Better Spellcheck/Dictionary Options?

Hi all

Over the last few months I have really started to pour all my writing efforts out using Scrivener which I am regretting I hadn’t done sooner. What I am noticing however now that I am using it a lot more is that the dictionary being used for spellcheck is nothing short of terrible. I am often facing a sea of red underline on words that are from obscure. I have a lot of obscure words in my work and my personal word list is getting extensive, but that word list is being hugely inflated with words that really should not be in there, examples are things such as androgyne, atavism, dextral, otherworld, predation - the list goes on.

Are there any options to expand the base dictionary being used or install a new one? I have had a trawl through the settings but cannot see anything immediately obvious.

Just to add also, when it comes to adding words to your custom list - it refuses to add words written such as rais’d, fell’d, envenom’d (a number of texts I work on have words written in this way). I am not understanding why it refuses to add them when I select learn word.

Have you tried the spell check and add to dictionary option to get the word into your custom list?

L&L do not provide any feature to “expand the dictionary”, beyond adding words on a one-by-one basis. However, the default dictionary file is in a standard format which can be easily replaced by a more robust dictionary.

Quite a few people who frequent these forums have done so, myself included.

The instructions are in this thread . (Here’s the specific post .)

Best,
Jim

4 Likes

Firstly, for Windows users, take these words and paste them in the Synopsis.

Secondly, delete the apostrophe and type it again—it renders as a straight quote since the Synopsis is unformatted text.

Thirdly, highlight the whole word (a requirement in the Synopsis) and right click to add it to the dictionary.