Spell check: how to tag words as reviewed?

[szalonyptak]

When spell checking a book there's usually a large amount of words to be reviewed and this takes a long time, so I often check a number of words and then resume the job on the next day.

Now, when I open the book in Sigil I would expect the spell check not to detect as mispelled all those words I had added to the dictionary on the previous session, but they keep coming up . Same thing if I had ignored them.

What would be the way to tag the already reviewed words?

[KevinH]

Sigil supports user and/or book specific dictionaries. Add correct words missing from the main dictionary to your user dictionary. Then load that user dictionary the next time you load the book to continue spellchecking.

[MicroDrie]

Another thing you can do if you have a very large epub file is to consider putting each chapter in a separate file and checking it for typos. That will go faster, and it will be easier to find where you left off. Once checked and corrected, you can copy the chapter back and overwrite the original file.

[szalonyptak]

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

Another thing you can do if you have a very large epub file is to consider putting each chapter in a separate file and checking it for typos. That will go faster, and it will be easier to find where you left off. Once checked and corrected, you can copy the chapter back and overwrite the original file.

Sounds interesting, I'll give it a try.

[szalonyptak]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Sigil supports user and/or book specific dictionaries. Add correct words missing from the main dictionary to your user dictionary. Then load that user dictionary the next time you load the book to continue spellchecking.

What I did was to create a new one: Edit=>Preferences=>Spellcheck Dictionaries. All the words I have added so far to it are there. Still they are listed the next time I do spell check.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by szalonyptak

Sounds interesting, I'll give it a try.

I have had a great deal of success with the User dictionaries as KevinH mentioned. I find it much easier when I select the specific user dictionary as the default - it saves a couple clicks each time you want to check a word and add it.

As for splitting the long file into separate chapter files - absolutely! I have had more problems with those automated software programs that try and smush everything into the same file... it's much easier to keep each section (chapter, title, cover, acknowledgments, copyright, etc.) as separate files within the ePub.

Cheers!

[KevinH]

Did you make it the default one to load. You need to actually load that user dictionary to use its words.

[DiapDealer]

Near the bottom (and a little to the left) of the Preferences dialog, you'll find a status that indicates which dictionary is currently the default one. Just clicking on a dictionary is enough to change it to the default.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Sigil supports user and/or book specific dictionaries. Add correct words missing from the main dictionary to your user dictionary. Then load that user dictionary the next time you load the book to continue spellchecking.

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

Another thing you can do if you have a very large epub file is to consider putting each chapter in a separate file and checking it for typos. That will go faster, and it will be easier to find where you left off. Once checked and corrected, you can copy the chapter back and overwrite the original file.

Another helpful method I use is adjusting shortcut keys:

Edit > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts

I've reassigned these two:

• Ignore Misspelled Word (I use F5)
• Next Misspelled Word (I use F4)

(You could even assign these to side mouse buttons [using AutoHotKey or something similar].)

This lets me easily blast through the entire book with a lightning-fast two-button press:

Correctly spelled (like a name)? F5. (Ignore.)

Word is fine in this case? F4. (Skip.)

I start from the beginning of the book, then:

F5, F5, F4, F5, [...]

making my way through in a single pass with two fingers only.

Note: This "from beginning-to-end method" is extremely helpful when reaching the Index. Any red squigglies you see there are probably actual errors in the book itself. (So common to have typos, misspellings of names, etc. sneak into the Index.)

And if you reach the Index, then see a correct word/name, that means your actual book had the typo and you accidentally "Ignored" it (or it existed in the dictionary)!

I've caught hundreds of otherwise-slipped-through-the-cracks typos this way.

* * *

If you use Tools > Spellcheck > Spellcheck, you can also add words to dictionary from there.

If you uncheck "Show All Words" + sort by Count, you can see the most common "misspelled words" within your book.

You can quickly look through that list, adding the most common first/last names (etc.) to the User dictionary.

Then you can do the one-by-one checking with much fewer squigglies.

[szalonyptak]

Trying to sort this out I've checked the hunspell_dictionaries folder and there's a number of files corresponding to 4 languages I usually read in. The thing is I've already forgotten when I downloaded them and what I did exactly. I wonder if I may have ovrwritten files with the same names for different languages and probably that needs some tidying, perhaps deleting all the current files and reinstalling the dictionaries anew.

If I want to have dictionaries for various languages, what are the essential files to have in this folder?

[szalonyptak]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

...

I start from the beginning of the book, then:

F5, F5, F4, F5, [...]

making my way through in a single pass with two fingers only....

I've given it a try and I love it! Thanks a lot for suggesting it.

[MicroDrie]

Originally Posted by szalonyptak

The thing is I've already forgotten when I downloaded them and what I did exactly.

Here's how to add additional hunspell dictionaries:https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=314157

Originally Posted by szalonyptak

If I want to have dictionaries for various languages, what are the essential files to have in this folder?

The extracted files from the downloaded hunspell zip file from https://hunspell.memoq.com/

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

Another thing you can do if you have a very large epub file is to consider putting each chapter in a separate file and checking it for typos. That will go faster, and it will be easier to find where you left off. Once checked and corrected, you can copy the chapter back and overwrite the original file.

However, this does not let you correct a word across the book.
Happens a lot for names. If I see a name in the spellcheck 100 times and a slightly different one 2 times, I'm pretty confident that the 2x one is wrong and will change it.
Also, often other issues come up that I notice and want to check if they are more general.

Separately:
One annoyance I have is that when I review possible errors, often an error really is an error, but the suggestions are not what I want. So I just jump to the word and edit it, continue reviewing. After doing this several times, I come to an error where I do want to accept the suggestion, it does that, refreshes the error list, but now my position is several places lower than before. Apparently, it is the same number of words into the list, but if I corrected say 10 manually, the cursor has skipped 10 words.
So can it mark its place more contextually: say remember the current word, then go to where that word would have been in the regenerated list.

[KevinH]

I think you can select the suggested value and replace it so you do not have to hop back to the xhtml and get out of sync.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I think you can select the suggested value and replace it so you do not have to hop back to the xhtml and get out of sync.

Yes, but then it refreshes which takes time, just editing the text is often faster if it's one letter. So mostly prefer to direct edit; and always if I want to review each change. And sometimes the error is an incorrect space, so I need to join two words, only one is in the error list.