Issue 3310

Hi,

I assume you are referring to OOo spellchecking here and not 
Star spellchecking.

Please see:

http://whiteboard.openoffice.org/lingucomponent/
download_dictionary.html

Users may add other dictionaries (I think you referred to them as 
language packs) as the desire.  OOo Tools->Options... can be 
used to turn them on and off and even determine where to keep 
them.

The user detemines which language/locale to use as default for 
a document and can change it at will on a document by 
document basis or even a word by word (and character by 
character basis) if he/she so chooses.

As people build localizations for other locales (not just en_US), 
then can default to the correct dictionary for that locale.

Kevin

OpenOffice should also automatically detect the language used in the
document. Or at least defining the language should be made easier.

tuokki2 is right, automatic detection of language is one of the most
requested features from end-users in Mexico.

But can you imagine how difficult it is ? 

can you tell, how to detect which language ? 

 Reassign issue to owner of selected subcomponent

re: the question "can you tell, how to detect which language ?" ...

The very reason why this is an issue is that OOo *does* know what language the
document is in, and if a matching language pack is not installed, spell checking
fails.

For example, we are in Australia. All our documents are created thus. When
someone with OOo goes to edit the document / template / whatever, they can't do
a spell check because the Australian language pack is not installed.

Why don't we install a language pack, I hear you ask? Impossible:

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=40240

This is a problem for New Zealanders also. OpenOffice picks up the default
system locale of English (NZ), but the default installation does not have a
language pack by for this (which is a little annoying but perhaps
understandable). The real problem however is that none of the spelling features
warn you that no spelling dictionary is available/set up. "Check spelling" just
reports that the spell check is complete and the auto-check feature does
nothing. A dialog warning the user that spell checking is not yet set up
properly would be good here.

BTW for us (and presumably Australians as well) we would prefer that it default
the spelling language to English (UK) rather than English (US).

*** Issue 69322 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 70058 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Note that one *can not* chose the language *by document*, as claimed by
khendricks (2002 mar 4)
At least not for calc.
Which is an important missing feature under tools : options : languages options

(Note that I use French, so don't know the exact translation for English)

But one can accommodate the lack of an ideally correct dictionary available.
e.g., my setup is :
user interface = français (France) = language of dictionaries available
language setting = français (Canada) = sets parameters for my country.

default language for documents
* occidental = français (France) = language of dictionaries available

For Australia/New Zealand, this would presumably be English-UK. 
By the way, canadian English spelling is supposed to be closer to en-UK as well.

It isn't perfect, as sometimes, but not often, a suggested correction isn't
available, but I can always add it to the dictionnary if I want.
(I already know most of the words/spellings which differ from fr-FR.

Hope this helps.

Correction to my comment (just submitted)
One *can* choose the language *by document*.
Unfortunately  it is at the bottom of the "default languages" section.
It would be much easier to notice if it were just under the section title.