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|
*spell.txt* For Vim version 7.0aa. Last change: 2005 Aug 30
VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar
Spell checking *spell*
1. Quick start |spell-quickstart|
2. Remarks on spell checking |spell-remarks|
3. Generating a spell file |spell-mkspell|
4. Spell file format |spell-file-format|
{Vi does not have any of these commands}
Spell checking is not available when the |+syntax| feature has been disabled
at compile time.
==============================================================================
1. Quick start *spell-quickstart*
This command switches on spell checking: >
:setlocal spell spelllang=en_us
This switches on the 'spell' option and specifies to check for US English.
The words that are not recognized are highlighted with one of these:
SpellBad word not recognized |hl-SpellBad|
SpellCap word not capitalised |hl-SpellCap|
SpellRare rare word |hl-SpellRare|
SpellLocal wrong spelling for selected region |hl-SpellLocal|
Vim only checks words for spelling, there is no grammar check.
If the 'mousemodel' option is set to "popup" and the cursor is on a badly
spelled word or it is "popup_setpos" and the mouse pointer is on a badly
spelled word, then the popup menu will contain an submenu to replace the bad
word. Note: this slows down the appearance of the popup menu.
To search for the next misspelled word:
*]s* *E756*
]s Move to next misspelled word after the cursor.
A count before the command can be used to repeat.
'wrapscan' applies.
*[s*
[s Like "]s" but search backwards, find the misspelled
word before the cursor. Doesn't recognize words
split over two lines, thus may stop at words that are
not highlighted as bad. Does not stop at word with
missing capital at the start of a line.
*]S*
]S Like "]s" but only stop at bad words, not at rare
words or words for another region.
*[S*
[S Like "]S" but search backwards.
To add words to your own word list: *E764*
*zg*
zg Add word under the cursor as a good word to the first
name in 'spellfile'. A count may precede the command
to indicate the entry in 'spellfile' to be used. A
count of two uses the second entry.
In Visual mode the selected characters are added as a
word (including white space!).
When the cursor is on text that is marked as badly
spelled then the marked text is used.
Otherwise the word under the cursor, separated by
non-word characters, is used.
If the word is explicitly marked as bad word in
another spell file the result is unpredictable.
*zG*
zG Like "zg" but add the word to the internal word list
|internal-wordlist|.
*zw*
zw Like "zg" but mark the word as a wrong (bad) word.
*zW*
zW Like "zw" but add the word to the internal word list
|internal-wordlist|.
*:spe* *:spellgood*
:[count]spe[llgood] {word}
Add {word} as a good word to 'spellfile', like with
"zg". Without count the first name is used, with a
count of two the second entry, etc.
:spe[llgood]! {word} Add {word} as a good word to the internal word list,
like with "zG".
*:spellw* *:spellwrong*
:[count]spellw[rong] {word}
Add {word} as a wrong (bad) word to 'spellfile', as
with "zw". Without count the first name is used, with
a count of two the second entry, etc.
:spellw[rong]! {word} Add {word} as a wrong (bad) word to the internal word
list.
After adding a word to 'spellfile' with the above commands its associated
".spl" file will automatically be updated and reloaded. If you change
'spellfile' manually you need to use the |:mkspell| command. This sequence of
commands mostly works well: >
:edit <file in 'spellfile'>
< (make changes to the spell file) >
:mkspell! %
More details about the 'spellfile' format below |spell-wordlist-format|.
*internal-wordlist*
The internal word list is used for all buffers where 'spell' is set. It is
not stored, it is lost when you exit Vim. It is also cleared when 'encoding'
is set.
Finding suggestions for bad words:
*z?*
z? For the word under/after the cursor suggest correctly
spelled words. This also works to find alternatives
for a word that is not highlighted as a bad word,
e.g., when the word after it is bad.
The results are sorted on similarity to the word
under/after the cursor.
This may take a long time. Hit CTRL-C when you get
bored.
If the command is used without a count the
alternatives are listed and you can enter the number
of your choice or press <Enter> if you don't want to
replace. You can also use the mouse to click on your
choice (only works if the mouse can be used in Normal
mode and when there are no line wraps). Click on the
first line (the header) to cancel.
If a count is used that suggestion is used, without
prompting. For example, "1z?" always takes the first
suggestion.
If 'verbose' is non-zero a score will be displayed
with the suggestions to indicate the likeliness to the
badly spelled word (the higher the score the more
different).
