How To Correct Spellings In Text Editor ???

musicmad · Mar 25, 2010

Hi

On my old Windows platform the application Microsoft Word used to correct all my document spellings in one go by the touch of a mouse. However on my Mac platform it seems that Text Editor in iLife doesn't operate in the same way, how does one get Text Editor to do the same thing? Or would i be needing iWork for this ?

toMACsh · Mar 25, 2010

TextEdit is not part of iLife. All iLife applications start with "i". The corresponding application to Word is Pages, which is part of iWork. Pages has spell check. Interestingly, none of the iWork applications start with "i". I'm not really sure if the Windows platform has something comparable to TextEdit.

Wiki:

iLife is a suite of software applications developed by Apple for organizing, editing, and publishing photos, movies, and music. The suite comprises five applications: iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, and iWeb, all of which run on the Mac OS X operating system.

iWork is an office suite of desktop applications created by Apple for the Mac OS X and iPhone OS operating systems. The suite originally bundled Keynote, a presentation program which had previously been sold as a standalone application, and Pages, a combined word processing and page layout application. In 2007, Apple released iWork '08, which contained a new spreadsheet application, Numbers.

TextEdit is a simple, open source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with Mac OS X since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-compatible operating systems such as Linux.[1] It is powered by Apple Advanced Typography and has many advanced typography features.

It replaces the text editor of previous Macintosh operating systems, SimpleText. TextEdit reads and writes documents in Rich Text Format, Rich Text Format Directory, plain text, and HTML formats, and can open (but not save) old SimpleText files. It also has access to the operating system's built-in spell-checking service. The version included in Mac OS X v10.3 added the ability to read and write documents in Word format, and the version in Mac OS X v10.4 the ability to read and write Word XML documents. The version included in Mac OS X v10.5 includes read and write support for Office Open XML and OpenDocument Text. The version included in Mac OS X v10.6 added automatic spelling correction, support for data detectors, and text transformations.

Formatted text, justification, and even the inclusion of graphics and other multimedia elements are supported by TextEdit, as well as the ability to read and write to different character encodings, including Unicode. TextEdit automatically adjusts letter spacing in addition to word spacing while justifying text. This letter spacing feature is usually only found in higher end desktop publishing programs. The unique letter spacing however can't be adjusted or controlled as it can in a desktop publishing program. TextEdit does not support multiple columns of text.

chas_m · Mar 25, 2010

toMACsh said:
TextEdit is not part of iLife.

True.

All iLife applications start with "i".

False. Garageband pretty clearly doesn't start with an i.

TextEdit does spell checking just fine. In case you have somehow turned it off, turn it back on in TextEdit's preferences.

musicmad · Mar 25, 2010

The corresponding application to Word is Pages, which is part of iWork.

I purchased iWork along with my Macbook but have never navigated through it, i will now check out Pages.

Thanks
Mm.

dtravis7 · Mar 25, 2010

OSX has system wide spell check. Every properly designed application has Spell Check available. I spell check here on Mac Forums before posting as an example.

When it shows a wrong word you can right click on the word and it will give you suggestions.

Here is a pic of TextEdit's Preferences. I marked the Spelling check with red dots.

musicmad · Mar 25, 2010

When it shows a wrong word you can right click on the word and it will give you suggestions

Click to expand...

.
This I know, but look how time consuming this is going backwards and forwards with the mouse having to select each word for correction, especially if you’re working on large spreadsheets at 150 words per page. Is there really nothing in Pages that duplicates to a similar method as Microsoft word ? Eg. Word or sentence wrong, just a continual click of the mouse to correct all mistakes. It's possible to correct a 100 word spreadsheet in just under 15 seconds with MW, using Pages would take 5 minutes. :Grimmace:

dtravis7 · Mar 25, 2010

You were talking about TextEdit and not Pages. Try that Windows text editor in XP. It does so little it's pitiful. Textedit does so much more.

Have you loaded up Pages and tried it? It's a Word Processor and Layout tool and not a simple text editor.

Also if you have tried Pages, did you open System Preferences under Pages and look under the Auto Correction Tab? Many options you can choose.

toMACsh · Mar 25, 2010

chas_m said:
Garageband pretty clearly doesn't start with an i.

iThought about that after iPosted. But, iDidn't fix it. :Oops:

iDon't use GarageBand.

