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ShareSpell v3.1 ASCII Text File Spelling Checker Copyright 1989-1996, Acropolis Software Acropolis Software P.O. Box 5037 Fair Oaks, CA 95628 USA THE LEGAL STUFF ShareSpell is provided on an "as is" basis without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied. In no event will Acropolis Software, its assigns, employees or pets be liable to you for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the program, even if Acropolis Software, including their employees and/or assigns have been advised of the possibility of such damages, or for any claim by any other party. Some restrictions may apply in other states, countries, territories and civilizations. INTRODUCTION ShareSpell version 3.1 is a "stand-alone" spelling checker for checking the spelling of ASCII text files. It is completely interactive and displays the text of the file as it goes, checking for spelling errors. At each "suspect" word, you have the option of: Replacing the word from a list of suggested correct spellings Manually correcting the word Adding the word to the dictionary Marking the word for later correction Ignoring that word throughout the rest of the document ShareSpell uses a common usage dictionary of nearly 80,000 words. You have the option of adding words to the dictionary that you use often such as your name and words specific to your field of writing. FILE LIST SS.EXE The ShareSpell program ACROP.DCT The main dictionary (US or UK English) SS.DOC This manual on-a-disk in ASCII text format DM.EXE Dictionary Manager program UPDATE.EXE Program to convert dictionary from pre-3.0 ShareSpell INSTALL.EXE Program to install ShareSpell 3.0 REGISTER.DOC Registration form REQUIREMENTS The minimum system requirements to run ShareSpell are: 256K of RAM 1 Floppy disk drive MSDOS/PCDOS version 2.1 or higher A hard drive and/or two floppy drives are recommended. A single drive system leaves very little room for storage of the file to be checked and for a temporary copy of the file. INSTALLATION Before going any further, please make a backup copy of your ShareSpell disk. Put the original disk away in a safe place and use the backup disk from here forward; it will now be referred to as your "original". INSTALL PROGRAM The easiest way to install ShareSpell is to use the INSTALL program. It will prompt you for the ShareSpell installation location and prompt you to change floppies back and forth if you only have one floppy drive. MANUAL INSTALLATION To install ShareSpell manually, follow the directions below depending upon your hardware setup: ONE FLOPPY DRIVE Format a floppy disk to place ShareSpell on. Put your original copy of ShareSpell back in the disk drive and use the following command: COPY A:SS.EXE B:SS.EXE DOS will prompt you to insert a disk in B:. Since you do not have a B: drive, it actually means A:. Place your original ShareSpell disk back in the A: drive and use the command: COPY A:ACROP.DCT B:ACROP.DCT You will again be prompted to insert a disk in drive B:. Use drive A:. Do the same with the command: COPY A:DM.EXE B:DM.EXE. Now you have a working copy of ShareSpell to use. TWO FLOPPY DRIVES Place your original copy of ShareSpell in drive A: and place a formatted disk in drive B: and use the following commands: COPY A:SS.EXE B: COPY A:ACROP.DCT B: COPY A:DM.EXE B: If you are currently using an older version of ShareSpell and will want to move the words you've added to the old dictionary over to the new dictionary also use the following command: COPY A:UPDATE.EXE B: HARD DRIVE Create a directory for ShareSpell on your hard drive. Alternately, you could place the ShareSpell files in your MSDOS external command directory (where your FORMAT.EXE, DISKCOPY.EXE, etc. files are). Most people call that directory something like DOS, MSDOS or BIN. If you place ShareSpell and its dictionary with your MSDOS external commands, you will be able to use ShareSpell from any directory without having to place the ShareSpell directory in your AUTOEXEC's PATH= statement. If you do not want to place ShareSpell with your external commands, then you must create a directory for it. SS is the example directory name used below. You would use the following command to create the directory: MD \SS Now switch to that directory with the CD command: CD \SS Copy the files from the floppy to the new directory: COPY A:SS.EXE COPY A:ACROP.DCT COPY A:DM.EXE COPY A:UPDATE.EXE Now you can use ShareSpell by changing to the SS directory and typing SS. Alternately, if you want to use ShareSpell while in any directory on your hard drive, you should add the directory to the PATH= statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Find a line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file that looks something like: PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\WHATEVER Add to the end of it ";C:\SS". It would now look like: PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\WHATEVER;C:\SS UPDATING FROM EARLIER VERSIONS If you are currently using an earlier version of ShareSpell and wish to move the words that you've added into the new dictionary, you can use the UPDATE.EXE program. The format is: UPDATE