I write in both English and French, and in both languages appreciate spell-check features that catch typing errors. It would be great to have this ability in several languages; for example, in MS Word, I have multiple spelling dictionaries (Finnish! Basque!), and can mark text as different languages in order to enable different spelling dictionaries.
So: would it be possible to link to MS Word dictionaries already on my HD, and to use those for the spell-check feature in Scrivener? I have no concept of how spell-check dictionaries are developed and/or marketed, but is there a free French speller that I - or the fantastic developer(s) of this program - could integrate into Scrivener?
Both Grammarian (linguisoft) and Spell Catcher (rainmakerinc) provide French spell check features as well as grammatical support. Both of them, however, are not free, and cannot check mulitiple languages in the same document. But they do provide global spell check features (and autocorrect, etc), that is, spell check in all applications (mail, word, scrivener, etc).
Actually, if you go to Edit>Spelling and Grammar>Show Spelling and Grammar you can set the spell checker to Multilingual, which includes French. It supposedly discovers the appropriate language automatically. I’ve just begun testing it, and so far it’s looking quite good.
Yeah, I just found the “Multilingual”, too, and it seems to do okay so far with the smattering of Italian, Spanish, and Japanese mixed in my English novel.
I also write in two different language in different Scrivener projects, and was wondering if such an option is also available for the Windows version of Scrivener (1.2.3.0)? I couldn’t find it, but perhaps I’m overlooking it.
If it isn’t available in the Windows version, may I suggest to add it to the wish list? It would certainly make the life of people writing in different languages quite easier.
If it isn’t possible to determine this automatically in Windows, perhaps it’s an idea to expand the right-click menu from Spelling → Spelling and Recheck Spelling to include Switch to Language → [List of languages].
I would strongly appreciate such a feature. I’m working as often on English (GB, sometimes US) projects as on projects in German (my mother language) and it is a real nuisance having to go into the options every time.
I also write in two different languages and have often to include new words. They are collected in a “Personel Word List”. Disregarding which language I use this “Personel Word list” is the same. This is irritating since in Swedish (my mother language) a lot of words are similar as in English but not necessary spelled the same. Somehow should the “Personel Word List” be changed when you change language.
On the Mac version, spell-checking is handled by the system software, not by Scrivener, so whatever abilities the program has in that department are entirely down to what the system provides. I don’t how these things are handled by the Windows version, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a similar arrangement.
Any chance these requests could be implemented for us multi-lingual writers Scrivener Support?
If this isn’t possible…
…then would it perhaps be possible to save the spelling settings on a per project basis? So that we could have for example an English project (grammar set to British English), a German project and a French project?
That would save a lot of hassle of every time having to manually change the spelling settings.
I don’t even use the Scrivener spelling any more because of this, since with three different language projects, it’s too annoying to change this setting for every short writing stint (plus that the personal dictionary doesn’t take into account the language). Please look into providing a better option, since even the Firefox internet browser (definitely not a writing program) provides better spelling options than Scrivener does.
This isn’t possible now with the dictionary tools we use (as speculated up-thread, these are not built-in Windows features available to all programs, but third-party tools), but I do have this on the list for consideration if we are able to find a workaround. I do understand the challenges of working in multiple languages, so it’s not that the requests are outlandish, just not feasible with what we have at the moment. We will be looking into alternatives for the spelling tools with the next major update, so it’s possible that will open the door for some of these ideas.
I’m not sure how the dictionary tools impact this, since a good workaround would be to include the list of dictionaries in the right-click context menu. That does not require saving this setting into the current project file, but will make it a lot easier for users to conveniently switch languages.
The right-click menu already contains entries that are easy accessible by a short-cut (such as Font → Bold), so it would certainly make sense (in my opinion) to add the important things that are not easily accessible.
As an attempt to a workaround, I made two Scriveners on my pc: the regular install in Program Files and one portable version (following the manual). In the one version I set the language to English, in the other instance the language to something else.
Sadly, this did not work: after closing both Scrivener versions and opening one, the last selected language was applied to both.
Is there any way I can let each Scrivener version remember its own language settings? Perhaps with a shortcut parameter? Creating a configuration file in the program’s folder? Adding a windows registry key?
Is this feature something that will be possible with Scrivener 3?
I looked at the ‘Introducing Scrivener 3’ page here but can’t figure out whether the new Scrivener will make us set different options for different Scrivener projects.
I hope that is possible, because currently Scrivener still limits me in the sense that I have to use other writing applications for non-English writing. (Yeah, I know I can change the spelling settings by hand in the old Scrivener, but doing that 4 times per day gets tiring and annoying fast.)
We will be looking into alternatives for the spelling tools with the next major update, so it’s possible that will open the door for some of these ideas.