Spell Catcher X 10.2.3

Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad

Developer: Rainmaker Research, Inc.

http://www.rainmakerinc.com/

Other Help – A set of detailed FAQs

Shareware: $40 USD

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9, or Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later. Older version available for Mac OS X 10.2 through Mac OS X 10.3.8.

Released: November 22, 2006 Download Size: 9.5 MB

Audience: All user levels

Strengths: A powerful, available-everywhere as-you-type (interactive) and after-you’ve-typed-it (batch) spell checking that is fully integrated with the standard Mac OS X Spelling Panel. And in addition, trivial but great, Apple’s spelling panel doesn’t work on finder document or folder titles, Spell Catcher does!

Weaknesses: The lack of a batch dictionary import support weakens its usefulness for those who have invested heavily in setting up large-detailed individual custom user dictionaries for their key applications

The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.8.

Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Publisher’s Summary

Spell Catcher X [SCX] is the powerful writing tool preferred by educators, students, writers, and bloggers - anyone who writes on their Macintosh. It’s the all-in-one writing solution for those who need standardized custom dictionaries for use in all their applications, those that write in multiple languages, and anyone that simply wants to be a faster, more effective writer. Use it in Mac OS X applications such as email, web browsers, instant messaging, Microsoft Word and other word processors, graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop, video and movie programs, databases, spreadsheets and more! It is available-everywhere both as-you type (interactive) and after you’ve- typed-it (batch) spell checking. Fully integrated with the standard Mac OS X spelling functions.

Introduction

You might ask, doc_Babad, why should anyone need another spell checker? After all there’s one in MS Word, Adobe Acrobat, DEVONnote, ToDo X, Eudora my disk labeling desktop publishing programs and of course FileMaker Pro. Apple’s programs such as Text Edit, AppleWorks, Pages, Keynote and even Safari contain a spell checker. For many of Apples applications, their spell checker is integrated across many of the applications so you need only one dictionary and one user dictionary. Other developers have also taken advantage of the Apple operating system’s spell checking functions to add that capability to their programs.

Two guys and a Jack Russell Terrier, somewhere in Toronto, Canada, develop the product. I started using the product in the mid-late ‘80s (then it was called Thunder) even before it was distributed by Canady &. I stopped using it when I switched to OS X since there was, at that time, no Macintosh OS X version. My motivation for its use was simple: Spell Catcher worked in every program I used — databases, spreadsheets, address books software, calendar programs, and many other kinds of programs that don’t have spell checking abilities.

Working With

Installing this application is simple. Open its .dmg, and drag it you’re your applications folder. Go through the registration and preferences setting steps and you’re ready to use the product Indeed using the product to spell check everything from finder names to typo PDFs.

The way to check with SCX — it's not genetic engineering

Ignore the typo-keep typing
Correct the mistake yourself
Teach the word to Spell Catcher
You can also set up the typo to correct itself from now on. This is comparable the MSW’s autocorrect feature
Get more information about the word (dictionary or thesaurus)
Check a word
Check a selected section
Check a whole document

Reduce Need to Mouse Around — There are lots of keyboard shortcuts available; almost all can be customized. These I Ignored. If I make Spell Catcher my universal default spell checker, I might systematically learn these. For now, I’ve chosen to use the program only for those application in which spell checking is either awkward or unavailable.

For example, by having SCX available beats the heck out of my, usually hurried, typing feedback or a problem description into a box on an Internet form. Then copying it to MS word for spell checking and then having to paste it into the form. [No folks, most of the time I don’t try to outguess what vendors want when filling out trouble shooting requests or asking for product information.

Dictionary and Thesaurus — I make less use of the dictionary thesaurus features since my hard drive contains specialized software to deal with those needs, both on and off-line. I would take little to move entirely to SCX for these functions, but the old and familiar isn’t easy to discard. All of my dictionary and thesaurus tools, overall, generally provide the same information, only the interface is different. [Check out my Ultralingua 6 review in the November 2006, macC.]

The biggest decision you have to make is determining when you’d like Spell Catcher to point out your mistakes. SCX can check your spelling at two different times:

While You’re Typing (In Interactive Checking mode) Spell Catcher is always watching your typing. Whenever you type something that isn’t in the SCX word lists, or whenever you make a punctuation or capitalization error, the program beeps. At this point, you can summon a list of suggested replacements for the misspelled word; select a replacement, and then go on typing. Note: Interactive features are only available if you have chosen Spell Catcher to be the active input method by selecting it from the input menu.

After You’re Finished Typing — Spell Catcher can also work like the spelling checkers you’re probably used to-it scans your entire document (or your current selection) at once, looking for mistakes. SCX will then bring up the Check Selection window, where you can go through the errors and correct them.

WARNING — Unlike my usual practice, a short time after I installed and spell checked a number of items in the product, I decided to take the Spell Catcher Crash Course. Why, because when reading the details about the product on its MacUpdate page, there were discussions about features that had not existed in the OS 8 and 9 versions I’d previously used. These include both the ability to significantly customize the interface to meet your needs, to other features that existed only in either standalone shareware application of in MS Word. Leaning how to use SCX’s word-completion, auto-correct, customizable Shorthand glossary features.

