{"id":3635,"date":"2007-11-29T13:22:50","date_gmt":"2007-11-29T12:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/how-to-add-extra-dictionaries-to-os-x-and-iwork\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:39:20","slug":"how-to-add-extra-dictionaries-to-os-x-and-iwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-add-extra-dictionaries-to-os-x-and-iwork\/","title":{"rendered":"How to: Add extra dictionaries to OS X and iWork"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Working on a Mac is a breeze: iWork is fast and easy to use, as well as being packed with features. My version (and I suppose, all the others) also came with 14 built-in dictionaries, enabling me to perform spell checks in multiple languages. But what if the language you need to check isn&#8217;t included? No problem. Installing new dictionaries is simple and will take you about two minutes. Here&#8217;s how to do it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, you need to download and install <a href=\"http:\/\/people.ict.usc.edu\/~leuski\/cocoaspell\/\"><strong>cocoAspell<\/strong><\/a>, a free and open-source graphical interface for &#8216;Aspell&#8217;. Basically, this will take over spell check duties from your Mac&#8217;s built-in utility. This is great, but not only because it&#8217;ll allow you to add new dictionaries: cocoAspell also boasts a smarter, more advanced suggestion system than your Mac&#8217;s spelling APIs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once cocoAspell is set up, you&#8217;ll need to get hold of dictionary files for your chosen language. This bit&#8217;s a little more complicated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Visit the <a href=\"ftp:\/\/ftp.gnu.org\/gnu\/aspell\/dict\">Aspell dictionaries FTP site<\/a><\/li><li>Open the folder corresponding to your language&#8217;s standard two letter code (e.g. EN for English or CA for Catalan).<\/li><li>Select a file that looks like:<br><code>aspell6-ca-20040130-1.tar.bz2<\/code> &#8211; as a rule of thumb, try do download a file beginning &#8216;aspell6&#8217; over &#8216;aspell5&#8217; and &#8216;aspell5&#8217; over just &#8216;aspell&#8217;.<\/li><li>Save the file to your Mac and unpack it.<\/li><li>Copy the resulting folder to<br><code>\/Library\/Application Support\/cocoAspell\/<\/code><\/li><li>Following our example, you&#8217;ll now have a folder called<br><code>\/Library\/Application Support\/cocoAspell\/<\/code><code>aspell6-ca-20040130-1<\/code><\/li><li>Open System Preferences -&gt; cocoAspell and select your dictionary.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once you&#8217;ve completed this installation, restart your Pages or Textedit application and you&#8217;ll find your new dictionary added in the available languages list. Job done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working on a Mac is a breeze: iWork is fast and easy to use, as well as being packed with features. My version (and I suppose, all the others) also came with 14 built-in dictionaries, enabling me to perform spell checks in multiple languages. But what if the language you need to check isn&#8217;t included? &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-add-extra-dictionaries-to-os-x-and-iwork\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to: Add extra dictionaries to OS X and iWork&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[2518,1016],"tags":[2880],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-3635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guides","category-howto","tag-app-subdomain-redirectioniwork"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336668,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions\/336668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=3635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}