[OS X TeX] install spell checking dictionary for Bulgarian

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Jun 6, 2021, at 4:26 PM, Roussanka Loukanova <rl.stpuu at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Herb,
> 
> MacteXtras is a non-exhaustive conglomerate of extra applications, etc., that might be of use for TeXers. It was never meant to be kept once you get what you find useful from it.
>  
> I see that  there is an installation package in the TeX directory
> 1444253 Nov  7  2016 cocoAspell.pkg
> 
> Could it be Version 2.5, the same as that from MacTeXtras?
> By the pdfs in that directory, it seems so. To avoid downloading MacTeXtras.

Howdy,

yes, that will be it.
> 
> About ispell / NSSpellCheck: which choice for English is good? In:
> System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Spelling
> 
> I've selected British English. But the spell checking often misses obviously misspelled words.
> 
> For the ispell dictionaries for Bulgarian, I  tried to follow the instruction about adding a new spelling dictionary, by guesses:
> 
> I copied the .aff and .dict files from ispell-bg-4.2/data/ to
> ~/Library/Spelling
> and changed the 2nd suffix to .dic,
> 
> At first, there was no effect. But after a few restarts of the Mac (just by going away from it), and then doing some tests (for aspell), I saw "bulgarian (Library)" in the pull-down list of languages available under Spelling.
> 
> It seems to me that macOS converted these dictionary files into machine code, i.e., installed them, in between restarts., at least at the beginning.
> 
> I read in the documentation of the directory ispell-bg-4.2, that "bulgarian" is the secondary name and "bg" is the 1st one, in some of the code. I renamed the files, and that was a great trick:
> bulgarian.aff > bg.aff
> bulgarian.dict > bulgarian.dic > bg.dic
> The name, expanded into cyrrilic, "Български (Library)", appeared in the list under Spelling!
> But the spell checking is very poor. At least it underlines some misspelled words, only while typing them, and in most cases, doesn't suggest corrections. Obviously, the dictionary is incomplete.  
> 
> I hope that somebody will get an updated version of cocoAspell, or Aspell for Mac, properly, and with instructions, what-where-how. And how to uninstall cleanly, in need.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Roussanka

The ispell dictionaries don't work with aspell. See the pdf document in a previous email that explains how to get and install the Bulgarian aspell dictionary for the version of aspell supplied by cocoAspell.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
herbs at wideopenwest.com