[needs-packaging] Package myspell-en-ca for OOo spellcheck

[Allison Karlitskaya]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

When installing Dapper Beta 2 I chose "English" and "Canada".

This resulted in en_CA being set as my language and openoffice.org setting my default document language to "English (Canadian)".

Unfortunately, there is no spellchecker for Canadian English installed and no clear way how I should go about installing one (there are openoffice.org-l10n-en-gb, -us and -za packages that are already installed but nothing for -ca).

If there is a spellchecker for Canadian English then it should be packaged and installed by default on systems where the user selects "English" in the installer (ie: the language-support-en package should depend on it as it does for -gb, -us, -za). If no such spellchecker exists then the default openoffice.org document language should be set to "English (UK)" as this is the closest approximation of Canadian English available.

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

Should mention: the obvious outward effect of this bug is that spellchecking is completely disabled per default with no clear way to enable it even though the preferences dialog says that it's enabled. All words (even those that are obviously misspelt) are marked as 'OK'.

[Jeff Vehrs (icemanv9)]

It lacked en-us spellcheck. It wasn't installed by default. :/

[DarkMageZ (darkmagez)]

this bug also appears to apply to Australia en-au as well, i believe ubuntu should install the spell checker for each "language" correctly. failing to have it makes openoffice's spellchecker let ANYTHING pass... even "omg, teh diryt haxoxors".
Failing the local "language" it should fall back to en_us to atleast mostly resolve this bug by not letting horrid stuff like the example above pass.

[Michael Broadbent (mikebro)]

This is still an issue in Feisty. Also if you go Tools > Spell check it will say Spell check complete instead of something more appropriate like Spell check isn't available for the current language settings.

[rrfx (rrfx)]

Agreed, this is still an issue in Feisty/OOo v2.2.

I'm using English (Australia).

And also agree about the inappropriate "check complete" message. It wasnt until i typed 'asdfasdf' that i picked it up!!

[Thayer Williams (thayer)]

(Re)Confirmed...

It appears that the myspell English (Canada) package is missing entirely from the repo's, as is the openoffice language pack. Furthermore, the OpenOffice.org Dictionary Wizard (File -> Wizards -> Install new dictionaries) crashes OOo before it even has a chance to load.

I'm running Kubuntu Feisty with all updates as of 2007-04-11.

[Thayer Williams (thayer)]

Why this is so complex, I don't know, but I did find some answers for the English Canadian users...

Feisty does include the Canadian English dictionary files, however the files are not referenced by the list of dictionaries and the dictionary files themselves don't follow the same naming syntax as the others. Here's what I did to get my English Canada dictionaries working:

Open a Terminal and type:

$ cd /usr/lib/openoffice/share/dict/ooo

$ sudo ln -s en-CA.dic en_CA.dic
$ sudo ln -s en-CA.aff en_CA.aff

$ kdesu kate dictionary.lst

Add these lines to the bottom of the text file and save:

DICT en CA en_CA
HYPH en CA hyph_en_CA
THES en CA th_en_US_v2

Now restart OpenOffice.org and set your preferred Language:

Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Writing Aids

[VF (vfiend)]

The fix didn't work for me because there are no en-CA.dic or en-CA.aff files to symlink to.

Why is this bug still present? Is it an upstream issue we should complain about there?

[VF (vfiend)]

However, File -> Wizards -> Install new dictionaries installed the Canadian dictionaries fine without crashing. I'm on GNOME and not KDE, though.

[VF (vfiend)]

Does anyone know if this bug should be filed against language-support-en or not?

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

support for -en-au is available in myspell-en-au (plus a thesaurus in openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-au); the language-* packages should depend at least on the first package.

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

the en CA dictionary and hyphenation patterns cannot be found in feisty. needs packaging for feisty+1

[Bobonov (roberto-braga)]

Openoffice uses myspell dictionary, therefore just install the correspondent one to your language, ie myspell-en-au for the Australian one
After the installation run at command line
sudo /usr/sbin/update-openoffice-dicts
this is a perl script that update the openoffice /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst file
For sure it is not an all GUI installation but it works fine.

[wayneo (waynemail)]

In feisty, I noticed that spell checking was not working (i.e. the spell check dialog would pop up and immediately indicate completion without actually checking the current document).

