 By Dale
Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
June 2002
Overview
Wow! What a super program!
SpellCatcher Plus for Windows 2.0.4 (there is also a Mac version 8) is a
marvelous utility that "covers your
applications." This means you can use the program in just about all
your existing Windows applications, especially Microsoft's Office suite of
programs. SpellCatcher Plus for Windows is an
easy-to-use collection of writing tools you can use when writing email,
business documents, or homework, typing in chat rooms, and in just about any other document
worth typing. Don't waste time training other spell checkers when you
install new applications. Customize SpellCatcher Plus to complement your
writing styles and never customize again.
Spell Catcher Plus for Windows is a universal, interactive application that
corrects typing errors and checks spelling! Spell Catcher Plus for Windows
works with most of your applications and supports Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, and
2000 operating systems.
Think spell checker in a word processor on steroids, and you have an idea
just how powerful and valuable is SpellCatcher Plus for Windows. When
running this application, you also begin to understand just how much is
lacking in existing spell checker programs that come built into many of
today's applications.
Features
Spelling dictionaries and thesauruses that support 9 different languages
Medical, legal, technical, scientific dictionaries
Read learned words and glossaries created with the Mac version
"Set Language" button - change the language of a reference and indicate if
the reference is multi-lingual
Faster checking of contents copied to clipboard
Option to have Spell Catcher ignore password
Improved Edit Shorthand Glossary and Edit Learned Words dialog
Complete document checking with extensive modification tools that far exceed
any existing spell checker program
If you are a Microsoft Office user, you now have an easy-to-use collection
of writing tools that will enhance your use of Office (and other
applications, as well). Spell Catcher Plus makes your writing job easier and
improves your writing skills. Spell Catcher can work interactively on the
fly, or in batch-correction mode after you have finished typing. The program
also works regardless if your application has its own built-in spell
checker. Once you use the many tools in SpellCatcher Plus, you will likely
soon find yourself never again using built in spell checkers.
One writing feature in Spell Catcher Plus that everyone can immediately use
is the powerful Shorthand Glossary feature that allows you to create custom
shorthand. For example, you could type "vty" and the program would
automatically expand this to "Very Truly Yours". The glossary can include
carriage returns, punctuation and tab formatting, making salutations, and
routine repetition a breeze for standard letters, databases, spreadsheets,
or emails. This glossary feature also surpasses what some users may have
become accustomed to working with in their existing word processor.
Spell Catcher Plus Usefulness
SpellCatcher Plus is a useful writing tool for anyone who uses more than one
basic application, especially those who need a standardized, custom
dictionary for all applications. The program is a must if you write or
correct in multiple languages, or work in fields that require specialized
dictionaries, such as in medicine or in law.
SpellCatcher Plus adds full-strength spell-checking, dictionary, and
thesaurus features to programs like WordPad and Notepad that come bundled in Windows. That's right, you read this
correctly. With SpellCatcher Plus running on your machine, now you have a
spell checker when you work in Notepad or Wordpad!
SpellCatcher Plus runs in the
background and will either monitor typing in real time to catch errors on
the fly, or check text after the fact. The default sound file (WAV) you
hear when typing something incorrectly is the verbalization of the word
curious (this can be customized to suit you), which at first can be a
bit startling, until you get used to the program calling to your attention
that you might have misspelled a word.
The program will present a box with a list of likely
words that can be defined and improved upon using its dictionary and
thesaurus. The software includes a regular dictionary, as well as
scientific, legal, and medical ones, and should work as smoothly on your
machine as it did on mine.
The program's settings that can be modified are extensive, including the glossary function that
lets you create boilerplates to automatically insert something, such as when
you type in an abbreviation such as df, and the program would create "By Dale
Farris."
You can also quickly and easily clean up email using the Email Cleanup macro
within Spell Catcher Plus. In addition, you can import custom dictionaries
from other word processors, maintain one set of references/dictionaries for
every writing need, and customize Spell Catcher Plus once to complement your
writing style, and then readily use it with other applications.
