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-rw-r--r--Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/faq-support.tex36
1 files changed, 31 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/faq-support.tex b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/faq-support.tex
index e450af64c30..7e4f88560f2 100644
--- a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/faq-support.tex
+++ b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/faq-support.tex
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-% $Id: faq-support.tex,v 1.6 2011/10/29 22:03:32 rf10 Exp rf10 $
+% $Id: faq-support.tex,v 1.8 2012/12/07 19:34:33 rf10 Exp rf10 $
\section{Support Packages for \TeX{}}
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ picture-elements. Its output is code for the \LaTeX{}
Optionally, it can be set to include lines at all angles using
the em\TeX{} driver-family
\htmlignore
-\csx{special}s (\Qref{}{Q-specials}).
+(\Qref*{\csx{special}s}{Q-specials}).
\endhtmlignore
\begin{htmlversion}
\Qref{\csx{special}s}{Q-specials}.
@@ -56,6 +56,14 @@ A Unix port of the program (\ProgName{xtexcad}) has been made.
\Question[Q-spell]{Spelling checkers for work with \TeX{}}
+Most approaches to the problem (of checking your spelling) are
+designed to work with a plain text file; in our case, this is \alltex{}
+source. For the user, this is a simple-to-understand way to do the
+job; but for the spell-checker programmer, it requires heuristic (and
+hence fallible) analysis of \alltex{} macros and so on. The
+alternative, of viewing the text \emph{after} \alltex{} has processed
+the results, is covered below.
+
For Unix, \ProgName{ispell} was long the program of choice; it is well
integrated with \ProgName{emacs}, and deals with some \TeX{} syntax.
However, it has more-or-less been replaced everywhere, by
@@ -68,9 +76,8 @@ the \Qref*{shell/editor}{Q-editors} combinations that are available.
The spell checker from the (now defunct) 4All\TeX{} shell remains
available as a separate package, \ProgName{4spell}.
-For the Macintosh, \ProgName{Excalibur} is the program of choice. It
-will run in native mode on both sorts of Macintosh. The distribution
-comes with dictionaries for several languages.
+For the Macintosh, \ProgName{Excalibur} has long been used; its
+distribution comes with dictionaries for several languages.
The \acro{VMS} Pascal program \ProgName{spell} makes special cases of
some important features of \LaTeX{} syntax.
@@ -78,6 +85,23 @@ some important features of \LaTeX{} syntax.
For \MSDOS{}, there are several programs. \ProgName{Amspell} can be
called from within an editor, and \ProgName{jspell} is an extended
version of \ProgName{ispell}.
+
+An alternative approach takes \alltex{} output, and checks that. A
+straightforward approach is to produce \acro{PDF} output, and process
+it with \ProgName{pdftotext}, using any plain text checker on the
+result (the checkers listed above all work in this r\^ole). For this
+to work reasonably well, the user should disable hyphenation before
+making the \acro{PDF} output.
+
+The (experimental) \luatex{}/\latex{} package \Package{spelling} goes
+one step further: it uses \ProgName{lua} code to extract words
+\emph{while typesetting is going on}, but before hyphenation is
+applied. Each word is looked up in a list of known bad spellings, and
+the word highlighted if it appears there. In parallel, a text file is
+created, which can be processed by a `normal' spelling checker to
+produce a revised ``bad spelling'' list. (The package documentation
+shows the end result; it includes words such as `spellling', which are
+duly highlighted.)
\begin{ctanrefs}
\item[4spell]\CTANref{4spell}
\item[amspell]\CTANref{amspell}
@@ -86,10 +110,12 @@ version of \ProgName{ispell}.
\item[excalibur]\CTANref{Excalibur}
\item[ispell]\CTANref{ispell}
\item[jspell]\CTANref{jspell}
+\item[spelling.sty]\CTANref{spelling}
\item[\nothtml{\bgroup\rmfamily}\acro{VMS}\nothtml{\egroup} spell]%
\CTANref{vmspell}
\item[winedt]\CTANref{winedt}
\end{ctanrefs}
+\LastEdit{2013-02-21}
\Question[Q-wordcount]{How many words have you written?}