P
Patricio Mason
After finding that my brand-new installation of Office 2004 was
exhibiting a puzzling custom dictionary problem, I got online and found
out -much to my dismay- that a "Spanish custom dictionary bug" was
indeed being widely discussed. I won't rehash the issue now -just
confirm that, as many other Spanish-language users have reported, no
matter what I do, custom dictionaries set to Spanish are not
recognized.
As a writer and translator, Microsoft Word is critical production
software I use day in and day out. The custom dictionaries I use
contain thousands of specialized terms added after years of use. They
worked (almost) flawlessly through many versions of Word (see below).
Needless to say, I wish I had read about this issue before I spent
several hundred of my hard-earned dollars on a product introducing such
a critical flaw.
At any rate, I wished to point out that there is indeed an issue
affecting some non-English custom dictionaries -including Spanish-
going back several years. I know because I first reported it myself to
Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MBU) in December 2000. Gerald
Pogue, a MacWord Tester in the MBU, wrote back and asked me to submit a
sample of the problem custom dictionaries, which I did. I asked him to
load the sample into Word and designate it as the dictionary to add
words to. Then he should verify the language assignment; it should be
"Spanish". He was then to spell-check text marked as Spanish and add a
few words. He should then go back to the custom dictionary window and
recheck the sample's language assignment: it was turning to "none".
As it turns out, the space separating the two components of the
commented-out language ID number entry for Spanish (#LID 1034) was
being replaced by a paragraph mark (i.e., #LID^p1034). In other words,
something -perhaps a component of the proofing tools- was truncating
the language ID number, thereby seriously impacting its functionality.
I should note that for those of us working in more than one language,
custom dictionaries unintendedly operating under a language designation
of "none" (i.e., applying to all languages) mean clear and present
danger, as they may fail to flag terms that are correct in one language
but totally incorrect in another. When correct language use is your
livelihood, you can imagine the possible consequences.
Subsequent tests using French and German text revealed that French was
fine while the German ID number (#LID 1031) was turning into "#LID 0"
after adding to the custom dictionary. This finding was also reported
to Mr. Pogue at Microsoft.
To clarify, in the Spanish case, the first line should contain only the
commented-out language ID entry, i.e.:
#LID 1034
Instead, it shows this:
#LID^p
1034
After some intensive correspondence Gerald Pogue eventually agreed that
this was a bug and assured me that my findings were being looked into.
He wrote, and I quote: "Thanks for all this, and I can tell you for a
fact that this matter is now being investigated with the upmost
priority." This was in January 2001.
However, the bug remained through Word X --and apparently beyond, as I
suspect it may well have been an early form of the "Custom dictionary
not available" problem Spanish-language users are facing now with Word
2004.
Difference is, of course, that the former was an annoyance, while the
latter is a crippling show stopper. As I have read here, the Macintosh
Business Unit has known about this for over a year. In the intervening
time at least two Office 2004 service packs have been released, but a
fix for the Spanish custom dictionary bug has not been forthcoming and
-if experience is anything to go by- may well not be unless enough of a
ruckus is raised by those affected.
The Spanish-speaking market is over 400 million strong, not to mention
40 million speakers within the US itself. How about a fix soon, MBU?
With apologies for the length of this post,
Patricio Mason
Santiago, Chile
exhibiting a puzzling custom dictionary problem, I got online and found
out -much to my dismay- that a "Spanish custom dictionary bug" was
indeed being widely discussed. I won't rehash the issue now -just
confirm that, as many other Spanish-language users have reported, no
matter what I do, custom dictionaries set to Spanish are not
recognized.
As a writer and translator, Microsoft Word is critical production
software I use day in and day out. The custom dictionaries I use
contain thousands of specialized terms added after years of use. They
worked (almost) flawlessly through many versions of Word (see below).
Needless to say, I wish I had read about this issue before I spent
several hundred of my hard-earned dollars on a product introducing such
a critical flaw.
At any rate, I wished to point out that there is indeed an issue
affecting some non-English custom dictionaries -including Spanish-
going back several years. I know because I first reported it myself to
Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MBU) in December 2000. Gerald
Pogue, a MacWord Tester in the MBU, wrote back and asked me to submit a
sample of the problem custom dictionaries, which I did. I asked him to
load the sample into Word and designate it as the dictionary to add
words to. Then he should verify the language assignment; it should be
"Spanish". He was then to spell-check text marked as Spanish and add a
few words. He should then go back to the custom dictionary window and
recheck the sample's language assignment: it was turning to "none".
As it turns out, the space separating the two components of the
commented-out language ID number entry for Spanish (#LID 1034) was
being replaced by a paragraph mark (i.e., #LID^p1034). In other words,
something -perhaps a component of the proofing tools- was truncating
the language ID number, thereby seriously impacting its functionality.
I should note that for those of us working in more than one language,
custom dictionaries unintendedly operating under a language designation
of "none" (i.e., applying to all languages) mean clear and present
danger, as they may fail to flag terms that are correct in one language
but totally incorrect in another. When correct language use is your
livelihood, you can imagine the possible consequences.
Subsequent tests using French and German text revealed that French was
fine while the German ID number (#LID 1031) was turning into "#LID 0"
after adding to the custom dictionary. This finding was also reported
to Mr. Pogue at Microsoft.
To clarify, in the Spanish case, the first line should contain only the
commented-out language ID entry, i.e.:
#LID 1034
Instead, it shows this:
#LID^p
1034
After some intensive correspondence Gerald Pogue eventually agreed that
this was a bug and assured me that my findings were being looked into.
He wrote, and I quote: "Thanks for all this, and I can tell you for a
fact that this matter is now being investigated with the upmost
priority." This was in January 2001.
However, the bug remained through Word X --and apparently beyond, as I
suspect it may well have been an early form of the "Custom dictionary
not available" problem Spanish-language users are facing now with Word
2004.
Difference is, of course, that the former was an annoyance, while the
latter is a crippling show stopper. As I have read here, the Macintosh
Business Unit has known about this for over a year. In the intervening
time at least two Office 2004 service packs have been released, but a
fix for the Spanish custom dictionary bug has not been forthcoming and
-if experience is anything to go by- may well not be unless enough of a
ruckus is raised by those affected.
The Spanish-speaking market is over 400 million strong, not to mention
40 million speakers within the US itself. How about a fix soon, MBU?
With apologies for the length of this post,
Patricio Mason
Santiago, Chile
