MS Word —

Create an Exclusion Dictionary

You create an exclusion dictionary: a list of the terms that you want to exclude from Word's spelling dictionaries even though the spelling is fine

Exclude dictionary

"Pubic" is, of course, spelled just fine, but you probably don't want to use it in most of your documentsand certainly not when you meant to type "public." To prevent this from happening again, you need to tell Word that you want it to query instances of this word, even though the spelling is fine. To do so, you create an exclusion dictionary: a list of the terms that you want to exclude from Word's spelling dictionaries. Here's how:

  1. Determine the name for the exclusion dictionary. It must have the same name as your main dictionary, but with the .exc (exclusion) extension instead of the .lex (lexicon) extension. The name of the dictionary depends on the language you're using in Office. For American English, the main dictionary file is named mssp3en.lex, so the exclusion dictionary must be named mssp3en.exc. If you're not sure which dictionary you're using, choose Start » Search and search for mssp3*.lex files. The last two or three letters indicate the language: mssp3fr.lex for French, mssp3es.lex for Spanish, and so on.

    There are two differences if you're using Office 97. First, the dictionary file will be Version 2 rather than Version 3 (for example, mssp2en.lex rather than mssp3en.lex). Second, you must save the exclusion dictionary in the same folder as the dictionary file, rather than in your own Proof folder, so it applies to all users of the computer.

  2. In Word, choose Tools » Options, click the Spelling & Grammar tab, and then click the Custom Dictionaries button (Dictionaries button in Word 2000) to display the Custom Dictionaries dialog box.

  3. Click the New button to display the Create Custom Dictionary dialog box, type the appropriate name in double quotation marks in the File Name text box (for example, "mssp3en.exc"), and click the Save button.

  4. Select the new dictionary in the Custom Dictionaries dialog box, and click the Modify button to open the dialog box for modifying the dictionary. Type the first word that you want to add and press Enter (or click the Add button). When you've finished adding words, click the OK button to close each of the three open dialog boxes.

  5. Restart Word to make it read your exclusion dictionary. Type one of the excluded words to double-check it's working correctly.

After you've added a word to an exclusion dictionary, you can't return it to use by using the Add to Dictionary command during a spelling check; you must edit the exclusion dictionary and remove the word manually.

Where is resume wizard?

The Resume Wizard is on the Other Documents tab of the Templates dialog box (in Word 2003 and Word XP) or the New dialog box (in Word 2000).