Mark Pentleton

As I’ve been writing these Catalan blog posts I’ve been missing the functionality of a spell checker. Often I think I know a word but I’m not quite sure and when the spell-checker is set to check words as I type, some (not all) of the time I can get immediate feedback on whether a word exists or not. Obviously I’m not expecting to be told if what I’ve written makes any sense, but it’s nice nonetheless to get a bit of instant feedback, if only to say that the word I’ve just typed doesn’t even exist. Unfortunately Catalan is not one of the languages included in the built-in spell checker. However, I have come across an open-source dictionary project called Excalibur which basically runs as an application in the background. I can copy the text I’m working on, “Open Clipboard” in Excalibur and, using the Catalan spelling dictionary which I’ve already downloaded, I can check my spelling.

It’s not qutie as handy as the “check spelling as you type” command, but it helps the whole learning process… Other languages are available from the Dictionary Directory on the website.