Re: from a new user

On Tue, 23 Feb 2010, David Epstein wrote:

> The manual for aspell is huge and daunting. Is there a smaller document for 
> beginners?

Not really, section 3 is suppose to be the smaller document.  But your 
questions go a bit beyond basic usage.

> Apologies if the questions below are answered in the archives of 
> this mailing list. I tried to search, but found too many irrelevant hits. 
> Suggestions as to how you would have searched for the answers to the 
> questions below would be welcome.
>
> Q1. Is it possible to have a file of incorrectly spelled words, that 
> overrides the dictionary being used by aspell? For example, when using 
> British English, I might want to outlaw "analyze". Alternatively, I might 
> want to outlaw "analyse". How should I do this?

Unfortunately, No.  But keep in mind there are two British English variants 
to chose from, use "aspell --dump dicts" to get a list of installed dict.

> Q2. While checking the spelling in a file, one is given an "Add" option. Is 
> it possible to control which file is used to record these add-ons?

Not directly.  You can specify a personal dictionary using the 
"personal" option see 4.2.1 and section 5.

> Q3. Sometimes I'm correcting files in British English, and sometimes in US 
> English. How do I bring my personal word-lists to bear?

Again, specify it on the command line.

> Q4. Which personal word lists are affected when I use aspell? Where are they?

There is one for each language. British and American English are both 
considered the same language.  The file is in your home directory and 
generally has the name ".aspell.<lang>.pws", where <lang> will be "en" in 
your case.

> Am I allowed to use several of them simultaneously in the same call to 
> aspell?

Yes.  By using the "extra-dicts" option, but only one of them can serve as 
the personal dictionary (ie, the one words are added to)