Adobe InDesign - Manual (Page 268)

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Note:
Select a suggested correction. If a word is repeated or needs to be capitalized, you can choose Delete Repeated Word [word] or
Capitalize [word].
Select Add [word] To User Dictionary. This automatically adds the word to the current dictionary without opening the Dictionary dialog
box. The word remains unchanged in the text.
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.
Select Ignore All to ignore occurrences of this word in all documents. When InDesign is restarted, the word is flagged again as a
misspelling.
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 Package files). In contrast, storing an exception list outside the document makes it
easier to use the same list of exceptions for multiple documents.
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 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. InDesign also includes a language locking feature that prevents the language setting in Asian text from being
changed when it is part of a selection and a non-Asian language is chosen from the Language menu. (See Assign a language to text.)
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.
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