You also can safely share dictionaries over a network, as well as speed up
your typing with the Glossary Expansion module.
This is a neat program that actually does what is intended to do,
and I really recommend it. At the minimal price point, SpellCatcher Plus for
Windows is well worth this cost.
Installation and Setup
Getting SpellCatcher Plus up and running involves installing the program and
then configuring it to work with your applications. During installation, you
can personalize the program, and then determine the number of references
(dictionaries) to also install. The 8 additional languages include French,
Canadian French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss German, and U.K.
English. A complete install loads all the foreign language dictionaries and
thesauruses, as well as the additional reference files, such as the
scientific/technical, biological/geological, medical, legal, HTML, and
computer terms.
You run the program by double-clicking its icon on the desktop, or from the
Start, Programs menu. When it is running, you see its yellow checkmark icon
in the taskbar. You can access its menu by clicking on this checkmark icon
with the left mouse button.
With the program running, you can open any other application, and as you
type into that application, SpellCatcher Plus will ask whether you want
Interactive Checking turned on in that application. The program will
remember what you choose the next time you open that application and work to
detect errors and expand shorthand expressions with the use of glossaries.
The settings in the program can be adjusted globally or on an application by
application basis. You can also tell the program whether you want it to run
automatically when your system starts up (not personally recommended). You
also can add and remove reference files after the installation has been
completed.
What's an Error
SpellCatcher Plus doesn't assume that you are finished typing a word until
you type a space, press the Tab key, press the Enter key, or type a
punctuation mark. At that point, the program can alert you to several
problems. These include spelling errors, capitalization errors, punctuation
errors, and double word mistakes. If all these errors bug you when the
program audibly alerts you after you make the error, you can easily turn these off in
the settings.
Interactive Checking
When the program sees a word it does not recognize, you have several
choices. You can keep typing, correct the mistake yourself, or summon the
program's suggestions by pressing either of the Control keys, and then
choose a replacement spelling. If you see the intended word in the list,
double-click it and the corrected spelling appears in the document. You can
also select it by using the keyboard to select the program's number key that
appears just to the left of the word you want. If you don't see your
intended word, use the scroll bar to bring up more suggested spellings into
view.
You can also ignore the typo, type in your own replacement, and teach the
word to SpellCatcher Plus. This is important, as many users will of course
have many "words" they use over and over, that may not necessarily be in any
word dictionary, such as official company acronyms. The program will let
you add these to its dictionaries so you don't have to tell the program to
ignore these so many times.
You can also set up the program to correct a typo from now on. If you catch
yourself mistyping the same error more than once, such as typing itno,
instead of into for example, you can teach the program to correct such a
typo automatically, from now on, whenever you type it, without opening any
dialog boxes, or making error sounds.
To do this, you find the correctly spelled word in the Suggest Spelling
dialog's word list, or type it manually into the Word To Use box, and then
click the Add Shorthand button. The misspelled word that you would like the
program to watch for shows in the Entry box. In the Expansion box, you see
the correct spelling for the word. Now you click Add, and the misspelled
word appears in the Glossary Contents list. Click Done, and then yes, and
from now on the SpellCatcher will correct this particular typo
automatically, almost invisibly, as you type.
You can get more information about the word, find out what word list
contains the word, and request suggestions automatically.
After-The-Fact Checking
You turn off interactive checking, in order to spell check the entire
document. Then, you select the entire document by either using the Edit,
Select All, or the Control + A command, and then select the SpellCatcher
icon (which is now red), and the program will go to work, like most all
other existing spell checkers in any of today's modern word processing
programs. This means you are copying the entire text to the Windows
clipboard, in order for this feature to work.
Running through this document spell check is similar to what happens in the
normal spell checking of a document in a word processor. You can ignore the
selection, ignore it all the time, choose a replacement spelling, add it to
a SpellCatcher dictionary, find out what word list contains the word, or set
up the typo to correct itself automatically from now on. In this regard, the
SpellCatcher Plus document spell checking is far superior to what happens in
a word processor.
