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Installing and configuring Aspell on MacOS X

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Installing and configuring Aspell on MacOS X?

Since, unlike Linux users, Mac users often have little experience with a command-line interface, below is a step-by-step approach to installing Aspell for use with the Heartsome suite.

  • 0. There is a thing called cocoAspell, which is an Aspell implementation for OS X. THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT.
  • 1. Download Fink from https://fink.sourceforge.net/. Fink is a package which enables you to install Unix software on our Mac without getting your fingers dirty For step-by-step instructions using DarwinPorts instead of Fink to install and configure Aspell through the Mac OS X Terminal, see the following section.
  • 2. Once the disk image is mounted, double click on "Fink x.x.x Installer.pkg" to run the installation. You will need to type in a user password with Admin privileges once (and maybe twice).
  • 3. Once installation is finished, copy the "Fink Commander" folder from the disk image to your Applications folder. You need to do this because: (i) it won't work properly if run off a disk image; (ii) you may want to use it again to install more Open Source software in the future.
  • 4. In your Applications folder, open the Fink Commander folder and launch the Fink Commander application.
  • 5. When Fink Commander has finished launching and updating its database, you will see a window with a list of stuff in the top half and an empty bottom half. In the top half, click on the heading of the "Name" column to sort by name. Then scroll down until you see Aspell and friends (which are the language dictionaries: aspell-de, aspell-en, aspell-es, etc.). The column immediately to the right is called "Installed". If it is empty, that means the item has not been installed. If it contains a number or something, that means the particular item has been installed and the number is the version number. You will most likely see that neither "aspell" nor any of its language dictionaries are installed.
  • 6. First, double click on the "aspell" line and Fink Commander will connect to the Internet to download the necessary files. Again, you may be asked for password with Admin privileges.
  • 7. Once Aspell is succesfully installed, double click on one of the language dictionaries (for example, "aspell-en" and go through the same process as in point 6).
  • 8. When you have installed all the dictionaries you want, quit Fink Commander.
  • 9. Now you have tell Heartsome where Aspell is and how to use it. Switch to (or launch) XLFedit and pull down the Options menu; set Aspell as default engine in the Default Spell Checker option and then choose Aspell Dictionaries in the Options menu to display the configuration dialog.
  • 10. In the box called "Aspell Command", type "/sw/bin/aspell" (that's where Fink installed your Aspell package). You could also get this by clicking the "Browse" button and navigating down from the top of your hard disk (Macintosh HD or whatever you called it) through the "sw" folder to the "bin" folder and then choosing "aspell".
  • 11. Now, under "Default dictionary", pull down the menu and choose one of the installed language dictionaries. Then, on the left-hand side, under "Language", choose the language that dictionary corresponds to. Note that this must match the Language codes you work with in Heartsome. Then click the arrow between the two and you will find that pair of language and dictionary has been added to the window below. Continue this until you have added all the language dictionaries you wish to use. Click "Save" and you are ready to go.

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