[quote author="Ken"]Seriously though, why, (can anyone answer me *sigh, grunt*? ) why don’t websites, or email sites, give contributors spell/grammar checks like eg.Microsoft word? I have to manually check my Anglicanmedia letters, which takes up much of my precious time!!

Hi Ken, I’m not sure if you want an answer to this, or if you are just bemoaning the state of play, but here’s an answer of sorts.

Firstly, dictionaries are big.  You have to have a word list to compare your typing to, and these can run to multi-megabyte files.  Then once you have the dictionary, the contents of your post would have to be compared with the multi-megabyte dictionary one word at a time.  This seriously slows down the time it takes to process your post.  Next, the server-side scripting (interpretive) languages aren’t as smart as the applications like word, which are compiled into machine code and are far far more efficient. 

So, what it would mean in practice, is that when you hit submit, a very long time would pass before anything happened.  In the mean time you might get bored, or worse, hit submit again.

And also, having used dodgy text editors, I know that a bad spell checker (one that gets false matches, or behaves annoyingly) is much worse than no spell checker. 

Finally, the current state of HTML doesn’t offer smart editing functions like you find in Word.  Stepping through a list of questionable words, offering you the chance to correct or ignore would be a big task in Javascript.

That said, there are some web apps that offer spell checking.  So it can be done.  Most use ActiveX or Java technology to make that happen.  You just need serious horsepower, and lots of cash to make it possible (how much did you pay for Word, BTW? - generally progs with spell checkers don’t come free :).

The other option is a browser based one that installs on your computer and checks forms before you send them.  Check Google for some possibilities.

<edit> I just checked the spelling of this post using iSpell ..  works a treat! allows you to spell check a form without leaving the page.  Will even spell check a selection.  Unfortunately it only works in IE, but if you haven’t upgraded to Mozilla Firebird yet, you’ll be OK :) </edit>

You may find some web browsers also provide built-in spell checking similar to word processors (for example, OmniWeb for MacOS X).

Itnresenitg

Thanks Hanna, I was thinking of using microsoft word, and then copying and pasting my repliy to this website. I thought of this after sending off my post. I don’t know if this is the process you use?

Rowan, yes I was interested in an answer to my question, and thanks for giving me that technical information. I honestly did not know about the size requirements of word/spell check. Not being from an IT background.

I will check out your tips, as I will do for Enkidu Jones’ tip for a spell check browser.

It’s great that this website contributors like you to help!

Ken