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Anaconda
Neophyte

Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 71

Posted 1/13/2008 3:15 PM (GMT -5)

So far, I have mastered these steps.
1. A manual procedure to convert a word document into a list of words, which I save as a text file.

2. A VB program that inputs that list and forms a table of words with their frequencies, then
output this list as CSV file, adding comments that match a small reference file by target words.

3. I input the output from the VB program into excel. Here I can sort and investigate any words that arouse my suspicions.

With each new input, I increase the number of words on my reference list.

I have no use for automatic replacement; if I have typed unto then I could want “into”, “up to” or even (in a quote) “unto”.

Although the process is slow, even soul-destroying in its tedium, it does find errors. So many errors that my publisher has decided to move to second editions; that’s one advantage eBooks have over printed-paper.

Alec Anaconda, author of “Slaves of Janice” and “After Janice”.

muskrat
Humble Creator

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 26

Posted 1/13/2008 1:10 AM (GMT -5)

I understand Alec, but I have had VPs of global companies do it to gain access to a database before or get their projects pushed ahead. I've even been brought steak dinners to work. I'm so sick of computers that it would take a lot to get me to work on something and I probably am so rusty it wouldn't be worth it. If I get bored, I may take a stab at an MS Access program for you, I don't have VB. It would be great if I could sell it down the line as I really need the money, and maybe you could beta test it for me.

I try to use the ignore button instead of the Add button just exactly because of what you are talking about. I don't know your age, but I was taught that words that end in a single consonant should have the consonant doubled when adding -ed or -ing, e.g. travelling, modelling, etc. Now this rule has come into question and disuse, though it was perfectly logical because it indicated that the vowel before the consonant was short, where a single consonant was used with long vowels. MS Word doesn't like my archaic spellings, which constantly causes a problem since that rule was drilled into my head. They aren't technically incorrect, but incorrect to Word and anyone who takes the Word spellchecker as gospel.

I can create an application that you can enter a list of words in and a full file name with path (probably even let you browse for it if I remember how) and then it could read through and give you stats. If you wanted it to replace the found word with another, it could do that very easily. I would have to figure out how to get it to highlight a bad word or some such thing, but it could tell you where the word occurred (why don't we spell it occured, maybe we do?), give you the passage so you could find it or somehow a line count or word count where it existed. It might not be fast, but I could set it up to do multiple files so if you had to check 50 files, you could just run it and let it go.

There might be something like this on the market already. Well, I know it's not the best, but it's much better than it used to be. It's pretty hard to make these tools from a business rules standpoint, and then its always a pain to write for Windows.

Muskrat

"Brain? What is brain?" --Kara, giver of pain and delight, Spock's Brain episode 61

I'm not a trekkie but I love this episode

Anaconda
Neophyte

Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 71

Posted 1/11/2008 7:13 AM (GMT -5)

I am not known as an inhibited person, but I do not kiss feet.

Do you not consider word custom dictionaries a mixed blessing? Far too often, I know of a word I want to use, find a spelling on the net and then click the ADD button. Then find out that it was wrong, weeks or months later.

A custom “don’t want this word” dictionary would be useful.

Alec Anaconda, author of “Slaves of Janice” and “After Janice”.

muskrat
Humble Creator

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 26

Posted 1/10/2008 7:27 PM (GMT -5)

Anaconda,
Only know you can run grammar and spell checker and tell it to always ignore certain things or add things to the list, which would cause them to be considered correct. I don't know if this is kept on a per document basis.

You can write a VB for Word program using the find command, or write an Access program to create your own secondary spellchecker, but it is involved and you would have to pay me lots of money and kiss my feet to get me to tell you how.

Muskrat

"Brain? What is brain?" --Kara, giver of pain and delight, Spock's Brain episode 61

I'm not a trekkie but I love this episode

Anaconda
Neophyte

Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 71

Posted 1/10/2008 3:08 PM (GMT -5)

I have been experimenting with the production of word lists from my novels. It seems that I use between 5000 and 7500 different words in a book, but less than 11000 different words overall.
Here is a list of my favourite misspellings:
assents, bate, chaffing, Champaign, crutch, emancipated, ether, griping, grizzlies, hansom, hast, horded, imposable, mater, nether, ops, processions, pubs, saviour, serine, shinny, solder, staved, taped, turbid, unto, wracks, and wrenched.

