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Is it possible to constrain the Spellcheck tool to the current book?

When we get a new typed first draft, one of the first things we do is check spelling and word breaks. We have done this for a number of books already, so many decisions have been made. Unfortunately, when we use the Spellcheck tool (right-click a red or grey underlined word and select the appropriate ‘Suggestion’) many of these decisions get undone if one isn’t careful… For example:

/mana/ ~ /ma na/

Both are legitimate. There are many examples like this. If one was to select one of the ‘Suggestions’ and click ‘Yes to all’, it would potentially undo a /lot/ of work already done. On the other hand, if one was to click ‘Yes’ or 'No for every instance, one could waste a /lot/ of time going over books that have already been done… However, if there was a checkbox for ‘Current book’ (like Find / Replace has), it would mean a lot fewer clicks. And a lot less potential of undoing a lot of work that has already been done in other books.

Paratext by (615 points)

2 Answers

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Dear Paul,

I’m a little confused about how your decisions get “undone”. Are you making
decisions in the Wordlist Tool (or with the right click selection) or are
you simply correcting the spelling as you go through the document.

If you come across the words “ma na” and manually change them to “mana” and
then in a later book come across “mana” and right click it to change it to
"ma na" then yes, you will undo the first change (if you do Yes to all).
The problem here is not necessarily constraining the check to a single
book, but the fact that you have minimal pairs and need to look at them. It
would be better to use the Wordlist Tool (Tools > Wordlist) to look at
those. In the Tool you can constrain the search, but corrections will
always be made to all words. The assumption is that if a word is wrong in
Matthew then it is wrong in Mark as well.

Using the Wordlist tool the idea is that if a word is underlined and you
right click it you are providing the correct form for all occurrences.
Again, with minimal pairs this is dangerous.

In the specific case you mention where both mana and ma na are valid you
should work through the “Find Incorrectly Joined or Split” words tool found
in the Tools menu of the Wordlist. Once you have marked the minimal pairs
as correct they will not show up as underlined.

It is possible with the replace tool to replace only the words in a
specific book, but this does not change the status of the word to
incorrect. (Even if you use the replace within the Wordlist)

For me, it is best to start working in the Wordlist tool and correct words
there - then use the underlining as a way to find other words in context or
to pick out words that get mis-typed.

I don’t know if that helps or muddies the water - I’d be happy to look at
this remotely if you want to talk about it some more.

Blessings,

anon848905
Americas Area Language Technology Coordinator
[Email Removed]
[Phone Removed]Office at JAARS)
[Phone Removed]Cell)
Skype name: anon848905

by (8.4k points)
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One other comment about using the Wordlist tool to look at this.

If for example you are concerned about the word “mana” in Philippians. When
you are in the wordlist tool you can constrain the concordance view to only
show Philippians and then you can “look” at the words without having to see
the previous books. However, when you constrain the list to only one book
you can’t “see” the previously made decisions. I usually vote for seeing as
much as possible for comparison purposes. If the list shows all the words
you can see that you previously spelled it “maana”.

anon848905
Americas Area Language Technology Coordinator
[Email Removed]
[Phone Removed]Office at JAARS)
[Phone Removed]Cell)
Skype name: anon848905

by (8.4k points)

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