Word 2007 beta - how to use existing dictionary?

[Peter Johnson]

I'm trying the Office 2007 beta and wish to make use of my existing
custom.dic, created in Word XP, in Word 2007. However, when I try to
'add new dictionary' I am told 'files without Unicode encoding can't
be added to the dictionary list. Save the file as a Unicode file to
add it to the dictionary list.' How? I've tried various methods to
convert the existing into Unicode but without success. Does anyone
know how it's done? (Other than pasting the existing dictionary into a
new document and adding them one at a time, I have nearly 1,000 words,
others must have more.)
TIA

 

[Jay Freedman]

You don't have to paste words one at a time.

Open the existing custom.dic file in Word. Click File > Save As. Set
the "Save as type" box to "Plain text (*.txt)". Word will suggest the
file name custom.txt. Change that to custom.dic (or any other name
with a .dic extension) and click OK.

Next you'll get a File Conversion dialog. Click the "Other encoding"
radio button, and then choose Unicode from the list on the right.
(Don't choose any of the Unicode variants, such as UTF-8.) Click OK.

Now you should be able to load the file as a custom dictionary.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
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[Peter Johnson]

Open the existing custom.dic file in Word. Click File > Save As. Set
the "Save as type" box to "Plain text (*.txt)". Word will suggest the
file name custom.txt. Change that to custom.dic (or any other name
with a .dic extension) and click OK.

Next you'll get a File Conversion dialog. Click the "Other encoding"
radio button, and then choose Unicode from the list on the right.
(Don't choose any of the Unicode variants, such as UTF-8.) Click OK.

Now you should be able to load the file as a custom dictionary.

Thanks Jay. You are a star. I'd nearly got there before but had been
deterred by the warning about losing formatting, which I took to mean
also encoding, when saving as text. Thanks again.