Review date: 23 March 2006
Review by: Kelvin Eldridge
Release: V2.1
Released for: OpenOffice.org V2.x
Comment: Should you need to contact us please use the form on the site
www.JustLocal.com.au which you get to be clicking on the OpenOffice.org image.
The old email address will still exist, but it will not be checked frequently
and will eventually be phased out.
The main changes to the dictionary file is the removal of around 1,800
American spellings of words. If this does not suit you then use the
original files available on the OpenOffice.org website.
A small number of words have also been added.
We have added a dictionary.lst file which we use for Australian
conditions and felt others may be interested in using as well.
Using the dictionary.lst file provided here removes all the unnecessary
references language files typically not used by Australians.
We use the GB hyphenation file and have renamed it to an AU hyphenation
file to keep the file names consistent.
We have started making changes to the US Thesaurus and will continue
to evolve this over time to meet Australian conditions.
Installation: We prefer to manually install dictionary files as there is really
not much involved.
1. Perform a copy of the existing dictionary.lst file and give it another
name. This is because some people may wish to go back to using the file.
This file is normally located in the following folder.
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\share\dict\ooo
2. Extract the contents of the zip file into the OpenOffice.org folder
which contains the dictionary files. For a standard installation
under Windows XP this is the following folder
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\share\dict\ooo
3. Open OpenOffice.org
Select Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages
Change the Default language for documents to English (Australia)
Click OK
Close OpenOffice.org
Close QuickStarter if you have it running
Open OpenOffice.org and test to see the Australian English dictionary
is working. Type color and colour and make sure the wrong version is highlighted.
Dictionary
----------
This dictionary was based on the en_GB Myspell dictionary
which in turn was initially based on a subset of the
original English word list created by Kevin Atkinson for
Pspell and Aspell and thus is covered by his original
LGPL licence.
The following changes were made to the GB dictionary.
- Words incorrect in Australian English removed
- a list from the previously removed words with corrected spelling was added
- a list of major rivers was added
- a list of place names was added
- a list of Australian mammals was added
- a list of Aboriginal/Koori words commonly used was added
A total of 119,267 words are now recognized
by the dictionary.
Of course, special thanks go to the editors of the
en_GB dictionary (David Bartlett, Brian Kelk and
Andrew Brown) which provided the starting point
for this dictionary.
The dictionary file has now been ammended for Version 2.0 in the following way.
- Removed words with spaces. These are not recognised by OpenOffice.org
- Removed trailing spaces from words
- Change accented characters in words where this was valid according to the
Macquarie English dictionary.
- Removed U.S. spellings of the words with ize so only ise and variants remain.
Words now in dictionary 117,351.
Affix file
----------
The affix file is currently a duplicate of the en_AU.aff
created completely from scratch by David Bartlett and
Andrew Brown, based on the published
rules for MySpell and is also provided under the LGPL.
Version 2.0 change
Fixed error on 1068 line from SFZ to SFX.
Hyphenation
-----------
The hyphenation file us is a direct copy of the GB hyphenation file.
No changes have been made to the file. It has simply been renamed
to the same form as the other Australian dictionary files.
Thesaurus
---------
Version 2.0 changes
The Australian Thesaurus is based on the US Thesaurus which is based on WordNet.
We have started to convert the US Thesaurus to an Australian Thesaurus.
This is an enormous 18MB file and will take considerable effort to modify.
Due to the work involved our approach will be to evolve the Thesaurus over a
period of time and release snapshots as time permits.
We are making the obvious changes such as "color" and "neighbor" first, and
will continue with other changes as they are identified.
Feedback
--------
If you find omissions or bugs please let us know.
If you wish to suggest new words added to the dictionary please fully research the
words before providing them.
If you wish to suggest new entries in the Thesaurus please fully research the entries
first and make sure all entries are in the full form required by the Thesaurus.
You can send all changes to myself.
Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.onlineconnections.com.au
You can contact us using the form available on the www.JustLocal.com.au website by clicking
on the OpenOffice.org image.
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