Microsoft KB Archive/61286

Word: Spelling Skips Short Prefixes with Hyphenated Words

PSS ID Number: Q61286 Article last modified on 03-07-1997

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= SUMMARY =

In Microsoft Word, the Main and User dictionaries both check hyphenated words as two separate words. However, they differ in how they treat misspellings in the two parts of the hyphenated word. This can cause problems, particularly is you are using the dictionaries to create lists of unique combinations of letters and numbers separated by hyphens, such as part numbers.

By adding a hidden letter to the hyphen through a global search and replace, you can make the unique words appear the same, but be identified separately for spelling purposes.

= MORE INFORMATION =

If both parts of a hyphenated word are in the Main dictionary, it is not flagged as misspelled. But if one of the parts of this hyphenated word is indeed misspelled according to the Main dictionary, the whole hyphenated word can be added to the User dictionary. When added to the User dictionary, hyphenated words become one unique string, so that both parts of the hyphenated word are not regarded as separate units the way they are by the Main dictionary.

If the second part of a hyphenated “word” is a number and it is prefixed with three letters that Word doesn’t recognize as an abbreviation, the numbers are added as part of a hyphenated word to the User dictionary. For example, if you add “FMS-123” to the User dictionary, it will not see “FMS-345” as being spelled correctly. But, if you spell check “FPS-123”, it will not be flagged as misspelled, since FPS is seen by the main dictionary as the abbreviation for “feet per second” and the numbers are seen as correct, too.

One workaround to this problem is to add extra letters to the prefix, since there are very few four-letter standard abbreviations. In the above example, using “FPSa-123” results in a misspelling to the Main Dictionary. Another workaround is to add a hidden extra letter to the prefix. You can do this as follows:


 * 1) From the Utilities menu, choose Change. In the Find What box, enter “-” (without quotation marks) and in the Change To box, enter something similar to “a-” (without quotation marks). Click the Change All button.
 * 2) Select the first “a” and format it as hidden text.
 * 3) Select the hidden “a” and the “-” and choose Copy from the Edit menu.
 * 4) From the Utilities menu, choose Change. In the Find What box, enter “a-” (without quotation marks) and in the Change To box, enter “^c” (without quotation marks).
 * 5) Click the Change All button.

The spelling checker will now recognize the prefix as a unique word.

KBCategory: kbusage KBSubCategory: kbproof Additional reference words: macword macword5 ====================================================================== ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1997.