Heck, iDon't use iLife!

musicmad · Mar 25, 2010

did you open System Preferences under Pages and look under the Auto Correction Tab? Many options you can choose

Click to expand...

.

Yes! but what options does one select in order for the spelling to be corrected automatically ??

chas_m · Mar 25, 2010

I don't suppose there's any point in me suggesting you just, you know, learn to spell?

dtravis7 · Mar 25, 2010

chas_m said:
I don't suppose there's any point in me suggesting you just, you know, learn to spell?

I am starting to think he means a Thesaurus as no Spell Checker could know if you meant Lit or Lot for example as both would be right spelling wise. In other words Spelling AND grammar checker.

musicmad · Mar 26, 2010

I've selected check spelling and spelling as you type, but obviously all this does is confirm what you've written is wrong. What I'm looking for is an option to automatically correct! The spelling as I type.

toMACsh · Mar 26, 2010

That might be an exclusive feature in Word. I don't use Pages either (or any iWork app for that matter) but the other word processor I have (Bean) only tells me if a word is spelled incorrectly. That's it. ...doesn't even suggest corrections.

musicmad · Mar 26, 2010

So basically there isn’t one, that’s a shame I thought Apple were the geniuses, looks like Word has beaten them. :Shouting:

dtravis7 · Mar 26, 2010

Did you also click on Edit and Spelling and on Check Spelling at you type? Also from Edit click on Proofreading and on Proofread as you type.

That corrects a lot of it automatically here. Word can NOT know what you typed in every case and just correct every word like the example I gave in my other post. There and Their. Both are correct. Only a Thesaurus can tell the difference, not a spell checker. Lot and Lit. Both correct.

I have used word for years and no way does it auto correct everything correctly. If you do what I said above, pages does for me with most misspellings. If yours does not than something is wrong. I am sitting here in Pages typing and watching words change to the correct word with both options checked that I told you about above.

dtravis7 · Mar 26, 2010

I have a video I did for you. It's hard to for me to type fast and make deliberate mistakes but I typed slow and the video shows iWork 09 correcting automatically my mistakes. I have to find somewhere to host the video and I will put a URL in this post for you.

toMACsh · Mar 26, 2010

musicmad said:
So basically there isn’t one, that’s a shame I thought Apple were the geniuses, looks like Word has beaten them.

Maybe, maybe not. But, they shouldn't be too smug about it if they have. Consider that Word is at least 10 years older that Pages... might even be 20. Anyway, it has a substantial head start. Yet I see the post above says Pages already does what you want it to do. It would be interesting to know how "old" Word was when it was first able to accomplish this. As usual, it turns out to be a case of needing to relearn something. Many people don't have enough patience for it.

musicmad · Mar 27, 2010

Yet I see the post above says Pages already does what you want it to do.

Not really.. I tried all that was suggested, Edit > Spelling > Check Spelling at you type, Also from Edit i selected Proofreading > Proofread as you type, and none of these options are correcting the spelling as i type. It underlines the incorrect word in red but does not auto correct it whilst typing, meaning I'm still having to manually do it myself (which is time consuming). Is there really no auto spelling correction in Pages, or could it be somthing to do with my settings ? do i need to modify somthing ? :Shouting:

toMACsh · Mar 27, 2010

Well then, as said above, then something is wrong. You could try replacing the plist file for Pages. (com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist)

This should be in Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences
Drag it to the Desktop before you go into Pages.
Then try Pages, which will created a new plist file.
If all is well, you can delete the file you put on the Desktop.

musicmad · Mar 28, 2010

Well then, as said above, then something is wrong. You could try replacing the plist file for Pages. (com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist)

This should be in Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences
Drag it to the Desktop before you go into Pages.
Then try Pages, which will created a new plist file.
If all is well, you can delete the file you put on the Desktop.

Click to expand...

Sorry toMACsh didn't really get what you were trying to say here, your suggesting somthing is wrong, so I'm assuming it can be fixed. please explain.

How To Correct Spellings In Text Editor ???

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