[SOLVED] Libreoffice: writing aids not working [en-us]

Kropotkin · 10-04-2012, 10:29 AM

Hi all,

I am using LibreOffice v3.5.6.2 under Fedora 17. I have the latest English language pack installed.

I make sure the document I am working on has the language properly defined (US English).

Yet the writing aids aren't working. Interactive spell check doesn't do anything. If I press F7, the spellchecker appears to check the document without finding anything.

In Options --> Language settings --> Writing aids, "check spelling as you type" is activated.

Yet neither interactive nor batch spellchecking works.

What I am missing here?

I am absolutely desperate to solve this as my work depends on it. Anyone have any ideas for me?

Kropotkin · 10-04-2012, 12:21 PM

Studying things more closely, I see under Options --> Language settings --> Writing aids that under "Available language modues" only hyphenation and thesaurus are listed. It would appear that a US spelling dictionary isn't installed.

On the Ubunti wiki, I find the following:

Quote:

Language localization, spell checking, dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus, and help

To install proper support for language writing aids you may install the corresponding packages libreoffice-l10n-*, myspell-*, hyphen-*, mythes-*, libreoffice-help-* followed by your language ISO 639-1 code. A complete list of such language codes is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes

For example, the corresponding French packages are:

libreoffice-l10n-fr
myspell-fr
hyphen-fr
mythes-fr
libreoffice-help-fr
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LibreOffice

I don't have any myspell packages on my system. Searching yum for 'myspell' only returns two hunspell(!) packages:

Quote:

$ yum search myspell
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* fedora: nl.mirror.eurid.eu
* rpmfusion-free: mirror01.th.ifl.net
* rpmfusion-free-updates: mirror01.th.ifl.net
* rpmfusion-nonfree: mirror01.th.ifl.net
* rpmfusion-nonfree-updates: mirror01.th.ifl.net
* updates: nl.mirror.eurid.eu
====================================================================== Matched: myspell ======================================================================
hunspell-ku-0.21-8.fc17.noarch : Kurdish hunspell dictionaries
hunspell-sq-1.6.4-2.fc17.noarch : Albanian hunspell dictionaries

Hmmm........................

DavidMcCann · 10-05-2012, 12:15 PM

The spellchecker used to be myspell, but it's now hunspell. You should have it, and you can certainly get it with yum. I'm surprised you didn't get the dictionary, but it's probably quickest to get that from the LibreOffice site.

Kropotkin · 10-05-2012, 12:24 PM

I seem to have it:

Code:

$ rpm -qa | grep hunspell
hunspell-en-GB-0.20110318-8.fc17.noarch
hunspell-1.3.2-8.fc17.x86_64
hunspell-en-US-0.20110318-8.fc17.noarch
hunspell-en-0.20110318-8.fc17.noarch

Wonder why it isn't showing up.

DavidMcCann · 10-06-2012, 11:06 AM

Someone at the LibreOffice forum had this problem and used "Tools - Language - For all text" to change the language and then to change it back again; that seems too good to be true, but it worked. Otherwise, you could uninstall LibreOffice and replace Fedora's version (usually tweaked) with the one down-loadable from LibreOffice. This is the sort of thing that made me switch from Fedora to CentOS.

Kropotkin · 10-08-2012, 05:36 AM

OK, I think I figured it out. I installed these hunspell packages with yum:

Code:

Oct 05 19:49:04 Installed: hunspell-en-GB-0.20110318-8.fc17.noarch
Oct 05 19:49:04 Installed: hunspell-en-US-0.20110318-8.fc17.noarch
Oct 05 19:49:05 Installed: hunspell-en-0.20110318-8.fc17.noarch

I then needed to go back to Options --> Language settings --> Writing aids. "Hunspell SpellChecker" is displayed but it isn't selected. I selected it (switched it on), selected OK, then went back to my document. Set the language to default, then to en-US. Now interactive spellchecking is working again.

Whew.