Hyphenation and spelling dictionaries – Adobe InDesign CS5 User Manual
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USING INDESIGN
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Last updated 11/16/2011
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Select Dictionary. This opens the Dictionary dialog box where you can select the Target dictionary, change
hyphenation breaks, and specify a language. If you want to add the word to all languages, choose All Languages
from the Language menu, and then click Add. The word is added to the selected dictionary and remains unchanged
in the text.
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Select Ignore All to ignore occurrences of this word in all documents. When InDesign is restarted, the word is
flagged again as a misspelling.
Note: If you select Ignore All and then decide that you don’t want to ignore that word after all, Choose Ignored Words
from the Dictionary List menu in the Dictionary dialog box and remove the word from the list.
Hyphenation and spelling dictionaries
InDesign uses Proximity dictionaries for most languages to verify spelling and to hyphenate words. You can add words
to each dictionary to customize it. You can assign different languages to text, and InDesign uses the appropriate
dictionary to handle spelling and hyphenation. You can create additional user dictionaries, and you can import or
export word lists saved in a plain text file.
When you customize the words in a dictionary, you actually create lists of added words (words that aren’t already in
the dictionary) and removed words (existing dictionary words that you want to be flagged as a potential misspelling).
The Dictionary dialog box lets you display and edit added words, removed words, and ignored words (words that are
ignored for the current session because you clicked Ignore All). You can add words that apply to all languages, which
is especially useful for last names, street names, and other items that aren’t specific to a language.
If you want to use the language dictionaries from a previous version of InDesign or InCopy, use your system Find
command to locate the user dictionary files (.udc), and then add them to your list of dictionaries in Dictionary
preferences.
Where dictionary words are stored
By default, hyphenation and spelling exceptions are located in user dictionary files stored outside the document on the
computer where InDesign is installed (dictionary file names end with a .clam or .not extension). However, you can also
store exception lists inside any InDesign document. In addition, you can store word lists in an external user dictionary,
in the document, or in both. The location of existing dictionaries appears in the Dictionary preferences.
Storing hyphenation and spelling exceptions inside a document makes it easier to treat text consistently when you
move that document to other computers. For this reason, you can merge the user dictionary into the document in
Dictionary preferences. You can also control the location of exceptions from the Create Package Folder dialog box (see
“
” on page 621). In contrast, storing an exception list outside the document makes it easier to use the same
list of exceptions for multiple documents.
Note: If the user dictionary is merged into the exceptions list, the entire user dictionary is added to the document, even if
the words are not used, thereby increasing the document’s file size.
Applying languages to text
You can use the Language menu in the Control panel or Character panel to apply a language to selected text. You can
also specify a default language for an entire document, or for all new documents. (See “
page 257.)
Exception word lists
You can exclude words from being considered. For example, if you want to use an alternate spelling for a common
word such as “bicycle,” which you may need to spell in a different way for your company name or for a specific
document, add the word to the list of excluded words so that it will be flagged during a spell check. InDesign can
maintain a separate set of added and removed words for each installed language.