I went to tools | options | language settings | languages and noticed that the options were not initialized as I would have expected. Upon setting them to my preferences (in my case interface English USA, locale English Canada, currency CAD $, language English Canada) and attempting to restart, Openoffice.org hung while closing, using 100% CPU. I had to kill it.

Upon reopening, the options were changed but spell check still was not working . Synaptic indicates that the language packs etc. are installed. I am on Gnome.

[Robin (subscriptions-robinandmariette)]

I followed bobonov's advice and it worked for me. I installed myspell-ca (Canadian). At the end of the configure it said it updated the dictionary list, so I didn't need to run the perl script he mentioned.

This is too complicated though. OpenOffice should be redesigned to do this:

1) When you start openoffice the first time with a language selected that doesn't have a spell check package installed, should warn you and give you an opportunity to download the corresponding package.
2) If you decide not to download the package, disable the spellcheck buttons so that it's obvious that they don't work.
3) Give the user an easy way to download the required package later if he wants to.

Instead it simply enables all spellcheck functions and tells you that all spellchecking is complete without actually doing anything. This could very easily lead the the user assuming his document is error free until he catches on to what's going on. Once he does catch on, he has to wade through howtos and bug reports until he finds something that works for them. Very frustrating for something so simple.

It's easy for me to sit on the sidelines and complain. OpenOffice is coming along nicely, but these types of obvious things need to be addressed for it to become widely accepted. I just wish I had the time to help out.

[VF (vfiend)]

Fedora has modified OO.o to use system dictionaries in Fedora 7, that may be something for the developers to look into (or get in an upstream update?)

[b (ben-ekran)]

Confirmed.

I also am unable to install new dictionaries through the OO wizard "install new dictionaries" as soon as the wizard loads OO crashes and tries to recover, happens every time. All gdb outputs on the crash is:

Failure loading aff file /usr/lib/openoffice/share/dict/ooo/en_ZA.aff

That file does exist.

Note a fix for this problem is easy, just use firefox to install a new canadian dictionary, OO does use the same format:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3

I can confirm I can now spellcheck in en_CA in openoffice2.2 on update to date feisty.

[VF (vfiend)]

Huh, there is no en_CA myspell dictionary package in the repos, that's probably why it's broken...

[Brett Alton (brett-alton-deactivatedaccount)]

So yes, we now know that we can install the English (Canadian) dictionary, but should this not be fixed for the Canadian locale?

I can confirm this problem in Breezy, Dapper, Edgy, Feisty and Gusty (2007-07-24)

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

The install new dictionary crash is due to a bug caused by not having openoffice.org-base installed. If you install that package the dictionary wizard should work. I will be looking into how to solve that problem more cleanly at UDS next week.

Thanks,

Chris Cheney

[coldacid (coldacid)]

The OOo wiki provides links to en_CA dictionary and hypenation files, at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries

I think all that's required is to package them up nice and pretty. I'd do it myself, but I don't have an internet connection at home (which would mean any updates would be sporadic at best -- then again languages aren't the fastest moving targets) and I'm still running Edgy since my hardware is uber-weak.

The exact URLs:
* Dictionary: http://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/en_CA.zip
* Hyphenation: http://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/hyph_en_CA.zip

By the way they were last updated, according to the wiki, in 2002. It's kind of insulting to us Canadians that 5 year old dictionaries don't appear for us in [insert package manager of choice].

[Jonathan Stewart (reaper-fudo)]

CONFIRM - This bug still exists in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

Description: Spellcheck doesn't work at all in Open Office 2.4. With no dictionary, it completely fails. This is when you've installed a Canada/English system.

Fix: The followning steps are what i did to fix it. Hopefully with detail enough for anyone to follow it.

Download the dictionary file, extract it, copy files to /usr/share/myspell/dicts. Fix file permissions, and then create links. (I'm not sure if the links are needed, but they existed for the en-US and en-GB, so i added them).

