Node: Using Aspell with other Applications, Previous: Spellchecking Individual Files, Up: Basic Usage
Aspell can be used as a drop in replacement for Ispell for programs
that use Ispell through a pipe such as Emacs and LyX. It can also be
used with programs that simply call the ispell
command and
expect the original file to be overwritten with the corrected version.
It supports the basic features of Ispell, however it does not
currently have a Nroff mode so there may be situations in which you
still wish to use Ispell. Nevertheless, I have been using Aspell for
Xemacs and LyX since the middle of September of 1998 without any
problems.
If you do not have Ispell installed on your system and have installed the Ispell compatibly script than you should not need to do anything as most applications will that expect Ispell will work as expected with Aspell via the Ispell compatibility script.
Otherwise, the recommended way to use Aspell as a replacement for
Ispell is to change the ispell
command from within the
program being used. If the program uses ispell
in pipe mode
simple change ispell
to aspell
. If the program
calls the ispell
command to check the file change
ispell
with aspell check
.
If that is impossible and the program uses Ispell through a pipe than
the run-with-aspell
script can be used for programs using
Ispell in pipe mode. The format of the script is:
run-with-aspell command
where command is the name of the program with any optional arguments.
The old method of mapping Ispell to Aspell is discouraged because it can create compatibility problems with programs that actually require Ispell such as Ispell's own scripts.
The easiest way to use Aspell with Emacs or Xemacs is to add this line:
(setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")
to the end of your .emacs file.
For some reason version 3.0 of ispell.el (the lisp program that (x)emacs uses) want to reverse the suggestion list. To fix this add this line:
(setq-default ispell-extra-args '("--reverse"))
after the previous line in your .emacs file and it should solve the problem.
Ispell.el, version 3.1 (December 1, 1998) and better, has the list reversing problem fixed. You can find it at http://www.kdstevens.com/~stevens/ispell-page.html.
Version 1.0 of LyX provides support for Aspell's learning from user's mistakes feature.
To use Aspell with LyX 1.0 either change the spell_command
option in the .lyxrc
file or use the run-with-aspell
utility.
To use Aspell in VIM you simply need to add the following line to your
.vimrc
file:
map ^T :w!<CR>:!aspell check %<CR>:e! %<CR>
I use Ctrl-T since that's the way you spell check in
pico
. In order to add a control character to your
.vimrc
you must type Ctrl-v first. In this case
Ctrl-v Ctrl-t.
A more useful way to use Aspell, IMHO, is in combination with Newsbody (http://www.image.dk/~byrial/newsbody/) which is how I use it since VIM is my editor for my mailer and my news reader.
map ^T\\1\\2<CR>:e! %<CR> map \\1 :w!<CR> map \\2 :!newsbody -qs -n % -p aspell check \\%f<CR>
To use Aspell in Pine simply change the option speller
to
aspell --mode=email check
To change the speller
option go to the main menu. Type
S for setup, C for config, then W for
where is. Type in speller as the word to find. The
speller option should be highlighted now. Hit enter, type in the
above line, and hit enter again. Then type E for exit
setup and Y to save the change.
If you have a strong desire to check other people's comments change
speller
to
aspell check
instead which will avoid switching Aspell into email mode.