GNU Aspell/Aspell is a free and open source spell checking software for Linux and Windows. It is released under GNU Lesser General Public License. It is not only a simple spell checker, you can also get the possible replacements for a misspelled word in Aspell. You can add Aspell in your program as a library. It supports UTF-8 and you can use multiple dictionaries at once. In this article, we will see how to install and user Aspell on Ubuntu.
Install Aspell spell checker on Ubuntu
If you don’t have Aspell spell checker on ubuntu, then you can install it via below commands. Open your terminal command line app (ctrl+alt+t) and run these commands to install Aspell. if needed enter your ubuntu user password.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install aspell
Aspell Dictionaries code
Please check the your dictionary code from the above link. It will organized by the 2 or 3 letter ISO code.
For example, if you want to install English dictionary, then install it by below command.
sudo apt install aspell-en
If you want Tamil dictionary, then
sudo apt install aspell-ta
You can check all installed dictionaries using below command.
aspell dicts
Check spelling mistakes using Aspell
First run this command in terminal.
aspell -a
Then type your misspelled word. Like in this example “Englesh” and enter. It will show possible suggestions.
By default it uses English. If you want to change some other language like Tamil , then run this command.
aspell -a -l ta
Just add -l flag and followed by ISO code for Tamil language ta.
Then type the tamil misspelled word. ???????
You can also check spell in a file using below command.
cat connect.txt | aspell list
aspell check connect.txt
For the complete manual run this command.
man aspell
