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ShareSpell v2.3
Text File Spelling Checker
Copyright 1989-1991, Acropolis Software
Robert Bequette
Acropolis Software
P.O. Box 5037
Fair Oaks, CA 95628
THE LEGAL STUFF
ShareSpell is provided on an "as is" basis without warranty of
any kind expressed or implied. In no event will Acropolis
Software be liable to you for any damages, including any lost
profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential
damages arising out of the use of or inability to use the
program, even if Acropolis Software has been advised of the
possibility of such damages, or for any claim by any other party.
ShareSpell is copyrighted by Acropolis Software. You are
encouraged to give copies to your friends and upload it to
bulletin boards. However, sale of the program for profit by
anyone except Acropolis Software is strictly prohibited, except
for a small fee for duplication. That fee does not register
you as a user of ShareSpell. If you like ShareSpell and find
it useful you are asked to register as a users with Acropolis
Software. (See "REGISTRATION" at the bottom of this document
for information on how to register).
INDEX
Introduction ...................................... 1
File list ...................................... 1
Requirements ...................................... 1
Installation
One Drive System ...................................... 2
Two Drive System ...................................... 3
Hard Drive System ...................................... 3
Monitor Configuration ...................................... 4
How to use to ShareSpell ...................................... 5
Quick Reference ...................................... 7
Questions or Comments ....................................... 8
Registration ....................................... 9
Page 1
INTRODUCTION
ShareSpell version 2.3 is a "stand-alone" spelling checker. With it
you can check the spelling of text files that you have written. It
is completely interactive. It will display the text of the file as
it goes through the file, checking for spelling errors. At each word
that it thinks is misspelled, you'll be given the option of replacing
the word from a list of suggested correct spellings, manually
correcting it, adding it to the dictionary, marking it for later
correction, or ignoring it throughout the rest of the document.
Currently ShareSpell has a 112,000+ word dictionary, and you have the
option of adding words that you use all the time such as your name and
words specific to your field of writing.
ShareSpell is a shareware product. It is not "freeware" or public
domain. If you use ShareSpell, you are expected to pay for it just
like any other program. In return for the $20 registration fee, you
will receive the latest version of the program and the newest
dictionary on either a 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" disk (whichever you prefer).
FILE LIST
ShareSpell comes with the following files:
SS.EXE The ShareSpell Program.
SS.DOC This manual.
ACROP.DIC The dictionary containing all the words.
SS211.NEW New features / bug fixes for ShareSpell.
DICMAN.EXE Dictionary Manager utility.
DICMAN.DOC Documentation for Dictionary Manager.
DICMAN13.NEW New features / bug fixes for Dictionary Manager.
It you give copies of this program away you MUST include all seven
files in their original form. Distribution with one or more of
the files missing or altered in anyway is strictly prohibited.
REQUIREMENTS
The minimum system requirements to run ShareSpell are:
256K of RAM
1 Floppy disk drive
MSDOS/PCDOS version 2.1 or higher
A hard drive or two floppy drives are recommended. A single drive
system leaves very little room for storage of the file to be checked
and its backup.
If using a 256K RAM system MSDOS/PCDOS version 2.1 is recommended.
It allows more memory so that ShareSpell can check the spelling of
larger documents.
Page 2
INSTALLATION
Single Disk Drive System Installation
It is possible to use ShareSpell on a single-drive system, though
it will require a little more work from you and it limits the
size of the file that you can check. Further, you will not be able
to use Dictionary Manager to alter your dictionary, since a single
drive system has too little disk space.
Format a floppy disk and copy the files SS.EXE and ACROP.DIC to
it. It will be your working ShareSpell disk. Here is how to do it:
Have a blank disk ready and start up your computer with a DOS
disk in the disk drive. Type the following:
FORMAT A:
When asked to insert a blank disk in drive A: take out your DOS
disk and insert the blank disk that will be you ShareSpell working
disk. When the formatting is done, place your master ShareSpell
disk in drive A: and type the following:
COPY SS.EXE B:
When asked to insert the disk in drive B: take the master ShareSpell
disk out of your disk drive and insert the ShareSpell working disk.
If asked to insert the disk in drive A: take out the ShareSpell
working disk and insert the ShareSpell master disk. Continue doing
so until you are returned to the A> prompt. Now with your
ShareSpell master disk in drive A: type:
COPY ACROP.DIC B:
Follow the same procedure outlined above inserting your ShareSpell
working disk in your drive when asked to insert the disk in drive
B: and inserting your ShareSpell master disk in your drive when
asked to put a disk in drive A:. You now have a ShareSpell working
disk. Put your master ShareSpell disk away in a safe place so that
if something happens to your working disk you can make a new copy by
following the steps outlined above.
