I have a friend in Europe who writes for a special interest, on-line magazine. He currently uses Microsoft Word 2021. Microsoft is pushing everyone toward the subscription model, so we expect that Office 2021 will be the last non-subscription version available. The end-of-support for both 2016 and 2019 will be October of 2025, and the end-of-support for Office 2021 will be only one year later, in October of 2026. Neither my friend nor I are willing to get sucked into the subscription model of renting the software we depend on.
So we're discussing what to do after that. The primary options are either SoftMaker Office (the paid version), FreeOffice, or LibreOffice (which is free and open source). My friend has used LibreOffice in the past, so he is familiar with it. But, in general, LibreOffice Writer is a big, clunky, slow program, and some tasks that are simple in Word and FreeOffice are basically impossible in LibreOffice Writer.
My friend wrote that once Word becomes insecure due to lack of support patches, he'll likely go to SoftMaker Office or LibreOffice. I suggested that for the limited, fairly basic word processing he does, FreeOffice would probably be all he needs. I sent him a feature comparison page. Then I noticed something a bit odd: One of the features in the paid version of TextMaker but not in the FreeOfice version is "Spell check via high-quality commercial dictionaries." But both the paid and free versions include "Spell check via Hunspell dictionaries." (It appears Hunspell dictionaries are free, open source dictionaries aimed mostly at the Linux community.)
I got curious. I have the paid version of TextMaker on my desktop computer (the one I'm using now), but for testing purposes I have FreeOffice 2018 and FreeOffice 2021 on USB thumbdrives. I fired up both the 2018 version and the 2021 version and tried to run spell check on a couple of sample documents in which I intentionally entered some spelling errors. Both of them went through the documents and reported NO ERRORS! The paid version, of course, found the errors.
My first thought is that perhaps the USB installation somehow doesn't handle spell checking properly. If anyone is using the portable (USB thumbdrive-based) version of FreeOffice -- does spell check work for you? And for anyone who has FreeOffice 2018 or 2021 installed on a Windows desktop or laptop computer (not on a thumbdrive), does spell check work for you?
Thanks.
Spell check doesn't work in portable editions
Re: Spell check doesn't work in portable editions
Update:
I have FreeOffice 2021 installed on a Windows 10 laptop computer. I just tried a sample document on that computer and the same thing happened. I intentionally misspelled several words, and the spell check didn't pick up any errors.
I have FreeOffice 2021 installed on a Windows 10 laptop computer. I just tried a sample document on that computer and the same thing happened. I intentionally misspelled several words, and the spell check didn't pick up any errors.
Re: Spell check doesn't work in portable editions
Further update: I found a USB thumbdrive with an older version of FreeOffice on it. I don't know the year, but it's old enough that it doesn't offer the ribbon interface option. Maybe 2012 or 2015?
On that one, spell checking works. I have checked all of them and they all have the language correctly set for U.S. English.
On that one, spell checking works. I have checked all of them and they all have the language correctly set for U.S. English.
Re: Spell check doesn't work in portable editions
Thank you for your post, but we are unable to reproduce this problem.
Please click on ribbon command File |Options | Language, make sure you have checked option “Check spelling as you type” so that you will get it while typing.
Also, click on “Hunspell dictionaries…” button and verify if Hunspell dictionary for your selected language is installed or not.
Please let us know which language you are using for this testing?
Please click on ribbon command File |Options | Language, make sure you have checked option “Check spelling as you type” so that you will get it while typing.
Also, click on “Hunspell dictionaries…” button and verify if Hunspell dictionary for your selected language is installed or not.
Please let us know which language you are using for this testing?
Re: Spell check doesn't work in portable editions
"Check spelling as you type" is checked.
How do I verify that the Hunspell dictionary for American English is installed? When I click the box for Hunspell dictionaries, I don't see anything listed. I guess that's what we call a "clue"?
How do I install a dictionary? I am in the United States and I use American English. The user manual says to go to your web site, click on "Downloads," and then click on "Dictionaries." That's not one of the options I see on the web site. The only choices under "Downloads" are Applications, Service Packs, Old Versions, and User manuals.
[UPDATE] I found the dictionaries. I didn't understand that they have to be downloaded from the FreeOffice web site rather than from the SoftMaker web site. I have now installed American English, English English (GB), French (Combined) and Spanish to the USBs for both FreeOffice 2018 and FreeOffice 2021, and spell check now works in both.
How do I verify that the Hunspell dictionary for American English is installed? When I click the box for Hunspell dictionaries, I don't see anything listed. I guess that's what we call a "clue"?
How do I install a dictionary? I am in the United States and I use American English. The user manual says to go to your web site, click on "Downloads," and then click on "Dictionaries." That's not one of the options I see on the web site. The only choices under "Downloads" are Applications, Service Packs, Old Versions, and User manuals.
[UPDATE] I found the dictionaries. I didn't understand that they have to be downloaded from the FreeOffice web site rather than from the SoftMaker web site. I have now installed American English, English English (GB), French (Combined) and Spanish to the USBs for both FreeOffice 2018 and FreeOffice 2021, and spell check now works in both.