"Proofing engine could not write to specified Custom Dictionary"

[McSwell]

In Outlook 2007 (same problem in Word 2007), I wanted to add a word to
my custom dictionary. However, the option to "Add to the dictionary"
was grayed out in the right-click menu. I then went into the "Editor
Options" dialog (hidden over in the corner of the menu under that
funny circular icon in the upper left-hand corner of the Outlook
window), chose Proofing, clicked on the "Custom Dictionaries..."
button to bring up the "Custom Dictionaries" dialog. In that dialog
box, I clicked on the "Edit Word List..." button for my default (and
only) custom dictionary, typed a word in and clicked on the button to
add it--and then got the error msg "Proofing engine could not write to
specified Custom Dictionary." (I also tried this after selecting
"English (U.S.)" as my "Dictionary language", same result.)

I checked the permissions, and they were fine; indeed, I can open the
dictionary in Notepad and add words. It's just that Outlook (and it
turns out Word as well) refuses to do this. I presume there must be a
setting somewhere, but where?

This is under Ms Office 2007, Windows XP.

Mike Maxwell

 

[Jay Freedman]

See
http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...1d-b2d3-1dfdef54f4a9&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

 

[McSwell]

See http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg....

Thanks--I just tried that, but it didn't change anything; the "Add to
Dictionary" option is still grayed out, and I still can't edit the
word list from Outlook or Word's options dialog (even after closing
and re-opening Outlook and Word).

Mike Maxwell

 

[Jay Freedman]

Thanks--I just tried that, but it didn't change anything; the "Add to
Dictionary" option is still grayed out, and I still can't edit the
word list from Outlook or Word's options dialog (even after closing
and re-opening Outlook and Word).

Mike Maxwell

Hmm. I'm guessing that there might be some character or group of characters in
your dictionary that Word's code can't deal with.

If you move the current Custom.dic file out of the %appdata%\Microsoft\Proof
folder to some other safe location, and then add a new Custom.dic, can you add
words to that?

If that works, try using Notepad to copy part of the old word list into the new
dictionary (of course, being sure to save it as a Unicode file). Start with just
a small group of words, and test it in Word. As long as it continues to work,
add more groups, testing as you go.

If at some point in this process it stops working in Word, remove half of the
last group you added and test again; if that doesn't help, take out half of the
remaining part of the last group, and so on until you isolate the word or words
that cause the problem.

 

[McSwell]

Hmm. I'm guessing that there might be some character or group of characters in
your dictionary that Word's code can't deal with.

Sort of, I think . I was editing the file in my preferred editor
(jEdit), rather than Notepad. Apparently jEdit does something to the
byte order mark (BOM) at the top of the file. This is odd, since
jEdit will load a file with virtually any encoding known to man or
Martian. But after I moved the bad CUSTOM.DIC file elsewhere, and re-
created a new one with Word, it worked fine. Editing it in Notepad
also worked fine; but the moment jEdit touches the file, it stopped
working.

OK, I FTPed the file over to a Linux machine (where I have some decent
tools), and found that the file as written by Word is UTF-16 Little
Endian. While jEdit will read a Little Endian file, it apparently
writes it out as a Big Endian file, with the result that Word and
Outlook refuse to write to it.

Moral of the story: don't use jEdit to edit my CUSTOM.DIC file.
Thanks for the help!

(Has Microsoft never heard of UTF-8?)

Mike Maxwell

 

[Jay Freedman]

Sort of, I think . I was editing the file in my preferred editor
(jEdit), rather than Notepad. Apparently jEdit does something to the
byte order mark (BOM) at the top of the file. This is odd, since
jEdit will load a file with virtually any encoding known to man or
Martian. But after I moved the bad CUSTOM.DIC file elsewhere, and re-
created a new one with Word, it worked fine. Editing it in Notepad
also worked fine; but the moment jEdit touches the file, it stopped
working.

OK, I FTPed the file over to a Linux machine (where I have some decent
tools), and found that the file as written by Word is UTF-16 Little
Endian. While jEdit will read a Little Endian file, it apparently
writes it out as a Big Endian file, with the result that Word and
Outlook refuse to write to it.

Moral of the story: don't use jEdit to edit my CUSTOM.DIC file.
Thanks for the help!

(Has Microsoft never heard of UTF-8?)

Mike Maxwell

Interesting. I use an old version of UltraEdit for most of my text work, and it
seems to be ok.

As for UTF-8 vs. UTF-16, that seems to be a difference between Word 2003 and
2007.