Dictionaries in FrameMaker 9

In this blog post, we are going to describe the various kinds of dictionaries available in FrameMaker.

In this Blog Post

• FrameMaker Dictionaries Overview
• FrameMaker Site Dictionary
• FrameMaker Document Dictionary
• FrameMaker Personal Dictionary
• FrameMaker Language Dictionary
• Format of DCT File

FrameMaker Dictionaries Overview

When you spell-check a document, FrameMaker validates each word of the document with a master list of correctly spelled words, also known as a dictionary.

FrameMaker Site Dictionary

The words which you want to be available for all users in a work-group, you should add them in site dictionary. For example: company name, product names and acronyms which are very commonly used in your documents. If you want to add/remove words from site dictionary, you can do it by editing the dictionary file manually (the changes take effect on next FrameMaker launch).

Dictionary Location

By default FrameMaker uses "$INSTALLDIR\dict\site.dct" as a site dictionary. You can also change it by changing the maker.ini preference “SiteDictionary”, which is currently set to dict\site.dct.

FrameMaker Document Dictionary

This dictionary is used when you allow certain words in a particular document but not in other documents. FrameMaker uses this dictionary for a document, regardless of who is editing the document. You can add a word in document dictionary by clicking on Allow in Document through SpellChecker dialog. You can also remove the added word by entering the word in correction textbox and then clicking on UnLearn.

Dictionary Location

Unlike the other dictionaries, the document dictionary is part of the document rather than a separate file.

Dictionary Functions

These are the following operations you can do with the document dictionary:

1. Clear: Clears the words stored in the document dictionary.
2. Write To File: Saves the words stored in the document dictionary to a external file in DCT format.
3. Merge From File: Merges the DCT file specified by the user to the current document dictionary.

FrameMaker Personal Dictionary

This dictionary is user specific, and a word learnt by one user will not be available to other users and vice-versa. You should use this dictionary for words, which are neither site specific nor document specific(For example: your name). You can change the contents of your personal dictionary by clicking Learn, or Unlearn in the Spelling Checker dialog box as you spell-check.

Dictionary Location

Prior to version 9, FrameMaker used to persist learnt words in a file named user.dct which was created under "%appdata%\Adobe\FrameMaker\8" folder. But now, as FrameMaker has moved to a different technology for dictionary operations, it persists learnt words in a file named added.txt which is created at the following path: "%appdata%\Adobe\Linguistics\Dictionaries\FMUserDictionary\all". It is recommended for users not to edit this file directly. If you wish to add/merge a set of words to FM Personal Dictionary, you can create your own DCT file and follow these steps:

1. Choose Edit > Spelling Checker.
2. Click Dictionaries.
3. Choose Import Dictionary/Merge from File from the Personal Dictionary pop-up menu and click OK.
4. Specify the file you want to merge with the current dictionary.

Dictionary Functions

These are the following operations you can do with the document dictionary:

1. Set To None: Do not use any personal dictionary.
2. Clear: Clears the words stored in the document dictionary.
3. Write To File: Saves the words stored in the document dictionary to a external file in DCT format.
4. Import Dictionary: It first clears the current personal dictionary and then merge the DCT file specified by the user to personal dictionary.

FrameMaker Language Dictionary

This dictionary contains predefined words as you find them in any standard dictionary. Each language has a corresponding language dictionary file. The list of words in this dictionary file can’t be modified by the user.

Dictionary Location

The files corresponding to main dictionary are installed under "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Linguistics" folder.

Site, Document and Personal dictionaries are language independent dictionaries. It means, if you add a word to any of these dictionaries, then it would become valid for all languages supported by FrameMaker.

Format of FrameMaker DCT File

Words can be added in DCT file as a simple text separated by Return.

You can add a custom hyphenation point in a word by specifying (-) in between the characters of a word. For example: hyphen-at-ion.

You can also suppress the hyphenation of a word by prefixing the word by (-). If there are no hyphenation points specified in the word, then their hyphenation should be strictly suppressed, and all such words should be prefixed by (-).

To add hyphenated compound word (a word or phrase made up of multiple words connected by hyphens) in a dictionary file, you can type a (\) before each hyphen that connects words. For example: -heavy\-duty.