When a word was replaced the redo command "." will
repeat the word replacement. This works like "ciw",
the good word and <Esc>. This does NOT work for Thai
and other languages without spaces between words.
*:spellr* *:spellrepall* *E752* *E753*
:spellr[epall] Repeat the replacement done by |z?| for all matches
with the replaced word in the current window.
In Insert mode, when the cursor is after a badly spelled word, you can use
CTRL-X s to find suggestions. This works like Insert mode completion. Use
CTRL-N to use the next suggestion, CTRL-P to go back. |i_CTRL-X_s|
The 'spellsuggest' option influences how the list of suggestions is generated
and sorted. See |'spellsuggest'|.
The 'spellcapcheck' option is used to check the first word of a sentence
starts with a capital. This doesn't work for the first word in the file.
When there is a line break right after a sentence the highlighting of the next
line may be postponed. Use |CTRL-L| when needed. Also see |set-spc-auto| for
how it can be set automatically when 'spelllang' is set.
==============================================================================
2. Remarks on spell checking *spell-remarks*
PERFORMANCE
Vim does on-the-fly spell checking. To make this work fast the word list is
loaded in memory. Thus this uses a lot of memory (1 Mbyte or more). There
might also be a noticeable delay when the word list is loaded, which happens
when 'spell' is set and when 'spelllang' is set while 'spell' was already set.
To minimize the delay each word list is only loaded once, it is not deleted
when 'spelllang' is made empty or 'spell' is reset. When 'encoding' is set
all the word lists are reloaded, thus you may notice a delay then too.
REGIONS
A word may be spelled differently in various regions. For example, English
comes in (at least) these variants:
en all regions
en_au Australia
en_ca Canada
en_gb Great Britain
en_nz New Zealand
en_us USA
Words that are not used in one region but are used in another region are
highlighted with SpellLocal |hl-SpellLocal|.
Always use lowercase letters for the language and region names.
When adding a word with |zg| or another command it's always added for all
regions. You can change that by manually editing the 'spellfile'. See
|spell-wordlist-format|. Note that the regions as specified in the files in
'spellfile' are only used when all entries in "spelllang" specify the same
region (not counting files specified by their .spl name).
*spell-german*
Specific exception: For German these special regions are used:
de all German words accepted
de_de old and new spelling
de_19 old spelling
de_20 new spelling
de_at Austria
de_ch Switzerland
*spell-yiddish*
Yiddish requires using "utf-8" encoding, because of the special characters
used. If you are using latin1 Vim will use transliterated (romanized) Yiddish
instead. If you want to use transliterated Yiddish with utf-8 use "yi-tr".
In a table:
'encoding' 'spelllang'
utf-8 yi Yiddish
latin1 yi transliterated Yiddish
utf-8 yi-tr transliterated Yiddish
SPELL FILES *spell-load*
Vim searches for spell files in the "spell" subdirectory of the directories in
'runtimepath'. The name is: LL.EEE.spl, where:
LL the language name
EEE the value of 'encoding'
The value for "LL" comes from 'spelllang', but excludes the region name.
Examples:
'spelllang' LL ~
en_us en
en-rare en-rare
medical_ca medical
Only the first file is loaded, the one that is first in 'runtimepath'. If
this succeeds then additionally files with the name LL.EEE.add.spl are loaded.
All the ones that are found are used.
Additionally, the files related to the names in 'spellfile' are loaded. These
are the files that |zg| and |zw| add good and wrong words to.
Exceptions:
- Vim uses "latin1" when 'encoding' is "iso-8859-15". The euro sign doesn't
matter for spelling.
- When no spell file for 'encoding' is found "ascii" is tried. This only
works for languages where nearly all words are ASCII, such as English. It
helps when 'encoding' is not "latin1", such as iso-8859-2, and English text
is being edited. For the ".add" files the same name as the found main
spell file is used.
For example, with these values:
'runtimepath' is "~/.vim,/usr/share/vim70,~/.vim/after"
'encoding' is "iso-8859-2"
'spelllang' is "pl"
Vim will look for:
1. ~/.vim/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.spl
2. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.spl
3. ~/.vim/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl
4. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl
5. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.iso-8859-2.add.spl
This assumes 1. is not found and 2. is found.
