Create and edit custom dictionaries with Word

Word 2003 and Word 2007 handle custom dictionaries in almost exactly the same way; the big difference is accessing the necessary dialogue box. So, we are going to use Word 2003 for most of this Workshop and then note where the process differs between the two versions of the program. Starting with Word 2003, open an empty document and open the Tools menu, choose Options and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab. Click the Custom Dictionaries button and then, when the dialogue box opens, click the New button.

Things work slightly differently in Word 2007. Open a blank document but this time, click on the Office button (the big round icon in the top left-hand corner) and then when the menu opens, find the Word Options button right at the bottom and click it. When the dialogue box opens, it looks quite different to the one in Word 2003. Find the Proofing heading in the left-hand column and click it. Then, in the main window, click the Custom Dictionaries button and when that dialogue box opens, click the New button.

Type a name for the dictionary (choose one that clearly identifies it – we are calling ours ‘Camping’) into the File name box and then click the Save button. Back at the Custom Dictionaries dialogue box, make sure there is a tick next to the new dictionary and then remove the tick next to the existing CUSTOM.DIC dictionary; this turns the new custom dictionary into the default one. Click OK and then OK again to return to the blank document. Now let’s type in a sentence that uses some specialised words that the ordinary dictionary will not recognise.

Word will highlight the words that it doesn’t recognise, even though we know they are spelled correctly. We will use the custom dictionary we just created to sort that out. Click at the beginning of the document and then, in Word 2003 click the Spelling and Grammar button; in Word 2007, click the Review tab and then click the Spelling & Grammar button on the button bar. When the dialogue box opens, make sure the word is highlighted in red and click the Options button.

When the Spelling and Grammar dialogue box opens, click the Custom Dictionaries button and then select the dictionary created in Step 3 by clicking it once. (Don’t click the Add button at this point because that will just create another new dictionary, rather than adding the unrecognised word to the current dictionary.) Instead, click OK, then click OK again. Finally, click the Add to Dictionary button and the word (‘ultralight’ in our case) will be added to the new custom dictionary.

Word is highlighting another word it doesn’t recognise. We will use that to show how to add words to the new dictionary manually. With the Spelling & Grammar dialogue box still open, click the Options button and then click the Custom Dictionaries button – our custom dictionary is still selected. Word 2003 users can click the Modify button to continue. Word 2007 users should click the Edit Word List button. When the custom dictionary dialogue box opens we can see it’s got the word added in the previous step.

We can use this dialogue box to manually add as many new words as desired. We have added ‘tarptent’, for example, which is a kind of lightweight camping shelter. Just type the word into the empty box at the top and then click the Add button. It will then appear in the list of words that are recognised by this, the current default dictionary.

Word 2003 leaves the word just added in the box at the top. To add another word, highlight what is there and type the next word over it. Word 2007 clears the box words added, ready for the next one. Word 2007 also has a Delete All button, while with Word 2003 it’s necessary to highlight the words to be removed by dragging the left-clicking and dragging the pointer over them; or by holding the Ctrl key and left-clicking to mark non-sequential words in the list. Then press Delete.

Skip back to the document by clicking OK, then OK, then OK again. Word now recognises the second word and marks the spellcheck as complete. Multiple specialist vocabularies can be managed from the Custom Dictionaries dialogue box. The Add button will incorporate any commercial dictionaries you may buy and Remove will take them off the list (though they’re still stored safely on the hard disk). Here we have removed the dictionary called ‘Fishing’ but it’s still available on the disk if we want to reinstate it.

There may be occasions when you would rather Word reverted to the main dictionary. Rather than opening the Custom Dictionaries dialogue box to deselect all of the dictionaries there, try this: in Word 2003 open the Tools menu and choose Options, click the Spelling & Grammar tab and put a tick next to the ‘Suggest from main dictionary only’ option. Click OK to confirm. In Word 2007 click the Office button and choose Word Options. Select Proofing, and then do the same.