olddictionaryfilename newdictionaryfilename If you are using ShareSpell on a hard drive and have placed the new version in the same directory as you had the old version you would use the command: UPDATE ACROP.DIC ACROP.DCT If you are using a two floppy drive system you would place the new ShareSpell disk in drive A: and the disk with the old dictionary in drive B: and use the command: UPDATE B:ACROP.DIC ACROP.DCT If you are using ShareSpell on a system with only one floppy drive you must have a drive type with more storage than a low density 5.25" floppy. If you have any type of 3.5" drive or a high density 5.25" drive you can copy the old dictionary onto the floppy with the new version of ShareSpell. Then copy the UPDATE.EXE file to the floppy (see the section on installing ShareSpell in a system with one drive). Once the old dictionary is copied to the disk, use the command: UPDATE ACROP.DIC ACROP.DCT Once it has run you should delete the old dictionary and the UPDATE program to free up space on the floppy. If you only have a low density 5.25" floppy (360K) you will have to have someone with either two floppy drives or a hard drive move the words to the new dictionary for you. NETWORK INSTALLATION AND CONSIDERATIONS If you are installing ShareSpell on a network there are a few things to know that will make ShareSpell easier to use: ShareSpell opens the ACROP.DCT in full shared mode so that everyone on the network can access the file at the same time. Since the file is never written to, you shouldn't run into any shared access problems. However, ShareSpell opens the user added word dictionaries (ACROP1.USR, ACROP2.USR and so on) in compatibility mode that can cause problems if more than one person tries to use the files. To prevent problems when you install ShareSpell on a networked computer, you should start ShareSpell and use the [F5] key at the "file selection" screen to go to the configuration screen and set the path for the user's dictionaries to somewhere that only that user has access. Not only will this prevent problems with sharing the user dictionaries, but it will also give each person their own list of user added words. If you are installing ShareSpell on many machines and have them set up so that everyone has a local directory with the same name, you can set the path once and then copy the SS.CON file that is created to all the machines. Another useful bit is that ShareSpell will also check for an environment variable called SS and look there for its dictionary. If you don't want to add the ShareSpell directory to the PATH statement, you can use the command SET SS=whatever. This also comes in handy if you are shelling to ShareSpell from within another program. You can have it SET the SS variable before executing ShareSpell so it will not permanently take up environment space. COMMAND LINE The command line options for starting ShareSpell are fairly simple. Starting ShareSpell with the name of a file you wish to check will cause it to check that file for spelling errors. Once the checking is complete ShareSpell will quit and return you to the DOS prompt. An Example would be something like: SS TEST.TXT In addition to checking one file, you can give ShareSpell a list of files to check. There are two ways of doing this: either list each file individually: SS TEST1.TXT TEST2.TXT TEST3.TXT COVER1.TXT COVER2.TXT or you can give it an MSDOS wildcard specification just like you would use with the DIR command: SS TEST*.TXT SS COVER*.TXT You can also combine the methods and give ShareSpell a list of wildcard specifications: SS TEST*.TXT COVER*.TXT In all three examples ShareSpell would check the list of files: TEST1.TXT, TEST2.TXT, TEST3.TXT, COVER1.TXT, and COVER2.TXT provided that the wildcard specifications do not find any other files that match the patterns. STARTING WITH NO PARAMETERS Starting ShareSpell without parameters will cause it to bring up a screen listing the files in the current directory. You can use the cursor keys to move around the screen and select the file you wish to check. Once you have the file highlighted, press [ENTER] to start spell checking. After checking you will be returned to the screen to select another file or you may quit by using the [F10] key. The other options available in the file selection screen allow you to configure the screen colors and behavior of ShareSpell with the [F5] key and to change to a different drive with the [F1] key. You can navigate to different directories by using the cursor keys to select a directory and pressing [ENTER] to select that directory. USING SHARESPELL Once you have selected a file to spell check - either from the command line or the file selection screen - ShareSpell will start scanning the file and building a list of unique words. While scanning the file, ShareSpell will also be counting the number of unusual control characters in the file. This is to help prevent you from accidentally checking a file that is not an ASCII text file, such as a file produced by a word processor. ShareSpell is designed to check only ASCII documents. Due to the large number of different word processor file formats there is no practical way to support all of