Lost User Dictionary

[tarakananda]

I have just upgraded my Mac from a G5 to an Intel iMac, and have copied over all files and apps using Migration Assistant. I had quite a long list of technical words which I had added into the Nisus user dictionary. Now they are gone. I tried copying over the en file in the system library spelling folder, but Nisus does not recognize the technical words which it did before. What is to be done? I still have the old mac, and can recover whatever files necessary.

Please advise.

[Kino]

I tried copying over the en file in the system library spelling folder, but Nisus does not recognize the technical words which it did before.

Copy user dictionary file(s) from your older Mac’s /Users/you/Library/Spelling/ to your newer Mac’s /Users/you/Library/Spelling/ (create Spelling folder if it does not exist). Then, quit and relaunch NWP.

Edit: added the last sentence.

[tarakananda]

This is what was done, as noted above. Following your advice, I made sure it was at the user level. No success.

[martin]

Even though NWP allows you to add words to your spelling dictionary, the actual file is controlled by the shared OSX spelling service. I'm not sure why your old word list file is not recognized by your new Mac, but I do know that at some point Apple changed the format of the file in question. I'm surprised that the old file isn't imported/understood by your new Mac. Have you tried logging out of your user account (or restarting your Mac) with the old file in place?

If that doesn't work, perhaps we can take a look at the old file and convert it for you. Could you send us your file, either attaching it here, or send it to us privately via the menu Help > Send Feedback. Thanks.

[tarakananda]

I'll send the file by email. The forum will not allow upload of this format file. Thanks for the offer to fix this.

[Hamid]

The character which separates individual entries has changed from control character (U+0000) to new line (U+000A).

[tarakananda]

The character which separates individual entries has changed from control character (U+0000) to new line (U+000A).

Sorry, this information is too techie for me. How does this translate into practical action for me?

[Hamid]

If you open your user spelling dictionary in a text editor, you will find all entries (individual words added) without any space between them. The separator used is invisible to the user. In the new format, the same entries appear as a list of words, each beginning on a new line.
Make a copy of your user dictionary and open it in NWP. It will open as text
Run the following expression in PowerFind Pro:

Replace All ‘\x{0000}’, ‘\x{000a}’, ‘Ea’

Save the file in the Spelling folder.

Run spell-checker on a test file.

[tarakananda]

Thank you for this information.

Replace All ‘\x{0000}’, ‘\x{000a}’, ‘Ea’

In the "find what" field I put \x{0000}
In the "replace with" field I put \x{000a}

this yielded a return delineated list.

What action does "ea" signify, as there are only two fields?

[Hamid]

Sorry. That was a Nisus macro expression, but you figured it out correctly how to use it in the Find window; the 'Ea' has to be ignored in the Find window. The 'E' means that it is PowerFind Pro expression. The 'a' in this case was not necessary as the 'Replace All' command was used; if 'Replace' command is used, the 'a' stands for 'all instances of what was found'.

[tarakananda]

I saved the file as a text file, which saved it as "en.txt" as opposed to plain "en". Uploaded the file, did a re-login. No success.

Should I delete the .txt suffix, or save it in another file format?

Forgive my ignorance in these matters.

[Hamid]

Yes, you should delete the .txt extension, just as in the original; this is the way a user dictionary is recognised.

[Kino]

The character which separates individual entries has changed from control character (U+0000) to new line (U+000A).

True but user dictionary files in the old format are recognized without problem. Did you convert them manually when you installed Snow Leopard?

Perhaps it would be necessary to log out and log back in after adding user dictionary files. At least NWP need to be relaunched.

[Hamid]

For some reason, the old format was not recognised on my system.
I added some entries which I was sure I had added before. Then, when I opened my user dictionaries, I found that my most recently added entries were each followed by new line, while previous entries (which were not recognised by the system) were separated by U+0000; when I separated all the entries by new line and ran a test spell-check, everything was recognised.