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Browser Dictionary Needs Some Real Help

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 5 views
  • Paskiausią atsakymą parašė StevenCee

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Firefox's onboard spellchecker needs to go back to college, or probably high school! Every day I have several words with the dotted underline, telling me they're not words, or not spelled correctly. However, when checking the dictionary, I confirm that the spell-check feature is wrong, and I am correct! I don't want to disable it completely, as it does let me know when I've made a typo, which I can quickly correct, but it's a pain in the butt to keep having it say something's wrong with a word, and there's not... I honestly can't believe it can be that hard to use a source that's accurate, when it's something on everyone's screen that uses Firefox...

Firefox's onboard spellchecker needs to go back to college, or probably high school! Every day I have several words with the dotted underline, telling me they're not words, or not spelled correctly. However, when checking the dictionary, I confirm that the spell-check feature is wrong, and I am correct! I don't want to disable it completely, as it does let me know when I've made a typo, which I can quickly correct, but it's a pain in the butt to keep having it say something's wrong with a word, and there's not... I honestly can't believe it can be that hard to use a source that's accurate, when it's something on everyone's screen that uses Firefox...

All Replies (7)

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Note that you can add misspelled words to your personal dictionary (persdict.dat in the profile folder) via the right-click context menu.

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Also, make sure you are using the correct dictionary.

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Cor-el: Yes I know this, but it sure is a drag to be doing this so often, and for me to double-check so many spellings, only to confirm I am correct. IMHO, there's no excuse for a dictionary feature to be so very, very lame as this is. Many of the words it doesn't think are words, or spelled correctly, are not odd or unusual ones, and that it doesn't know them, is some pretty lame programming, or in deciding which dictionary to base it on. If the clock in your car is always too slow or too fast, sure you can check your watch, and then stop and reset the clock, but really....

FredMcD: Am I using the correct dictionary? I didn't choose it, it's what comes with the browser, . . . but I'd sure like to change it, is there some way to do that?

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What locale do you use ?

Only en-US comes with a dictionary, for other languages you need to install a dictionary yourself because there isn't one included for licensing reasons.

You can see which dictionary is selected if you right-click in a text area and open the Languages sub menu.

Note that you need a spelling dictionary and not a language pack that supplies translations for the user interface.

You can look here for dictionaries:

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StevenCee said

FredMcD: Am I using the correct dictionary? I didn't choose it, it's what comes with the browser, . . . but I'd sure like to change it, is there some way to do that?

I was thinking more about the correct language.


Food for thought: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grammarly-1 Grammarly for Firefox by Grammarly

Grammarly’s writing assistant has you covered in any writing situation. With real-time suggestions to help with grammar, clarity, tone, and more, you can be confident that your writing will make the impression you want.

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Cor-el: OK, I finally found the Languages sub menu, and of course, it says English. Not sure why you'd think it wouldn't it be English, since if it weren't I'd see that every time it offers a spelling or brief definition, no?

FredMcD: It's not the language I'm having an issue with, it's this dictionary having so little grasp of how English words are spelled, or if they're even words. Grammarly I tried for a short time, it drove me even more nuts, as it wasn't always correct, and it wouldn't let me write things that weren't, when that was my intention. Basically, it just totally got in my way, I've found the very occasional times I may question my grammar, I just google it, to solve it. This thing was far too intrusive, and obtrusive, maybe the pay version works better, or maybe I just don't require as much hands-on instruction as many others may. I would just like this dictionary to either be more correct, or know how I can select a different dictionary for it to use...

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Now, not only does it still say accurately spelled words aren't, but when it's correct, and the word was misspelled, when I click on the choice with the correct spelling, it sometimes won't replace the word!! How frustrating...