them. Also, most major word processors contain their own spelling checkers. If ShareSpell thinks you may be checking a non-ASCII document, you will be prompted with a warning asking if you wish to continue; this allows you to check an ASCII file that contains control codes. After the first scan of the file, ShareSpell will check the list to find misspelled words. If there were no misspellings in the file, ShareSpell will tell you so then quit or return you to the file selection screen. If there were some words in the file that ShareSpell believes to be misspelled, it will start to list the file on the screen stopping at each misspelled word. When ShareSpell stops at a misspelling, it will highlight the word and show you the text both before and after that word. You will then be presented with a list of suggestions; at this point there are several options: [UP/DOWN] arrows allow you to move through the list of suggestions and select the correct spelling if it is listed. The blank selection at the top of the list is special; if you select it, the word will not be replaced and will be skipped. After you have selected the correct spelling press [ENTER]. [F7] will mark the word with an "@" character in the corrected file and then ignore it through the rest of the document. This is allows you to mark a word you are unsure of and then use your text editor's search command to find it later and manually correct it. [F8] will add the word to your user dictionary. From then on it will be considered a valid word. If you add a word and later decide that you do not want it in the dictionary, you can use the Dictionary Manager program (explained later) to remove the word. [ESC] will skip the word and all later occurrences of it in the current document. This allows you to skip over words such as names and places that you know are spelled correctly, but occur several times in the document. The [LEFT/RIGHT] arrows and [BACKSPACE] key allow you to correct the spelling manually. The cursor will move over to the "Word in Question" area and you can edit the word using the [BACKSPACE] key to delete characters or type in new characters. Once you have corrected the word, pressing [ENTER] will replace the misspelling with the correction. If your correction is not found in the dictionary, ShareSpell will prompt you and ask if you want to replace it anyway. If you answer NO then you will be brought back to the editing option. If you have made changes to the word, you can use the [F1] key to have ShareSpell create a new list of suggested correct spellings based on the edited word. [F1] will cause ShareSpell to change to a different method for finding suggested correct spellings. Each time you press [F1] you will cycle through the three methods of spell checking. The three methods are: Close Match looks for common typing errors Phoneme suggestions are made on the basis of how the word sounds OCR is a special version of "Close Match" for checking scanned documents [F10] will exit ShareSpell and return you to either the DOS command prompt or the file selection screen, depending on how you started ShareSpell. ABOUT THE SUGGESTIONS ShareSpell currently has three methods for making a list of suggested replacement words. The three methods are: CLOSE MATCH The Close Match suggestions work best with misspellings that result from "typo" errors. An example is missing the "M" key and typing and "N" instead such as typing "NETHOD" when you wanted "METHOD." It also catches most other common typing errors like transposing letters in a word such as "SIAD" instead of "SAID." ShareSpell will also check for two words that are run together. For example: "THECAT" - one of the suggestions would be "THE CAT" assuming you missed hitting the spacebar between the words. OCR The OCR matching checks the spelling in documents that have been scanned and converted to ASCII text by OCR software. Since OCR errors tend to be similar to typing errors the OCR suggestions are very similar to the Close Match suggestions. The OCR mode does extra checking for commonly found mis-identification scanning errors. Most of the time it will give you the same suggestion list as Close Match, but it will differ occasionally. As with Close Match, OCR suggestions also check for a missing space between words. PHONEME The phoneme method breaks the words into their component sounds and attempts to find matching words that sound similar to the misspelled word. "Kat" would get suggestions like "Cat," "Cut," "Cot," and so on. Occasionally a suggestion may look a little odd. That is because it is considering the sound in the middle or end of the word as well as the beginning sound. CONFIGURATION Starting ShareSpell without parameters will bring you to the file selection screen. You can then press the [F5] key to enter the configuration screen; this will allow you to set the screen colors used by ShareSpell and to control its behavior. The available options are: [1] and [2] to change the normal text color and background color. As you press one of the keys the colors will step through the selections and show you what they look like both in normal usage and inverted use. The normal text colors are used as the