All of these are perfectly good words in international English, but not ones that I use.

I would still appreciate any help with either of these.

1. How can I EASILY produce a word list from a .doc or .txt file?
(This question no longer includes the word “frequency”)

2. Is there a method to use only a customised spelling directory in MS Word 2003?

Alec Anaconda, author of “Slaves of Janice” and “After Janice”.

muskrat
Humble Creator

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 26

Posted Today 7:57 PM (GMT -5)

I have natural reader but use deskbot from Bellcraft, a desktop assistant thingy, and there's some extra voices and it's convenient to use because you don't have to paste in your work, you just open it and your word doc and put the cursor where you want and tell the little guy to read and its free. It reads back to me, though even with that, it can be hard to catch some things. There is no substitute for a good proofer. Personally, I think people are way to uptight about grammar and there are idiomatic sayings that people use all the time that are not grammatically correct but commonplace mistakes. You might get a copy of a little book called "The Goof-Proofer" it lists the most common grammatical mistakes that even well educated people still make. I'm surprised that most grammar checkers and spell checkers work as well as they do. I write a lot of Southern (US) flavored stuff, given where I live, so I get messed up a lot. I hear ain't about a million times a day, along with y'all. I did learn in school that areas where writers commit grammatical sins are generally areas where ideas are not well thought out yet, or are troublesome in some way, perhaps psychologically, to the writer. Usually, they are areas that need more explanation.

Muskrat

"Brain? What is brain?" --Kara, giver of pain and delight, Spock's Brain episode 61

I'm not a trekkie but I love this episode

Anaconda
Neophyte

Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 71

Posted 1/1/2008 12:04 PM (GMT -5)

Thanks for the help.

I hypothesis that a word used a few times in a large document has a realistic probability of being an error.

For example, I hardly ever use the word “cant”. I can only vaguely recall seeing it used beside railway tracks where it refers to some measure of the slope of the track. For me “cant” is probably a misspelling of “can’t”.

So I have two questions that are more specific. I would appreciate any help with either.

1. How can I EASILY produce a word frequency list from a .doc or .txt file?

2. Is there a method to use only a customised spelling directory in MS Word 2003?

Alec Anaconda, author of “Slaves of Janice” and “After Janice”.

Eugene Allen Wilson
Interstellar Crisis Author

Date Joined Aug 2007
Total Posts : 76

Posted 1/1/2008 11:14 AM (GMT -5)

"In affect, Paul was able to throw the ball further away."

Sadly, Dragon Angel is correct. Many word processors are not able to correct subtle errors in spelling and grammatical placement. Although Word Perfect is my favorite of all the word processor programs, I am now leaning heavily in favor of Microsoft Word, the so-called industry standard.

I make it a practice of going over my manuscripts even after a spelling and grammatical check and I hope that line editors do the same. Still, errors manage to get through. Many spell and grammatical checking programs will pass the top sentence despite the apparent errors. Until someone comes up with an intelligent spelling and grammatical checking program, you may still have to check your entire manuscript word by word.

Eugene Allen Wilson

The Interstellar Crisis Author

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crystalwizard
Forum Moderator

Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 5194

Posted 12/24/2007 2:06 PM (GMT -5)

Anaconda said...
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Does anybody know of an automatic checking system that will detect any of the errors is the following phrase?

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Id I wear a rich man.

I suggest you get a copy of this:

http://www.naturalreaders.com/

and get the neospeech Paul voice, then listen to your text. You'll find all sorts of mistakes that way.

And stop copying text out of Word and pasting it into the message box, it does nasty things to the text. Just type into the message box or use notepad to compose with.

Dragon Angel
Lord Dragon

Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 1066

Posted 12/24/2007 11:20 AM (GMT -5)

Word Perfect doesn't.

read free fiction and poetry at http://www.geocities.com/davidolson22/index.html

Part dark, part light. And gooey in the middle.

Anaconda
Neophyte

Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 71

Posted 12/24/2007 7:54 AM (GMT -5)

Does anybody know of an automatic checking system that will detect any of the errors is the following phrase?

Id I wear a rich man.

Alec Anaconda, formerly formally famed as Anaconda.>>

Author of “Slaves of Janice” and “After Janice”.

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