Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!milton!max!scott
From: scott@max.u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: spelling checker for speedscript
Message-ID: <10813@max.u.washington.edu>
Date: 21 Nov 89 23:32:36 GMT
References: <9617@pyr.gatech.EDU> <89325.104938GAJ103@PSUVM.BITNET>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle WA
Lines: 40

In article <89325.104938GAJ103@PSUVM.BITNET>, GAJ103@PSUVM.BITNET writes:
> I have some good news and som bad news about the spelling checker for
> speedscript.  The good news is that I have the program, and have used it
> successfully several times.  Now for the bad news... the dictionary has
> 2000 words!  Therefore, most of the words in your document will be marked
> as misspelled even though they are correct, simply because they weren't
> found in the dictionary.                                             
 
You are forgetting one major point. The dictionary can be built-up by adding
new words to the dictionary list. This feature allows you to customize your
own dictionary, and also allows you to have serveral dictionary lists.
Thus the size of the dictionary can be infinite.
 
> The spelling                                                      
> corrector consists of 27 files (1 program and 26 dictionaries for A-Z).
> Therefore, even if the file could be posted, it would be too big, and it
> wouldn't be worth the effort for only 2000 words in the user dictionary.
 
When faced with uploading a program that consist of several related files,
there are compactor programs that allows you to join several files under
one file name. Such programs are Lynx, ARC/SDA, Library, and others.
Of course, once you download a compacted file you first need to decompact
the program to its original number of files before you can run it.
Right now the most popular compacting program in use are Lynx and ARC.
 
> You would be better off purchasing the program from Compute! directly;
> they include a larger dictionary.
 
That is true. The disk cost around $20 and is well worth it because it   
not only comes with spellchecker with one large dictionary list, but also
comes with an assortment of programs that adds a new feature to the
original SpeedScript 3.2 (which is also included) like mail merge,
output previewing, full justification, etc....that was written and
published in the magazine over the time after the SpeedScript publication.
 
> Gordon Jenness (age: 27)   [ What is the numerical relationship between ]
 
 
Sincerely, 
Scott K. Stephen