WebProNews

Tag: spell check

  • George R.R. Martin Writes Everything on a DOS Machine Because Spell Check Is a Huge Pain in the Ass

    While many of us can’t imagine composing a single sentence without the help of modern spell check technology, A Song of Ice And Fire author George R.R. Martin actively avoids it.

    In fact, he recently revealed to Conan O’Brien that he constructs the world of Westeros on a DOS machine, using WordStar 4.0.

    Yeah, GRRM is old school.

    Well, at least when it comes to writing epic fantasy novels.

    “I actually have two computers,” he said. “I have the computer that I browse the internet with, and I get my email on, and then I do my taxes on…and then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine. I use WordStar 4.0 as my word processing system.”

    “I actually like it,” he continued. “It does everything I want a word processing program to do and it doesn’t do anything else.”

    GRRM has a point. If you’re writing 1000-page novels filled with character names like Daenerys Targaryen, do you really want Google Docs trying to help?

    So, WordStar 4.0 huh. Something about writing on that cold, black screen makes it seem even more cruel when GRRM kills off your favorite character. Everything is so bleak. All men must die, but 30-year-old word processors can live forever.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Spell Check Improvements Come To Chrome Stable

    A month ago, Google announced Chrome 26 Beta with improved spell check capabilities as it refreshed the dictionaries the browser’s default spell check uses, and started supporting proper nouns. It also started supporting Korean, Tamil and Albanian.

    Spell Check

    Google announced the improvements to the stable release today.

    “In addition, users who add custom words to the dictionary can now sync their settings to bring those changes to all the devices where they use Chrome,” says Google software engineer Rachel Petterson.

    The ‘Ask Google for suggestions’ spell checking feature, powered by the same technologies used by Google search, now supports grammar checking, proper nouns, homonyms, and context-sensitive spell checking in English,” she adds.

    Windows, Linux and Chrome OS users will get the enhancements in the coming weeks, as Google continues to work on Mac support.

  • Chrome Gets Better At Spell Check In Latest Beta

    Google announced Chrome 26 Beta today, with improved spell check capabilities. Google has refreshed the dictionaries the browser’s default spell check users, and it now supports proper nouns as well as Korean, Tamil and Albanian.

    Chrome Spell Check

    “Users who sync their settings will also notice their custom dictionary gets shared across devices now, so you won’t need to teach that new Chromebook how to spell your name,” says software engineer Rachel Petterson. “Furthermore, for users who have enabled the ‘Ask Google for suggestions’ spell check feature, we’re now rolling out support for grammar, homonym and context-sensitive spell checking in English, powered by the same technologies used by Google search. Support for additional languages is on the way.”

    Google is pushing the update to users on Windows, Linux and Chrome OS in the coming weeks. Mac support will be on the way soon.

    The browser update also have a bunch of new bells and whistles for developers, as discussed in this post on the Chromium blog.

  • Google Docs Getting Google Search Spell Check

    Google Search has a pretty impressive spell check in place that lets you know if you’ve spelled a word wrong and gives you suggestions as to what word you might have been wanting to spell. Turns out the guys that run Google Docs thought this was pretty cool too as they’re bringing it to Docs.

    Yew Jin Lim, a software engineer with Google, penned a piece today on the Docs Blog about his team bringing search spell check to Google Docs. The key advantage here is that the spell check in Google Docs will no longer rely on a dictionary for the words you spell. Like Google Search, Docs spell check will now adapt with the Web.

    Lim shows off a few pretty impressive examples of Google’s new spell check. The first shows him typing in “Icland is an icland.” As I typed that into my text editor, both instances of “icland” are underlined and the spell check gives me three choices – Iceland, inland and island. Google claims that their spell check is contextual and once it knows that the first word is Iceland, it will correct the second “icland” to “island.”

    It will also fix that little problem of people using the wrong, but properly spelled, word. Lim uses the example of “Let’s meat tomorrow morning for coffee.” He says that Google’s spell check will correct the “meat” to “meet” based on context.

    Google is also taking into account the fact that the Web is constantly evolving and making up new words. If the word becomes popular enough, it will be added to the spell checker. Lim uses the example of Skrillex being included as a word now in Google Docs.

    Google Docs Getting Google Search Spell Check

    The new spell check system is available right now for Google Docs and presentations in English. They are hoping to roll out the new system to other languages soon.

    As a writer, this makes me excited. Having a constantly evolving spell check would solve a lot of the problems current spell checks have, especially those that automatically change the word on you.