Can I load an Afrikaans language dictionary/pack in LibreOffice?

I am already installed the South African English version. Is there an Afrikaans language/pack available I can add? (Not the User Interface).

1 Like

As noted, the LibreOffice Afrikaans language pack doesn’t add spell checking (unless I am missing something).

(EDIT) As noted by @ajlittoz: “Spell checking is dependent on hunspell. This application and library is an external tool to LibreOffice.” So if your OS/distro supports it, install hunspell (if it is not already there) and the hunspell-af package. If not, below might work for you.

To my surprise, this ancient OpenOffice extension seems to work: afrikaans-spell-checker (I am using LibreOffice 6.3 on Manjaro Linux).

To my surprise

But why are you surprised?

Yes, there is a language pack for Afrikaans.

You do not say what version of LibO you are using and which operating system. This advice is for the Linux version, others may differ in detail. If you go to the main Document Foundation website (http://www.libreoffice.org/) you can download the LibO version of your choice. Choose the version you need, and then select NEED ANOTHER LANGUAGE. Select Afrikaans and then you will be given the choice of the Language Pack and OFFLINE HELP. Download and install. Not certain how to do the same for Windows and Mac…hope this helps … Peter

Despite installing the Afrikaans language pack, there is not spell checking in Afrikaans. I was using LO Still, but have now switched to LO Fresh and it makes no difference. LO 6.0.2.1 on Ubuntu 17.10

I see that there is a South African dictionary in the English extension dictionary, a 2012 version. See https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/english-dictionaries/2017-01.01. Is this any help?

Thanks, but that is English with some South African specific words added, not Afrikaans.

Spell checking is dependent on hunspell. This application and library is an external tool to LibreOffice. If you install LO with a package manager (distro dependent – as already noted you didn’t mention our OS), the dependency is in principle automatically managed.

On the contrary, when you compile from source, you must take care of the optional libraries. In this case, you must install hunspell (probably already there if spell checking works for English) and hunspell-af which contains the specific rules for Afrikaans.

Thanks. I am using Manjaro Linux (I am not OP though) and I have hunspell installed with English spell checking. But I missed that as hunspell-af is not available on Manjaro repos or AUR. Will look into it.

Okay I was able to copy the dictionary from the Ubuntu package and I have filed a request with Manjaro to add it to their repo’s. Many thanks!

This issue dated back to July 2015 and was partial resolved by using an OpenOffice extension dated back to 2008. I am running at present Ubuntu 64bit 8.04.5 LTS. The LibreOffice is 7.1.1.2.

I tried to use the LibreOffice solution by downloading the “hunspell-af_7.1.0~rc3-3_all.deb” and install it with GDEBI Package Installer. Everything looked good and apparently it installed correctly. However, the only language setting that works correctly is “None”! I check if “hunspell” was install during the installation of “hunspell-af_7.1.0~rc3-3_all.deb”-file, but no, it was not. I could not find a simple way to install hunspell on its own and it not even listed in Ubuntu’s repository. To be dependant on an old 2008 OpenOffice extension does seem wise either. Any advice to get the LibreOffice spelling checker to work? Note: I am using the Firefox and Thunderbird spelling checkers successfully. Is there maybe a clash between Office and Firefox/Thunderbird?

As far as I know, Firefox and Thunderbird use the system-wide spelling checker which should be hunspell.

LO 7.1.1 is still considered experimental and not stable. Therefore, it is very little likely you got it from your distro repository. You must then expect some inconsistencies. hunspell should be installable with apt-get. I am not at all familiar with Ubuntu. I don’t know if GDEBI is its current package manager. If it isn’t, you may have incompatibilities between it and apt-get. Check.

Thanks for advice using apt-get to install hunspell. Procedures followed:
1 Uninstall “hunspell-af_7.1.0~rc3-3_all.deb” with Gdebi installer. With terminal install “hunspell”:
2 sudo apt-get update
3 sudo apt-get install hunspell
4 Check: "apt-cache policy hunspell” and got:
“hunspell:
Installed: 1.6.2-1
500 http://za.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status.”
4. Reinstall “hunspell-af_7.1.0~rc3-3_all.deb.” with Ubuntu’s default installer.All seemed well and default “English” spell checker worked fine.

I restart LO Writer, chose “Tools/Language/All Text/Afrikaans (default for this document only.)” When “Apply” is clicked, Language reset to English. Also Afrikaans does not show the enabled icon for spell checking. Must be something I missed to get it enabled. Don’t think LO Version 7.1.1.2 is the cause. Had the same issue with previous versions. When the OO “dict-af.oxt” is installed, it worked correctly. Any further advice?