You can also check the spelling of a single word, by selecting the word and
then choosing Suggest Spelling from the program's icon. However, what sets
this program apart from all existing spell checker programs is full
functionality when checking an entire document for far more than just
misspelled words. You can tell the program to look for uppercase or
lowercase issues, capitalization problems, form paragraphs, turn spaces to
tabs, turn tabs to spaces, straighten quotes, paste as quote, and many
others. These can be individually selected, or all can be added, and the
program will then perform these operations on the entire document.
The Professional Editor
SpellCatcher Plus is way more than merely a powerful spell checking
application. The program can also correct double spaces, double capitals,
double punctuation, and much more. The macros and the modify selection
commands can massage enormous amounts of text in seconds, converting mangled
text to neat paragraphs, converting pages of all caps typing into normally
capitalized writing, making straight quotes curly, and much more. Again,
this requires the use of the Windows Clipboard, in order for this super
powerful process to function.
For example, if you have ever received email from someone that looks like
the computer automatically put a return at the end of each line, you can
select this truncated text and then use the Form Paragraph command in the
program. SpellCatcher Plus will change every Enter character to a space, and
every pair of Enter characters to a single return character. Simply Amazing!
Think you have maxed out all the information in your standard word processor
Word Count tool? In SpellCatcher Plus you will be pleasantly surprised to
learn so much more about your document with the Statistics tool. This
feature will not only tell you how many words are in the selected text, it
will also tell you the number of characters, number of syllables, words with
at least 3 syllables, % of words with at least 3 syllables, number of
sentences, average number of words per sentence, number of paragraphs,
number of return characters, and the Gunning's Fog Index and the Flesch's
Index (grade level can be set in settings). These are features any
professional writer that gets paid according to content must have.
Recommendations
SpellCatcher Plus for Windows 2.0.4 is the most powerful spell checker and
professional writer's assistant I've ever seen! The program manual (PDF
file) is over 80 pages. This gives you some sense of the extensive,
flexible features built into this essential utility that is a definite must
for any writer, as well as professional staff that use a word
processor a great deal. I was very impressed with the power and usefulness
of this super program that is priced so competitively that I can easily
suggest all readers should seriously consider adding SpellCatcher Plus for Windows 2.0.4 to
their list of essential software.
Price:
$39.95 downloadable and physical shipment
$19.95 upgrade price
System Requirements:
Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000
CD ROM Drive
Note that Casady&Greene, Inc. also sells SpellCatcher 8 for the Mac machine.
The requirements are Mac System 8.1 or later and a CD ROM drive. Its price
is $49.95 for the full version, and $19.95 for the upgrade.
About Casady & Greene, Inc.
The mission of Casady & Greene, Inc. is to strongly support, intentionally
appreciate, and personally empower their customers and one another through
their efforts to provide the highest quality software possible. In August
1988, Casadyware (1984) and Greene, Inc. (1986) merged to unite the diverse
talents of two innovative software companies. Along with bestsellers
Conflict Catcher 8, Spell Catcher for both the Mac and Windows platforms,
Origami: The Secret Life of Paper, and InfoGenie 2, Casady & Greene, Inc.
has published a wide array of award-winning utility, font and entertainment
software titles. The company is renowned for its "firsts!"
Casady & Greene, Inc. also has a very strong commitment to their user group
program. The company offers a wide array of opportunities for computer
groups across the country. After signing up your group, your name will be
put on their mailing list so that your group receive updates on all of their
products and hot news about what is happening at C&G.
C&G also has a review program in which they will supply a user group with a
product, in exchange for a written review. In addition, when possible, the
company will also try to provide someone to actually come to your group to
give presentations. Last but certainly not least, C&G also has OUTSTANDING
user group pricing in their user group store.
Contact:
Bonnie Mitchell
Vice President of Public Relations and
User Group Liaison
Casady & Greene, Inc.
22734 Portola Drive
Salinas, California 93908-1119
831-484-9228
FAX 831-484-9218
bonnie@cassadyg.com
www.casadyg.com
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SpellCatcher Plus 2.0.4