Commands to type:

wget http://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/en_CA.zip
unzip en_CA.zip
sudo mv en_ca* /usr/share/myspell
cd /usr/share/myspell/dicts/
sudo chown root:root en_CA.*
sudo ln -s en_CA.aff en-CA.aff
sudo ln -s en_CA.dic en-CA.dic

The final step was to edit the dictionaries list.

sudo vi /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst
Add the following line to the file:
DICT en CA en_CA

Note: The update-openoffice-dicts script DOES NOT WORK. In fact, if i run it after manually adding the en-CA definition, it removes the en-CA directives.

[Ryan Kelln (ryankelln)]

Jonathan Stewart's solution worked for me in 8.04 as well, but with a few minor changes to this line:

sudo mv en_CA* /usr/share/myspell/dicts

Thus the sequence looks like:

wget http://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/en_CA.zip
unzip en_CA.zip
sudo mv en_CA.* /usr/share/myspell/dicts
cd /usr/share/myspell/dicts/
sudo chown root:root en_CA.*
sudo ln -s en_CA.aff en-CA.aff
sudo ln -s en_CA.dic en-CA.dic

I also tried adding:
THES en CA th_en_US_v2

to the bottom of the dictionary.lst file (that is how the GB thesaurus is done) but that didn't work. :(

[Chris Kelsey (kelsey-chris)]

I fixed up our two machines using Jonathan Stewart/Ryan Kelln's solutions. I thought it hadn't worked until my wife discovered that you have to log off and on again to get it going.

[Jonathan Stewart (reaper-fudo)]

I want to get to the bottom of this problem, for it has just struck again on my parents' two Ubuntu machines.

Here is the summary of the problem, as I currently see it.
1) OpenOffice.org relies on myspell for spell-checking service
2) myspell needs dictionary files for each language-country combination that you want it to support
3) there is no myspell-en-ca package (in ubuntu or debian) to provide en-ca dictionary files (there should be)
4) On an en_CA Ubuntu install, OpenOffice.org will look for en-CA dictionaries, and not finding them, give up working entirely

I'm not sure how step 4 works, as i don't have a openoffice.org-l10n-en-ca package installed. Perhaps OO.org just knows to look for en-CA based upon the locale setting.

If i'm looking at this problem correctly, then, the solution is to create a myspell-en-ca package (myspell-en-gb and myspell-en-za exist, for example) with the correct dictionary files, and then have that be installed along with the other en dictionaries.

I have never created a package before, but i will learn how so I can fix this.

BTW, if this problem affects all english users in Canada, why hasn't it become a bigger problem than this?

[Brett Alton (brett-alton-deactivatedaccount)]

I would really like to see either (a) A Canadian dictionary installed by default or (b) have OpenOffice.org install the American English dictionary as a work around.

(b) Is hardly acceptable, but if we can't get a Canadian dictionary included because of licensing issues, I think this is an pleasant alternative compared to no dictionary at all.

Who do we need to talk to to push this forward?

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

Note that there is a license issue associated with the Canadian dictionary, see Bug #121205 and upstream http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=74292

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

Correction, I meant this Bug #120576

[Ryan Kelln (ryankelln)]

Thanks Andreas. So, according to the Open Office bug the best solution is to:
...name the file and the version of the file which the [Canadian hyphenation dictionary] is based on.
The LPPL requests "Information that is sufficient to obtain a complete, unmodified copy of the Work."

if I understand things correctly and according we should be able to fix this by adding the name and url of the original hyphenation file that was converted to the readme that is distributed with the Canadian hyphenation dictionary. In that same readme is the name and email address of the person who did the original conversion: Peter Novodvorsky. I've emailed him for further details, but we may be able to proceed without him if someone can dig up the original file.

[Andrew Cowie (afcowie)]

There's still no en_CA dictionary in Ubuntu Karmic, at least not as seen by OpenOffice. What do can we do to help get this packaged? Canadian English is neither American or British, and dictionaries for it do exist. Seeing as how myspell-en-au exists, perhaps we can get myspell-en-ca done up?

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=10165 and especially
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/en_CA

seem relevant.

Note that the "add more dictionaries from online" button in the openoffice Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Writing Aides -> Edit dialog does NOT work; the URL that linkbutton loads is gibberish.

AfC

[Marcel Stimberg (marcelstimberg)]

Openoffice switched to hunspell for spellchecking, since Ubuntu Lucid a package hunspell-en-ca is available, providing spellchecking for Canadian English.