default screen and text colors. The inverted form is used to highlight items on the file selection list. [3] and [4] change the colors used to highlight the misspelled word as ShareSpell displays the file for you to correct. [5] and [6] select the colors used to highlight the selected word in the suggested word list. [7] tells ShareSpell if you want it to make backup copies of the files you are checking. Pressing the 7 key toggles the option between Yes and No. [8] selects the default suggestion method. If you find that the Phoneme suggestions work better for the type of errors you come across, you can tell ShareSpell to use that as the primary method, or set it to Close Match or OCR, which ever suits your needs the best. [9] sets the default scan mode. In most cases it is best to leave it set to ASCII. The OCR scan mode will work for ASCII documents, but it also allows words to contain characters other than letters in ("+","!", and digits) as these are common OCR scanning errors. [P]ath allows you to set the directory where ShareSpell will store the user dictionary containing any words you have added. Normally you should leave it blank; ShareSpell will then store it with the normal dictionary. The main use for changing the path of the user dictionary is to allow people using ShareSpell on a network to each have their own list of user added words. [W]arn about control characters. If you regularly use a text editor that uses control characters for formatting you can disable the warning about the file possibly not being an ASCII text file with this option. [S]kip and [A]lso skip. If you use a text editor that does formatting control by proceeding some words with a special character, such as using something like .BOLD to turn bold-face on you can cause ShareSpell to skip those words using either of the option. Using the quote mark (") is not recommended since that would cause ShareSpell to skip the first word or any quotation. [ESC] will exit out of the configuration screen. If you have made changes, you will be prompted to confirm that you want them saved. If you do, ShareSpell will save the configuration in the file "SS.CON". If you do not save the current configuration, ShareSpell will use the new settings for the current session, but will revert to the original configuration the next time you use it. DICTIONARY MANAGER Dictionary Manager version 3.0 is a utility program for maintaining the dictionary file included with ShareSpell. It allows you to add and delete words from the dictionary either one at a time or from a file containing a list of words. USING DICTIONARY MANAGER To use Dictionary Manager, type DM at the DOS prompt. It will search for the dictionary file and then display all the words you have added. The screen is divided into three sections: On the left of the screen are the words that have been added. At first this list will contain the words loaded from the dictionary. It will be empty if no words have been added. In the middle of the screen is the list of available commands. Input widows will also appear in this area. On the right side of the screen is the holding list. The holding list is useful for temporarily storing lists of words before adding them to the dictionary or deleting them. The most basic commands are the [LEFT/RIGHT] arrows, [PgUp/PgDn] keys, and the [SPACE] key; they allow you to navigate through the word lists and to mark the words to be operated on. The [LEFT/RIGHT] arrow keys allow you to select the currently active word list. Pressing the [LEFT ARROW] key moves you to the "Word List" column on the left part of the screen. The [RIGHT ARROW] key moves you to the "Holding List" column on the right part of the screen. The flashing name at the top indicates the currently selected column. It is important to know which list is currently selected because the other commands operate on the active list. The [UP/DOWN] arrow keys allow you to move up and down through the words displayed in the currently selected word list. [PgUp/PgDn] keys move through the list a screen at a time. The highlighted word in the center of the list is the current word. Pressing the [SPACE] will mark the current word. Marked words are indicated by a right pointing triangle to the left of the word. The commands are: [A]dd single word You will be prompted to enter a word in a window in the middle of the screen; the word you enter will be added to the list of words in the currently selected column. The exception is if the word is already present in the list. Added words will be maintained in alphabetical order. If you decide not to add a word just press the [ENTER] key and nothing will be added. [M]ark all words This will mark all the words in the currently selected list. You will be prompted to confirm the command before the words are marked. [U]nmark all words This will unmark all the words in the currently selected list. You will be prompted to confirm the command before the words are unmarked. [L]oad file of words You will be asked if you want to unmark the words that are marked in the current word list. This allows you to distinguish the words that were already in the list from the words that are loaded. If the file