aspell

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ASPELL(1) Aspell Abbreviated User’s Manual ASPELL(1)

NAME
aspell - interactive spell checker

SYNOPSIS
aspell [options] <command>

DESCRIPTION
aspell is a utility that can function as an ispell -a replacement, as
an independent spell checker, as a test utility to test out Aspell
features, and as a utility for managing dictionaries.

COMMANDS
<command> is one of:

-?,help
display the help message

-c,check file
to spell-check a file

-a,pipe
ispell -a compatibility mode

-l,list
produce a list of misspelled words from standard input

[dump] config
dump the current configuration to stdout

config key
print the current value of an option

soundslike
return the soundslike equivalent for each word entered

filter pass standard input through the same set of filters that would
be used to spell check a document

-v,version
print version number and exit

dump|create|merge master|personal|repl wordlist
dump, create, or merge a master, personal, or replacement word
list

DICTIONARY OPTIONS
The following options may be used to control which dictionaries to use
and how they behave.

-d,--master=string
base name of the dictionary to use. If this option is specified
then Aspell will either use this dictionary or die.

--dict-dir=dir
location of the main word list

--lang=string
language to use, it follows the same format of the LANG envi-
ronmental variable on most systems. It consists of the two let-
ter ISO 639 language code and an optional two letter ISO 3166
country code after a dash or underscore. The default value is
based on the value of the LC_MESSAGES locale.

--size=string
the preferred size of the word list

--jargon=string
an extra information to distinguish two different words lists
that have the same lang and size.

-p,--personal=file
personal word list file name

--repl=file
replacements list file name

CHECKER OPTIONS
These options control the behavior of Aspell when checking documents.

-W,--ignore=integer
ignore words <= n chars

--ignore-case=boolean
ignore case when checking words

--ignore-repl=boolean
ignore commands to store replacement pairs

--save-repl=boolean
save the replacement word list on save allkeyboard (file) the
base name of the keyboard definition file to use (see section
4.4.3)

--sug-mode=mode
suggestion mode = ultra | fast | normal | bad-spellers

FILTER OPTIONS
These options modify the behavior of the various filters.

--filter=list
add or removes a filter

--mode=string
sets the filter mode. Mode is one if none, url, email, sgml, or
tex. (The short cut options ’-e’ may be used for email, ’-H’
for Html/Sgml, or ’-t’ for Tex)

--encoding=string
The encoding the input text is in. Valid values are ‘‘utf-8’’,
‘‘iso8859-*’’, ‘‘koi8-r’’, ‘‘viscii’’, ‘‘cp1252’’, ‘‘machine
unsigned 16’’, ‘‘machine unsigned 32’’. However, the Aspell
utility will currently only function correctly with 8-bit
encodings. utf-8 support is planned for the future. The two
‘‘machine unsigned’’ encodings are intended to be used by other
programs using the Aspell library and it is unlikely the Aspell
utility will ever support these encodings.

--add|rem-email-quote=list
email quote characters

--email-margin=integer
number of chars that can appear before the quote char

--add|rem-sgml-check=list
SGML attributes to always check

--add|rem-sgml-extension=list
SGML file extensions

--add|rem-tex-command=list
TeX commands

--add|rem-tex-check-comments=list
check TeX comments

RUN-TOGETHER WORD OPTIONS
These may be used to control the behavior of run-together words.

-C|-B,--run-together=boolean
consider run-together words legal

--run-together-limit=integer
maximum numbers that can be strung together

--run-together-min=integer
minimal length of interior words

MISC OPTIONS
Miscellaneous options that don’t fall under any other category.

--conf=file
main configuration file

--conf-dir=dir
location of main configuration file

--data-dir=dir
location of language data files

--local-data-dir=dir
alternative location of language data files. This directory is
searched before data-dir. It defaults to the same directory the
actual main word list is in (which is not necessarily dict-
dir).

--home-dir=dir
location for personal files

--per-conf=file
personal configuration file

--prefix=dir
prefix directory

UTILITY OPTIONS
-b|-x--backup=boolean
create a backup file by appending .bak to the file name. Only
applies when the command is check.

--time=boolean
time load time and suggest time in pipe mode.

--reverse=boolean
reverse the order of the suggestions list

--keymapping=string
the keymapping to use, either aspell for the default mapping or
ispell to use the same mapping that the ispell utility uses

In addition Aspell will try to make sense out of ispell’s command line
options so that it can function as a drop in replacement for ispell.
If Aspell is run without any command line options it will display a
brief help screen and quit.

CONFIGURATION
Aspell can also accept options via a personal or global configuration
file. The exact files to used are specified by the options per-conf
and conf respectfully but the personal configuration file is normally
.aspell.conf located in the $HOME directory. Each line of the config-
uration file has the format:

option [value]

where option is any one of the standard library options above without
the leading dashes. For example the following line will set the
default language to Swiss German:

lang de_CH

There may any number of spaces between the option and the value how-
ever it can only be spaces, i.e. there is no ’=’ between the option
name and the value. Comments may also be included by preceding them
with a ’#’ as anything from a ’#’ to a newline is ignored. Blank lines
are also allowed. Values set in the personal configuration file over-
ride those in the global file. Options specified at either the command
line or via an environmental variable override those specified by
either configuration file.

The global configuration file for Aspell is /etc/aspell.conf and the
per user configuration file is ~/.aspell.conf

SEE ALSO
run-with-aspell(1), word-list-compress(1), aspell-import(1)

Aspell is fully documented in its Texinfo manual. See the ‘aspell’
entry in info for more complete documentation.

GNU 2004-03-03 ASPELL(1)