No spell check on LibreOffice Write

mfoley · January 15, 2020, 9:16pm

I have newly installed LibreOffice 6.2.8.2 . When I go to spell check in Write it always comes back as The spellcheck is complete. Even highlighting a known misspelled word and spell-checking gives no error. Tools > Options > Language Settings > Lanugages, shows Default Lanuages for Documents, Western: English (USA). The info-bar at the bottom of the composition window shows “English (USA)”. I have installed hunspell-en. I’ve logged off and rebooted. Nothing seems to work.

When I open the spell-check function, the “Text language:” setting at the top has nothing and the Drop-Down has no entries.

What is the solution?

anon73440385 · January 15, 2020, 9:29pm

Which operating system?
Could you upload a sample file?

RGB-es · January 15, 2020, 9:44pm

On Linux, I think LibreOffice uses myspell dictionaries. Try installing myspell-en and myspell-en_US

mfoley · January 16, 2020, 5:51am

Hmmm, my distro is Slackware, which uses pkg. The myspell downloads are in rpm and deb formats. I’ll check if these can be used on Slackware.

gabix · January 16, 2020, 7:10am

Then install spellcheck extensions. Read this tutorial as well.

Maitchy · November 25, 2024, 5:12am

Still a problem with LibreOffice 7.6.7.2 (X86_64) on Fedora 39 Linux; as with mfoley I have installed hunspell-en. I can see that the text has “English (UK)” displayed on the bottom status line (I have also tried NZ English). Yet, on attempting to spellcheck it has no language set. I tried Tools>Language>For Selection and it accepts/remembers what I choose, (but only in that place, not when it comes to spell checking). I also tried Tools>Language>For Paragraph and Tools>Language>For All Text but they don’t even cause the selection to stay ticked the next time I go back to look at it!
No error message comes up (I would have thought, instead of saying “The spellcheck is complete.” it should say “I didn’t check the spelling because…”.
No online help has the answer (and some is very old).

Zizi64 · November 25, 2024, 6:11am

Please upload a small, ODF type sample file here.

EarnestAl · November 25, 2024, 6:46am

I don’t know if it still applies but this question might help. Check to see if you can spell check English (USA) first. Language Australian Fedora does not spellcheck at all

Maitchy · November 26, 2024, 3:42am

Odd! Creating a new document gave no problems with spell-checking. The document I was having so much trouble with was created from an old template (a few versions ago) and I suspect that was the problem. I’m still experimenting, and will report findings when I can.
Meanwhile some odd factors:

I sometimes found automatic spellchecking was working while the Tools>Spelling did not! Recently I have found that saying “Yes” to “Continue at beginning of document” meant the Text language choice at the top suddenly got filled in, and spellchecking worked!
I saved a copy of the document where spellchecking failed, and deleted bits (aiming to make a small document to upload here), and spellchecking worked on the small version! I have been trying medium-sized versions of the original, and still have work to do, but it seems US spelling worked for a medium-sized version but no other language (I can use NZ English or UK English on other documents I create from scratch). But it still doesn’t let the language for the selected text to stay set. Finding out what I can remove from the original to make spelling work is going to be a bit of work; I might simply remake all my old templates to avoid any random oddities they may be creating without me knowing.

EarnestAl · November 26, 2024, 3:56am

Decide what language you are going use. I always set to English (UK) to get the benefit of pre-made AutoCorrect and spelling is the same. If you are on Windows you can set English (New Zealand) keyboard so you can easily write macrons over letters (hold tilde and press the vowel).
.
Go to the Sidebar and select Styles. Right click Default Paragraph Style and select Edit style. In the dialogue select the Font pane, select your preferred language there and OK. It should update all the styles in the document except for those that have been manually set (click Rest to Parent if needed). Try it for the template too.