Autocorrect is turning dont into dint. How to fix?

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
21

While we’re having this discussion, could I share another wrinkle.

The word significant.

First, with nothing relevant in Edit Substitutions:

With “Correct spelling errors as you type” disabled:
cant —> cant (which is WRONG)
significant —> significant

With “Correct spelling errors as you type” enabled:
cant —> cant (which is WRONG)
significant —> significant

Now, let’s add an item [ cant → can’t ] to the Edit Substitutions function:

With “Correct spelling errors as you type” enabled:
cant —> can’t
significant —> significan’t (which is WRONG)

With “Correct spelling errors as you type” disabled:
cant —> can’t
significant —> significan’t (which is WRONG)

SO… it seems to me that we have a choice of errors.
Either “can’t” (meaning cannot) is always wrong.
Or every word with the 4 letters “cant” are always wrong. Significan’t. Can’tankerous. Can’tata. Descan’t. Recan’t.

Or is there something else I can learn about driving the wondrous Scrivener?

22

First off, a minor but significant ( :wink: ) point: “cant” and “wont” are both English words, so there’s no reason for them to be flagged by the spellcheck. That’s not an error. “He was wont to believe their political cant.” No spelling errors.

So, this needs the substitutions, and is an example of why you’d want to include spaces around the word to isolate the replacement to a whole word, rather than a piece of a word. Thus, replace " cant " with " can’t ". It’s not perfect, I realise, since if you have a comma or other punctuation after or before the word it’s not going to get caught, but these are just basic substitutions. If you regularly need something more complex, I’d encourage you to look for software specifically for that, which could work outside of Scrivener as well.

23

Thanks, MM.

24

Mine was turning dont into Dont. After some futzing, I discovered a workaround.

Right click the word in question before hitting the space bar. You should see the offending replacement at the top of the substitution list. With any luck, what you really want it to be will be there. Choose it and hit the space bar.

Now go to Options, Corrections, Edit Substitutions. Set up your original mistype or shorthand into the actual word you want to display. Don’t forget to check the box!

Voilà! Dint (or Dont) becomes don’t.

Don’t ask me why it works.