The product provides a rich environment for proofreading and text manipulation. Such SCX tools are comparable to ones in MS word and in shareware items I’ve added such as Selznick Scientific Software’s SmartWrap http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/3816 and Ergonis Software’s Typinator http://www. macupdate.com/info.php/id/18028 .

Some of these added features are not usually ever found spell checkers. They are summarized below; for the rest of the swag such as Ghostwriter support, go to the developer’s website.

Product Advantages —

You maintain only a single word list. When you add new words to the SPX’s dictionary- say, your last name, or words specific to your industry-you do so only once. You don't have to teach the same words to every other program that has a built-in spelling checker.
You maintain only a single spelling dictionary file. Once you've installed Spell Catcher, you can throw away many megabytes' worth of dictionary files from Microsoft Word, America Online, AppleWorks, InDesign, and so on. You regain huge swaths of hard drive space.
You have only one piece of software to learn. From now on, checking your spelling involves exactly the same keystrokes and menu commands in every program.

Product Features

Completion — Spell Catcher X’s completion feature finishes what you’re typing for you. Not just dictionary words are offered as completions, but it short-hands, your personal learned words, thesaurus synonyms, and (saving the best for last), names, email addresses, phone numbers and address information from your Address Book! With SPX’s Address Book completions, your Address Book is available everywhere.

Proofreading And Text Manipulation — SPX also replaces an assortment of add-on proofreading software. For example, it can automatically turn the typographically incorrect straight quotes (“like this”) into the proper curly quotes (“like this”); convert double hyphens (--) into actual long dashes (-); automatically correct DOubled CApitals that you type when you’re in a hurry; capitalize the first letter of every sentence.

If you’re an Internet user (and who isn’t in today’s world), you may also appreciate SPX’s Macros, which can, in one fell swoop, clean up hard-to-read, irregularly formatted e-mail and bulletin board postings from the Net.

Modify Selection: For the Professional Writer or Editor — Sometimes you need a more powerful assistant to help you whip some text into shape. Spell Catcher’s Macros and Modify Selection commands may be just what you need. They can massage enormous chunks of text in seconds, converting mangled e-mail text to neat paragraphs, converting pages’ worth of ALL CAPS TYPING into normally capitalized writing, making straight quotes curly, and so on. Using the Modify Selection command does all of this. In addition to prevent repetitive stress syndrome for major editing tasks you can use SCX’s macros functions.

Create Customizable Shorthand Glossaries — Spell Catcher can expand abbreviations that you design (such as macC and yrdb) into frequently used phrases (e.g., yrdb = your reviewer, doc_Babad). This expansion takes place automatically, on the fly, as you type-you don’t have to press any special keystroke or do anything special to expand these phrases. Creating such shorthand entries can be done either while spell checking or in a stand-alone manner.

Although the developers note that over your working career, these shortcut expansion features can save you hundreds of hours of typing, I was under impressed by that capability. For repeated items (e.g., boiler plate, I use stupidFish Programming’sshadow Clipboard http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10540 . I have enough stuff to memorize, including keyboard shortcuts, without creating lists of shorthand entries, which would be useful primarily during word processing.

You Don’t Always Write in English — Comprehensive dictionaries are available in fourteen different languages, with thesaurus look-ups for ten of those languages. Nine spelling languages and most of their associated thesaurus databases are included for free with SCX! They are just a download away. [Readers: These are not for things my editor Julie accuses me of.]

Review Limitations

I make no attempt to compare the effectiveness and ease of use of features provided by Spell Catcher with comparable features in the programs I daily use. Why not? First it’s too time consuming. Second, I me and you’re not. So anything I could say may not work for you.

Discomforts

Need Batch Loading to Import Custom User Dictionaries — May users have created extensive user dictionaries in their word processor programs or other text using design tools. A one-click import method would facilitate changing over to Spell Catcher.

Switching Entirely to Spell Catcher — I’m still thinking about which applications, I use daily, shall I use with SCX. I’m not sure I want to give up using my custom dictionaries created over the years in MS Word. That custom dictionary contains over 2300 lines of words. My custom dictionary in Eudora is much smaller, as is the one provided in apple applications and I’m in the processes of imputing most of those items into Spell Catcher. I know I can extract the words in the MSW dictionary by changing the file extension to .txt and spell checking the new text document with the program but that’s a real drag. Teaching Spell Catcher new words as is done on a one-at-a-time basis.

Conclusions

Spell Catcher X is writing tool that’s a must for anyone from professional writers, support personnel to instant messaging enthusiasts. It is used to catch your spelling errors, capitalization errors, punctuation mistakes, and repeated word errors. If you deal with text — typing it, manipulating it, proofreading and or sending it to others — Spell Catcher X has something for you. [If you don’t send anything out, you don’t need the product.]

I love the fact that with the product, I’m always in Control of its interface. As its developer notes, If you’d prefer that Spell Catcher keep its nose out of your punctuation, capitalization, and double words, you can turn off these forms of checking by choosing Preferences from the input menu; in the Preferences window, click the Spelling icon, and select the Checking tab. From here, you can control the program’s checking behavior. There is also a Spell Catcher X Lite version, but the extra features more than makes up the $10 difference in price.

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