Spell Check and Thesaurus Overview

Nota Bene's spell checker compares the words in your document with the active spell check dictionaries, identifies words which are questionable (i.e. not found in the dictionaries) and suggests corrections. Auto Spell Check (on by default, but can be turned off) marks questionable words as you type with red squiggle underlining (or optionally, with a yellow background). Nota Bene uses a main dictionary which is not editable by the user, and one or more supplementary user dictionaries which are editable. When you add a word to your dictionary, it is permanently added to your primary user dictionary. You can, for example, add proper names or technical terms to your user dictionary so that they will not be flagged as possible misspellings. See Dictionary and Configure: Dictionary Tab.

Main dictionaries are available in over 20 languages including UK English as well as the default US English. For those who write in more than one language, the program can automatically switch to the correct dictionary based on language markers in the file. See Multilingual Spell Check.

Nota Bene can automatically correct commonly misspelled words if one of the Auto Replace options is selected in the Configure Options Tab. See Auto Replace Only and Auto Check and Replace. This feature uses replacement pairs--a common misspelling of a word and the correctly spelled word--that are saved in the user dictionary. You can use the Spell Dialog (click Proof, Spell File/Block or place your cursor on a word that you would  like to check and press Ctrl+?) or the Spell Utility Dialog Bar (Alt+U) to add a flagged word to your user dictionary or to add a replacement pair. The Spell Popup Dialog, a simplified version of the Spell Dialog can be opened by right-clicking on a word that has been flagged and selecting Correct Word. The Auto Replace feature can be customized and extended to give you a powerful means of expanding a shorthand abbreviation to a full word or phrase. See Auto Expand.

While most people use the spell checker in Auto Spell mode, the spell checker and also be used in the following ways:

•Spell File/Block/Word: You can run the spell checker by clicking Proof, Spell File/Block or you can check the spelling of a single word. The Spell dialog gives you options to correct misspellings and/or to add correctly spelled words to your dictionary. See Spell File/Block/Word.

•List Unrecognized Words: You can create a list of all words that the speller does not recognize. This allows you to see all questionable words in one place, and to add those that are correctly spelled to your user dictionary. See List Unrecognized Words.

•Action Line: You can use the SPELL command to check spelling: See Spell command.

Nota Bene's thesaurus provides an easy way of finding synonyms. See Thesaurus.