AutoCAD 2009 – Automatic spell checker

AutoCAD 2009 – Automatic spell checker

I’ve seen quite a few positive comments about the new automated spell checking feature, with some people saying that it alone is enough to make AutoCAD 2009 worth the price of admission. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it is a nice feature. If you enter or edit text or mtext, a little dashed red line appears under words that are not in the dictionary. Right click on an unknown word and the menu will offer several suggestions, allow you to ignore the word or add it to the dictionary.

It does have limitations, though, such as not working with attributes. Don’t expect it to do the things that Word does, such as auto-correct words or check your grammar. There is nothing to inform you that you have used a valid word in the wrong context, so AutoCAD considers this to be a perfectly valid sentence:

Eye cant under stand how any one cud sell any off they’re worms rung wen awl 0f there worlds ate testes width a auto mated shell checked.

Translation:

I can’t understand how anyone could spell any of their words wrong when all of their words are tested with an automated spell checker.

6 Comments

  1. Spell checkers are not spell checkers; they are word recognizers. If the word appears in a list of words, then it is valid — context be darned.

    As a professional writer, it frustrates me greatly how gushing-with-billions-in-R&D companies like Microsoft are incapable of advancing spell and grammar checking beyond what my DOS copy of WordPerfect and Grammatik did 20 years ago.

    But, I must say that real-time spell checking is wonderful, even if it is a 10-year-old feature in other words-oriented software.

  2. Autodesk does sometimes neglect to provide an off switch for new features, but not in this case. In the editor, right-click, then pick Editor Settings and turn off the Check Spelling toggle. There are also items for Check Spelling Settings and Dictionaries.

  3. Bohus

    Same problem as ME …turning off spelling in the editor settings doesn’t help fckin ACAD shows Unable to find dictionary message every time I want to edit text…this sucks..thanks Autodesk

  4. Honza

    hey, I found a simple solution for everyone who has a problem with a message annoying you everytime you want to edit text (something about missing dictionary): when editing text rightclick and go to Editor Settings -> Dictionaries… (as mentioned above)
    Here I selected American English and in the Custom dictionaries rolldown menu I went to Manage custom dictionaries… and removed the one which was in there. (it’s offcourse possible to add it again) .
    I don’t know which of these actions solved my problem, but if I change any of them back as it was before, the problem don’t appear again …
    I noticed it also reduces lot of short acads “idle” moments …

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