ASPELL(1) Aspell Abbreviated User s Manual ASPELL(1)

NAME aspell - interactive spell checker

SYNOPSIS aspell [options] <command>




This manual page is maintained separately from the official documenta- tion so it may be out of date or incomplete. The official documenta- tion is maintained as a Texinfo manual. See the aspell entry in info for more complete documentation.

COMMANDS <command> is one of:

usage, -? Send a brief Aspell Utility usage message to standard output. This is a short summary listing more common spell-check commands and options.


version, -v Print version number of Aspell Library and Utility to standard output.

check <file>, -c <file> Spell-check a single file.

pipe, -a Run Aspell in ispell -a compatibility mode.

list Produce a list of misspelled words from standard input.

[dump] config Dump all current configuration options to standard output.

config <key> Send the current value of <key> to standard output.

soundslike Output the soundslike equivalent of each word entered.

munch Generate possible root words and affixes from an input list of words.

expand [1-4] Expands the affix flags of each affix compressed word entered.

clean [strict] Cleans an input word list so that every line is a valid word.

munch-list [simple] [single|multi] [keep] Reduce the size of a word list via affix compression.

conv <from> <to> [<norm-form>] Converts <from> one encoding <to> another.

norm (<norm-map>|<from> <norm-map> <to>) [<norm-form>] Perform Unicode normalization.

[dump] dicts|filters|modes Lists available dictionaries, filters, or modes.

dump|create|merge master|personal|repl <wordlist> dump, create, or merge a master, personal, or replacement word list.

DICTIONARY OPTIONS The following options may be used to control which dictionaries to use and how they behave.

--master=<name>, -d <name> Base name of the dictionary to use. If this option is specified then Aspell will either use this dictionary or die.

--dict-dir=<directory> Location of the main dictionary word list.

--lang=<string>, -l <string> Language to use. It follows the same format of the LANG envi- ronmental variable on most systems. It consists of the two let- ter ISO 639 language code and an optional two letter ISO 3166 country code after a dash or underscore. The default value is based on the value of the LC_MESSAGES locale.

--size=<string> The preferred size of the dictionary word list. This consists of a two char digit code describing the size of the list, with typical values of: 10=tiny, 20=really small, 30=small, 40=med- small, 50=med, 60=med-large, 70=large, 80=huge, 90=insane.

--variety=<string> Any extra information to distinguish this variety of dictionary from other dictionaries which may have the same lang and size.

--jargon=<string> Please use the variety option since it replaces jargon as a bet- ter choice. jargon will be removed in the future.

--word-list-path=<list of directories> Search path for word list information files.

--personal=<file>, -p <file> Personal word list file name.

--repl=<file> Replacements list file name.

--extra-dicts=<list> Extra dictionaries to use.

--ignore-accents This option is not yet implemented.

CHECKER OPTIONS These options control the behavior of Aspell when checking documents.

--ignore=<integer>, -W <integer> Ignore words <= <integer> characters in length.

--ignore-case, --dont-ignore-case Ignore case when checking words.

--ignore-repl, --dont-ignore-repl Ignore commands to store replacement pairs.

--save-repl, --dont-save-repl Save the replacement word list on save all.

--sug-mode=<mode> Suggestion <mode> = ultra|fast|normal|bad-spellers

FILTER OPTIONS These options modify the behavior of the various filters.

--add-filter=<list>, --rem-filter=<list> Add or remove a filter.

--add-filter-path=<paths>, --rem-filter-path=<paths> Add or remove paths searched for filters.

--mode=<string>, -e, -H, -t, -n Sets the filter mode. Mode is one of none, url, email, html, tex or nroff. The alternative shortcut options are -e for email, -H for Html/Sgml, -t for Tex or -n for Nroff.

--encoding=<string> encoding the document is expected to be in. The default depends on the current locale.

--add-email-quote=<list>, --rem-email-quote=<list> Add or Remove a list of email quote characters.

--email-margin=<integer> Number of chars that can appear before the quote char.