you specify cannot be found, you will be prompted again for a file name. If you decide not to load a list of words, just press the [ENTER] key. The format for the list of words is simple: one word after another each on its own line. EXAMPLE: BOY DOG CAT [E]xchange marked words Moves the marked words in the currently selected list to the other list. You will be prompted to confirm the move before it takes place. A good example for this command is: load a list of words into the Holding list with the Load command. Now scan through the words and use the [SPACE] to unmark the words you do not wish to include in the dictionary. Use the Exchange command to move the marked words to the Word list for inclusion in the dictionary. [D]elete marked words Deletes the marked words from the currently selected list. Use this command with caution. Once the words are deleted you will have to re- enter them manually. You will be prompted to confirm the deletion before it takes place. Use this command to remove words you've entered and no longer need. [W]rite words to file Write the words from the current list to a disk file. You will be prompted for the name of the file in which you wish to save the list of words. If you decide not to save the word list press [ENTER]. With this command and the Load command, you can easily move your personal words from one version of the dictionary to the next by Writing the word list from the old dictionary and then Loading the word list into the new dictionary. [Q]uit and abandon changes Quits Dictionary Manager without applying any of the changes you have made to the dictionary. It is a "safe way out" - great if you think you have mangled the word list beyond all hope. Example: You deleted all the words. Quit and abandon changes allows you to leave the dictionary unchanged. You will be prompted to confirm the operation. [S]ave Word List & Quit This is the normal way of exiting Dictionary Manager. All the user supplied words will be removed from the dictionary and the new list of words in the "Word List" column on the left side of the screen will be placed into the dictionary. Only the words from the "Word List" will be placed in the dictionary regardless of whether it is the currently selected list or not. QUICK REFERENCE You can start ShareSpell with a parameter that is the name of the file you wish to spell check or with a list of filenames to check. Additionally you can give it a wildcard specification to check the spelling of a group of similarly named files. If you start ShareSpell without a parameter you will be shown the file selection screen where you can use the cursor keys to select the file to spell check. Once the spell check begins you have the following options when a suspected misspelling is found: [F7] mark the word with a "@" character in the corrected file and then ignore it through the rest of the document. [F8] will add the word to your user dictionary. [ESC] to skip the word and all later occurrences of it. The [LEFT/RIGHT] arrow keys and [BACKSPACE] allow you to edit a word manually to correct the spelling. [F1] to cycle through the three suggestion methods. [F10] to exit ShareSpell. REGISTRATION If you use ShareSpell, I ask you to send $20 to Acropolis Software to register. You will receive a disk containing the latest version of both the program and the dictionary. Please use the order form to register. If you do not use the form, please specify that you are registering ShareSpell and indicate your preferred disk format (5 1/4" or 3 1/2") and US or British Dictionary. Purchases of 10 or more copies will receive a site license package which consists of a master copy of the latest version and an agreement that you can make the specified number of copies. Site license are charged $10.00 per copy they wish to make. _______________________________________________________________________ Name : ___________________________________________ Company : ___________________________________________ Address : ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ City/State : ___________________________________________ Zip Code : ___________________________________________ Phone : ___________________________________________ Basic registration (less than 10 copies) : $20 x ___ = $ ______ Site license registration (10 or more copies) : $10 x ___ = $ ______ CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY please add sales tax $ ______ Shipping & Handling $ 2.50 Disk Size: ___ 5.25" ___ 3.5" ------ Dictionary: ___ US ___ British TOTAL $ ______ The product being registered is ShareSpell v3.1. You will receive a registered copy of the latest version of ShareSpell without the shareware screen, latest dictionary and related utilities. Send check or money order to: Acropolis Software P.O. Box 5037 Fair Oaks, CA 95628 Credit card orders may be phoned or faxed to: (916) 967-4791. Phone order from 9am - 6pm PST. Fax Orders 24 hrs a day. Please provide the following information: ___ Visa ___ MasterCard (PLEASE PRINT) Name as appears on card: ____________________________________ Card Number: ____________________________________ Expiration Date: ______________ Signature: __________________________________