If 'encoding' is "latin1" Vim will look for:
1. ~/.vim/spell/pl.latin1.spl
2. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.latin1.spl
3. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.latin1.spl
4. ~/.vim/spell/pl.ascii.spl
5. /usr/share/vim70/spell/pl.ascii.spl
6. ~/.vim/after/spell/pl.ascii.spl
This assumes none of them are found (Polish doesn't make sense when leaving
out the non-ASCII characters).
Spelling for EBCDIC is currently not supported.
A spell file might not be available in the current 'encoding'. See
|spell-mkspell| about how to create a spell file. Converting a spell file
with "iconv" will NOT work!
*E758* *E759*
When loading a spell file Vim checks that it is properly formatted. If you
get an error the file may be truncated, modified or intended for another Vim
version.
WORDS
Vim uses a fixed method to recognize a word. This is independent of
'iskeyword', so that it also works in help files and for languages that
include characters like '-' in 'iskeyword'. The word characters do depend on
'encoding'.
The table with word characters is stored in the main .spl file. Therefore it
matters what the current locale is when generating it! A .add.spl file does
not contain a word table though.
A word that starts with a digit is always ignored. That includes hex numbers
in the form 0xff and 0XFF.
WORD COMBINATIONS
It is possible to spell-check words that include a space. This is used to
recognize words that are invalid when used by themselves, e.g. for "et al.".
It can also be used to recognize "the the" and highlight it.
The number of spaces is irrelevant. In most cases a line break may also
appear. However, this makes it difficult to find out where to start checking
for spelling mistakes. When you make a change to one line and only that line
is redrawn Vim won't look in the previous line, thus when "et" is at the end
of the previous line "al." will be flagged as an error. And when you type
"the<CR>the" the highlighting doesn't appear until the first line is redrawn.
Use |CTRL-L| to redraw right away. "[s" will also stop at a word combination
with a line break.
When encountering a line break Vim skips characters such as '*', '>' and '"',
so that comments in C, shell and Vim code can be spell checked.
SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING *spell-syntax*
Files that use syntax highlighting can specify where spell checking should be
done:
1. everywhere default
2. in specific items use "contains=@Spell"
3. everywhere but specific items use "contains=@NoSpell"
For the second method adding the @NoSpell cluster will disable spell checking
again. This can be used, for example, to add @Spell to the comments of a
program, and add @NoSpell for items that shouldn't be checked.
VIM SCRIPTS
If you want to write a Vim script that does something with spelling, you may
find these functions useful:
spellbadword() find badly spelled word at the cursor
spellsuggest() get list of spelling suggestions
soundfold() get the sound-a-like version of a word
SETTING 'spellcapcheck' AUTOMATICALLY *set-spc-auto*
After the 'spelllang' option has been set successfully, Vim will source the
files "spell/LANG.vim" in 'runtimepath'. "LANG" is the value of 'spelllang'
up to the first comma, dot or underscore. This can be used to set options
specifically for the language, especially 'spellcapcheck'.
The distribution includes a few of these files. Use this command to see what
they do: >
:next $VIMRUNTIME/spell/*.vim
Note that the default scripts don't set 'spellcapcheck' if it was changed from
the default value. This assumes the user prefers another value then.
DOUBLE SCORING *spell-double-scoring*
The 'spellsuggest' option can be used to select "double" scoring. This
mechanism is based on the principle that there are two kinds of spelling
mistakes:
1. You know how to spell the word, but mistype something. This results in a
small editing distance (character swapped/omitted/inserted) and possibly a
word that sounds completely different.
2. You don't know how to spell the word and type something that sounds right.
The edit distance can be big but the word is similar after sound-folding.
Since scores for these two mistakes will be very different we use a list
for each and mix them.
The sound-folding is slow and people that know the language won't make the
second kind of mistakes. Therefore 'spellsuggest' can be set to select the
preferred method for scoring the suggestions.
==============================================================================
3. Generating a spell file *spell-mkspell*
Vim uses a binary file format for spelling. This greatly speeds up loading
the word list and keeps it small.
*.aff* *.dic* *Myspell*
You can create a Vim spell file from the .aff and .dic files that Myspell
uses. Myspell is used by OpenOffice.org and Mozilla. You should be able to
find them here:
http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/spell_dic.html
You can also use a plain word list. The results are the same, the choice
depends on what word lists you can find.
If you install Aap (from www.a-a-p.org) you can use the recipes in the
runtime/spell/??/ directories. Aap will take care of downloading the files,
apply patches needed for Vim and build the .spl file.
Make sure your current locale is set properly, otherwise Vim doesn't know what
characte
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