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Subsections

1. Introduction

GNU Aspell is a spell checker designed to eventually replace Ispell. It can either be used as a library or as an independent spell checker. Its main feature is that it does a much better job of coming up with possible suggestions than just about any other spell checker out there for the English language, including Ispell and Microsoft Word. It also has many other technical enhancements over Ispell such as using shared memory for dictionaries and intelligently handling personal dictionaries when more than one Aspell process is open at once.

1.1 Comparison to other spell checker engines



  Aspell Ispell Netscape 4.0 Microsoft Word 97
Open Source x x    
Suggestion Intelligence 88-98 54 55-70? 71
Personal part of Suggestions x x x  
Alternate Dictionaries x x ? ?
International Support x x ? ?


The suggestion Intelligence is based on a small test kernel of misspelled/correct word pairs. Go to http://aspell.net/test for more info and how you can help contribute to the test kernel. The current scores for Aspell are 88 in fast mode, 93 in normal mode, and 98 in bad spellers mode see section 4.4.4 for more information about the various suggestion modes.

If you have any other information you would like to add to this chart please contact me at kevina@gnu.org.

1.1.1 Comparison to Ispell

1.1.1.1 Features that only Aspell has

1.1.1.2 Things that, currently, only Ispell have


next up previous contents
Next: 2. Getting Started Up: GNU Aspell 0.50.5 Previous: Contents   Contents
Kevin Atkinson 2004-02-10