Teaching the spell-checker

[Gary Nichols]

Is there any way to teach the spell-checker how to spell Festool? Every post I do, it says I'm misspelling it.

Gary

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Gary,
Thanks for pointing this out.  I've been meaning to update the spell checker!

OK, it now accepts "Festool" as a word.

Here are some other words I've added to the custom dictionary:

• CT
• Deltex
• Kapex
• Rotex
• Systainer
• vac

Matthew

 

[Eli]

Add Krugerrand for Pat and Simou for the rest of us

 

[Gary Nichols]

Thanks Matthew,

Since you seem to have the power and know your way around this software, is there anything you can do to keep the apostrophes (') from turning into question marks (?) when you copy/paste from a Word Document?

Gary

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Thanks Matthew,

Since you seem to have the power and know your way around this software, is there anything you can do to keep the apostrophes (') from turning into question marks (?) when you copy/paste from a Word Document?

Gary

That's an interesting one, which I have seen in my own copy/past situations.  I'll have to look into this.
Matthew

 

[Ned]

... the apostrophes (') from turning into question marks (?) when you copy/paste from a Word Document?

This happens when the Word program that produced the text is set to substitute "curly quotes" for typewriter-style characters ' and ".

In Word 2000, go to Tools/Auto Correct/AutoFormat As You Type and uncheck "straight quotes" with "smart quotes" to turn off this feature.  Other versions of Word are similar.

ADDED LATER:  In Tools/Auto Correct/AutoFormat also uncheck "straight quotes" with "smart quotes".

SMF would have to re-map these characters back to typewriter-style characters.

Ned

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Ned,
I see...It's not an SMF issue.  That makes sense, since you are copying the exact characters.

I use OpenOffice Writer, and it has the same option for "smart quotes."

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Dan Lyke]

Yeah, this is the bane of my existence with the content management system I wrote for my own web site. There's all sorts of wackiness between Windows using various different character sets, different browsers handling a paste of those into a web form differently, and then telling the forum software different things about how that text is represented.

Drives me nuts, and I don't find it surprising at all that the SMF guys haven't figured out how to fix it either.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

I am the opposite of a PC guru, and have experienced many frustrating moments due to such character changes many of which I believe are due to the designed in quirks of various Microsoft products.  Even copying and pasting text prepared in the same suite of MS products on the same PC will at times cause problems, e.g. copying text from one Outlook email into another.  For those using MS Windows and MS applications, a solution that works much of the time for me is to copy the text of interest, paste it into the MS Notepad, then re-copy it from the Notepad and paste it into your target application such as this forum.  Using Notepad as an intermediary strips away the hidden formatting rules and commands that cause the types of character changes described.

Dave R.

 

[bruegf]

Apostrophes in Word are not really apostrophes, they're special characters, and if I remember correctly aren't even the ASCII character set.  That's a problem common to most applications - try pasting from Word into Notepad and you'll have the same problem.  I doubt there's anything Mathew can do to resolve the problem.

Fred

 

[Gary Nichols]

Hi Ned,

I'm running Word 2004 for Mac and I just made the change that you advised. Haven't tried pasting yet, but can you also tell me what to do to get the ( ) to show correctly instead of as ))...

Gary

 

[Ned]

... the ( ) to show correctly instead of as ))...

Huh?  ???

Gary, I wonder if your message got mangled.  What I'm reading in the quote is "the open-paren close-paren to show correctly instead of as close-paren close-paren". 

I don't know if I know the answer, because I don't understand the question. 

Ned

 

[Gary Nichols]

Well, when I'm typing in Word 2004 for Mac, and I actually type (Festool), it comes out as )Festool)... It shows that way in the window, but seems to copy/paste correctly.... Just irritating... but anything Microsoft is irritating to a Mac person, I guess.... Never happened in Word 98 for Mac....

Gary

 

[Ned]

Gary,

I don't have a Mac (my last one was a IIci), but Word's very similar across platforms, so here's a guess:

Check your AutoCorrect Replace text as you type list.  It's got things like replace (c) with the copyright symbol.  The symptom you describe could happen if that list has an entry that says replace ( with ).

We've wandered off topic.  If this idea doesn't fix it, PM me.

Ned