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Next: 4. Customizing Aspell Up: GNU Aspell 0.50.5 Previous: 2. Getting
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Subsections

  * 3.1 Spellchecking Individual Files
  * 3.2 Using Aspell with other Applications
      + 3.2.1 With Applications that Expect Ispell
      + 3.2.2 With Emacs and Xemacs
      + 3.2.3 With LyX
      + 3.2.4 With VIM
      + 3.2.5 With Pine

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3. Basic Usage

For a quick reference on the Aspell utility use the command "aspell
--help".


3.1 Spellchecking Individual Files

To use Aspell to spellcheck a file use:

    aspell check [«options»] «filename»

at the command line where «filename» is the file you want to check and «
options» is any number of optional options. Some of the more useful ones
include:

--mode=«mode»
    the mode to use when checking files. The available modes are none,
    url, email, sgml, or tex. See section 4.4.1 for more informations on
    the various modes.
--dont-backup
    don't create a backup file.
--sug-mode=«mode»
    the suggestion mode to use where mode is one of ultra, fast, normal,
    or bad-spellers. See section 4.4.4 for more information on these
    modes.
--master=«name»
    the main dictionary to use.
--keymapping=«name»
    the keymapping to use. Either aspell for the default mapping or ispell
    to use the same mapping that the ispell utility uses.

Please see Chapter 4 for more information on the available options.

For example to check the file foo.txt:

    aspell check foo.txt

and to check the file foo.txt using the bad-spellers suggestion mode and
the large American English dictionary:

    aspell check --sug-mode=bad-spellers --master=american-lrg foo.txt

If the mode option is not given then aspell will use the extension of the
file to determine the current mode. If the extension is .tex, then TEX
mode will be uses, if the extension is .html, .htm, .php, or .sgml it will
check the file in sgml mode, otherwise it will use url mode. These
extensions can be changed via the tex-extension and sgml-extension options
respectfully. See chapter 4.4.1 for more information on the various modes
that can be used.

If Aspell was compiled with curses support and the TERM environmental
variable is set to a capable terminal type than Aspell will use a nice
full screen interface. Otherwise it will use a simpler "dumb" terminal
interface where the misspelled word is surrounded by two '*'. In either
case the interface should be self explanatory.

3.2 Using Aspell with other Applications

3.2.1 With Applications that Expect Ispell

Aspell can be used as a drop in replacement for Ispell for programs that
use Ispell through a pipe such as Emacs and LyX. It can also be used with
programs that use simple call the ispell command and expect the original
file to be overwritten with the corrected version. It support the basic
features of Ispell, however it does not currently have a Nroff mode so
there may be situations in which you still wish to use Ispell.
Nevertheless, I have been using Aspell for Xemacs and LyX since the middle
of September of 1998 with out any problems.

If you do not have Ispell installed on your system and have installed the
Ispell compatibly script than you should not need to do anything as most
applications will that expect Ispell will work as expected with Aspell via
the Ispell compatibility script.

Otherwise, the recommended way to use Aspell as a replacement for ispell
is to change the Ispell command from within the program being used. If the
program uses ispell in pipe mode simple change ispell to aspell. If the
program calls the ispell command to check the file change "ispell" with
"aspell check".

If that is impossible and the program uses ispell through a pipe than the
run-with-aspell script can be used for programs using ispell in pipe mode.
The format of the script is:

    run-with-aspell «command»

where «command» is the name of the program with any optional arguments.

The old method of mapping Ispell to Aspell is discouraged because it can
create compatibility problems with programs that actually require Ispell
such as Ispell's own scripts.

3.2.2 With Emacs and Xemacs

The easiest way to use Aspell with Emacs or Xemacs is to add this line:

    (setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")

to the end of your .emacs file.

For some reason version 3.0 of ispell.el (the lisp program that (x)emacs
uses) want to reverse the suggestion list. To fix this add this line:

    (setq-default ispell-extra-args '("--reverse"))

after the previous line in your .emacs file and it should solve the
problem.

Ispell.el, version 3.1 (December 1, 1998) and better, has the list
reversing problem fixed. You can find it at http://www.kdstevens.com/
~stevens/ispell-page.html.

3.2.3 With LyX

Version 1.0 of LyX provides support for Aspell learning for users mistake
feature.

To use aspell with LyX 1.0 either change the spell_command option in the
lyxrc file or use the run-with-aspell utility.

3.2.4 With VIM

(The following section was written by "R. Marc", rmarc at copacetic net.)

To use aspell in vim you simply need to add the following line to your
.vimrc file:

    map ^T :w!<CR>:!aspell check %<CR>:e! %<CR>

I use <Ctrl-T> since that's the way you spell check in pico. In order to
add a control character to your .vimrc you must type <Ctrl-v> first. In
this case <Ctrl-v><Ctrl-t>.

A more useful way to use Aspell, IMHO, is in combination with newsbody (
http://www.image.dk/~byrial/newsbody/) which is how I use it since vim is
my editor for my mailer and my news reader.

    map ^T \1\2<CR>:e! %<CR>
   
    map \1 :w!<CR>
   
    map \2 :!newsbody -qs -n % -p aspell check \%f<CR>

3.2.5 With Pine

To use aspell in pine simply change the option speller to

    aspell --mode=email check

To change the speller option go to the main menu. Type S for setup, C for
config, then W for where is. Type in speller as the word to find. The
speller option should be highlighted now. Hit enter, type in the above
line, and hit enter again. Then type E for exit setup and Y to save the
change.

If you have a strong desire to check other peoples comments change speller
to

    aspell check

instead which will avoid switching aspell into email mode.

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next up previous contents
Next: 4. Customizing Aspell Up: GNU Aspell 0.50.5 Previous: 2. Getting
Started   Contents
Kevin Atkinson 2004-02-10
