GNU Aspell

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GNU Aspell
Developed by GNU Aspell developers
Latest release 0.60.6 / April 16, 2008
OS Cross-platform
Genre Spell checker
License LGPL
Website aspell.net

GNU Aspell, usually called just Aspell, is a free software spell checker designed to replace Ispell. It is the standard spelling checker software for the GNU software system. It also compiles for other Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. The main program is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), the documentation under GNU Free Documentation Licence (GNU FDL). Dictionaries for it are available for about 70 languages. The main maintainer is Kevin Atkinson.

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[edit] Comparison to Ispell

In comparison to Ispell, Aspell can also easily check documents in UTF-8 without having to use a special dictionary. Aspell will also do its best to respect the current locale setting. Other advantages over Ispell include support for using multiple dictionaries at once and intelligently handling personal dictionaries when more than one Aspell process is open at once. However, Ispell follows the Unix convention of being a command applied to a file (eg ispell text-file-with-spelling-errors), Aspell requires other command line options and the '--help' option is written by an expert rather than someone who wants to use it. Here are two uses:

  • Interactively runs through the text_file checking the spelling:
aspell check text_file 
  • Allows you to type in a word (followed by newline and Ctrl-d) to find words that sound the same
aspell soundslike

[edit] Integration in other applications

Among others, Opera[1], Pidgin, AbiWord, Coccinella, LyX, and gedit use Aspell as spell-checking facility.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Spell-checking With Opera. Retrieved on 2006-02-06.

[edit] External links