?

[Hagar Delest]

Under the Add button only the standard dic shows up, no matter what language is set in the text language box in the spell check window.

What is the language set for the text in the document itself (not in the spell check window)? I think that AOO takes the setting from the text, it is the language displayed in the status bar.

[Etymologist]

I've already experimented with the language set for the document, it doesn't make any difference to my problem.

[Hagar Delest]

I mean in the main text. Document was not the best word. Do you set the language in the spell check dialog or do you keep the field as it is? And in latter case, does it show the correct language?

[Etymologist]

Test:
- I launch AOO, unnamed document, default language is English (USA) (visible on the status bar)
- I write a nonsense word
- F7 spell check (the text language box also has English (USA))
- "add" button: no English-USA user dic
- box "Tools" (I mean German "Optionen", not sure what it's called in English OO): list of user dics shows checked English-USA [English (USA)]

[Hagar Delest]

You know what? You're completely right!

You were talking about the spell check dialog and I was talking about the right click context menu! The context menu works fine but not the spell check dialog!
-> Issue 120048 - Add button in spell check dialog doesn't show custom dictionaries

[Etymologist]

Aha. I didn't even know there was a right click context menu (never use a mouse in word processing). So I won't use F7 any more, but rather Shift+F10 (until the bug is fixed).
What do we put in the subject line, [Issue]?
Thanks for bearing with me!
Monica

[Hagar Delest]

I've put both solved + issue since you've a good alternative. NB: change the title if you don't agree.
Do you confirm it used to work fine with previous versions?

[Etymologist]

Solved+Issue is all right. The alternative (context menu) isn't that great, though, since you have to go to each misspelt word yourself, whereas F7 gets them for you automatically. F7 is better for spell checking a whole document, it also has "change all", which the context menu doesn't. So there's good reason to fix the bug!
I canNOT confirm it used to work. I didn't pay attention to it before.

[franx]

LibreOffice 3.4.0 has also been affected by this bug, FIXED for v3.4.4 and later.

@Hagar:
You might have a look at the corresponding bug reports (and /libreoffice/core/commit) for LibreOffice:

(Fixed OOo CWS DEV300 bug)
→ Bug 36678 - Missing user-defined dictionaries with a specified language attribute via "Spelling and Grammar" <F7>
→ Resolves: fdo#36678 move init that depends on parent to post-parent avail

(Fixed old OOo bug)
→ Bug 42372 - Make all *appropriate* user-defined dictionaries with a specified language attribute available during "Spelling and Grammar" <F7>
→ Resolves: fdo#36678 regenerate language-specific user dict list
.

[Hagar Delest]

Thanks for the information!
LibO has done better for that one!