--add-html-check=<list>, --rem-html-check=<list> Add or remove a list of HTML attributes to always check. For example, look inside alt= tags.

--add-html-skip=<list>, --rem-html-skip=<list> Add or remove a list of HTML attributes to always skip while spell checking.

--add-sgml-check=<list>, --rem-sgml-check=<list> Add or remove a list of SGML attributes to always check for spelling.

--add-sgml-skip=<list>, --rem-sgml-skip=<list> Add or remove a list of SGML attributes to always skip while spell checking.

--sgml-extension=<list> SGML file extensions.

--tex-check-comments, --dont-tex-check-comments Check TeX comments.

--add-tex-command=<list>, --rem-tex-command=<list> Add or Remove a list of TeX commands.

RUN-TOGETHER WORD OPTIONS These may be used to control the behavior of run-together words.

--run-together, --dont-run-together, -C, -B Consider run-together words valid.

--run-together-limit=<integer> Maximum number of words that can be strung together.

--run-together-min=<integer> Minimal length of interior words.

MISC OPTIONS Miscellaneous options that don t fall under any other category.

--conf=<file name> Main configuration file. This file overrides Aspells global defaults.

--conf-dir=<directory> Location of main configuration file.

--data-dir=<directory> Location of language data files.

--keyboard=<keyboard> Use this keyboard layout for suggesting possible words. These spelling errors happen if a user accidently presses a key next to the intended correct key.

--local-data-dir=<directory> Alternative location of language data files. This directory is searched before data-dir.

--home-dir=<directory> Directory Location for personal wordlist files.

--per-conf=<file name> Personal configuration file. This file overrides options found in the global config file.

ASPELL UTILITY OPTIONS These options are part of the aspell Utility and work independently of the library.

--backup, --dont-backup, -b, -x The aspell utility creates a backup file by making a copy and appending .bak to file name. This only applies when the command is check <file> and the backup file is only created if any spelling modifications take place.

--byte-offsets, --dont-byte-offsets Use byte offsets instead of character offsets.

--guess, --dont-guess, -m, -P Create missing root/affix combinations not in the dictionary in pipe mode.

--keymapping=aspell, --keymapping=ispell The keymapping to use, either aspell for the default mapping or ispell to use the same mapping that the Ispell utility uses.

--reverse, --dont-reverse Reverse the order of the suggestions list in pipe mode.

--suggest, --dont-suggest Suggest possible replacements in pipe mode. If false, Aspell will simply report the misspelling and make no attempt at sug- gestions or possible corrections.

--time, --dont-time Time the load time and suggest a time in pipe mode.

In addition Aspell will try to make sense out of Ispells command line options so that it can function as a drop in replacement for Ispell. If Aspell is run without any command line options it will display a brief help screen and quit.


Each line of the configuration file has the format:

option [value]


lang de_CH

There may be any number of spaces between the option and the value, however it can only be spaces, i.e. there is no = between the option name and the value. Comments may also be included by preceding them with a # as anything from a # to a newline is ignored. Blank lines are also allowed. The /etc/aspell.conf file is a good example of how to set these options and the Aspell Manual has more detailed info.

SEE ALSO aspell-import(1), prezip-bin(1), run-with-aspell(1), word-list-com- press(1)

Aspell is fully documented in its Texinfo manual. See the aspell entry in info for more complete documentation.

SUPPORT Support for Aspell can be found on the Aspell mailing lists. Instruc- tions for joining the various mailing lists (and an archive of them) can be found off the Aspell home page at <http://aspell.net>. Bug reports should be submitted via the Sourceforge Tracker rather than being posted to the mailing lists.

AUTHOR This manual page was written by Brian Nelson <pyro@debian.org> based on the Aspell Users Manual, Copyright © 2002 Kevin Atkinson. Updated Nov 2006 by Jose Da Silva <digital@joescat.com>, and Dec 2006 by Kevin Atkinson <kevina@gnu.org>.

GNU 2006-12-10 ASPELL(1)