To check the spelling of a file, you must copy the file to the
ShareSpell working disk first. For example you want to check the
spelling of a file named LETTER.TXT. First place the disk with
the LETTER.TXT file on it in your disk drive and then type:
COPY A:LETTER.TXT B:
Don't worry that you do not have a B: drive, MSDOS will read the
file into memory and ask you to insert the destination disk in
drive B:. Take the disk with your file on it out of drive,
insert the ShareSpell working disk and press the RETURN key.
LETTER.TXT will be copied to the ShareSpell disk. Now you can type
SS to start ShareSpell and check the spelling of your document.
Page 3
There are three things to remember when using ShareSpell on a
single-drive system. First, you will have to copy the corrected
document back to the disk that you copied it from. Second, the
amount of space on the ShareSpell disk is limited. You must delete
the files that you have been checking when you are finished with
them, or you will run out of room on the ShareSpell work disk.
Third, since ShareSpell places a backup copy of the checked file
on the disk you can only check files that are half the size of the
amount of free space on your ShareSpell disk.
Two Disk Drive System Installation
Setting up ShareSpell on a two disk drive system is easy. Start
up you computer with a DOS disk in drive A:. Now place a blank
disk in drive B: and type:
FORMAT B:
When the formatting is finished, replace the DOS disk in drive A:
with your ShareSpell master disk and type the following commands:
COPY SS.EXE B:
COPY ACROP.DIC B:
COPY DICMAN.EXE B:
You now have a ShareSpell working disk in drive B:. Put your master
ShareSpell disk away in a safe place so that if something happens to
your working disk you can make a new copy by repeating the steps
above. To run ShareSpell, place the ShareSpell working disk in drive
A: and place the disk with the document you want to check the spelling
of in disk drive B: type SS to start ShareSpell. When asked for the
name of the file to check type B: and the name of the file you wish
to correct. An example would be B:LETTER.TXT.
Hard Drive System Installation
To install ShareSpell on your hard drive you can do one of two things.
Install it into the subdirectory that holds your MSDOS/PCDOS external
commands or install it into it's own subdirectory. Installing it in
the MSDOS command directory is the easiest and most convenient.
Most people with hard drives have a subdirectory called DOS, MSDOS,
PCDOS, BIN, UTILITY, or something similar that they use to store
the external commands for DOS (i.e. FORMAT, CHKDSK and so on) and
other utilities. It usually already has the PATH set up to search
it. If that is how you have your hard drive set up, just copy the
following files into your directory and ShareSpell is ready to use.
Copy -> SS.EXE
ACROP.DIC
DICMAN.EXE
If you do not have your external commands in the path or you do
not wish to add ShareSpell into your DOS directory, you can make
a subdirectory just for ShareSpell. Call it whatever you like. It
doesn't matter to ShareSpell.
Page 4
Monitor Configuration
You can now configure ShareSpell to display in monochrome mode
even on a color monitor. To do so when you start ShareSpell up
give it a command line parameter of -m. You only have to do that
the first time, after that it will remain in monochrome mode each
time you run the program again, provided that it could create the
configuration file. If you want to switch it back to color mode
use the -c command line parameter. When you use either of those
commands ShareSpell will create a file called SS.CFG that stores
the display type that you wish to use. It will be placed wherever
it finds the dictionary file "ACROP.DIC" so if you move the
dictionary to a different place remember to move the "SS.CFG" file
along with it. If you do not specify an option on the command line
ShareSpell will continue to use whatever display type it finds.
And of course you cannot specify a color display when you only have
a monochrome monitor.
Examples:
SS -m
SS -c myfile.txt
SS thefile.asc -m
Page 5
You can either change to the directory that ShareSpell is in to use
it, or you can add/change the PATH command in you AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
By doing so you can use ShareSpell from anywhere (i.e. in your word
processor's subdirectory, from a floppy...). Assuming you called
the subdirectory that you copied ShareSpell into SPELL on your C:
drive, use a text editor and add the following line to your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
PATH=C:\SPELL
It you call the directory something else or place it on a different
hard drive, change the name of the drive and subdirectory
accordingly. If you already had a PATH command in your subdirectory,
add the ShareSpell directory by separating it from the other
directories with a semicolon:
PATH=C:\MSDOS;C:\TURBO;C:\SPELL
Once you have rebooted the system so that the ShareSpell subdirectory
is added to the path, you can use both ShareSpell and the Dictionary
Manager from any subdirectory.
HOW TO USE SHARESPELL
To use ShareSpell all you need is the file that you want to check the
spelling of and, of course, the ShareSpell program and dictionary.
Type SS and then press the <RETURN> key. ShareSpell will start up and
display its opening screen. You can use the arrow keys to move around
the screen and select the file of which you want to check the spelling.
To select the file move to it and press the <RETURN> key. Some of the
file names really aren't files, but directories. The files that have
<DIR> after their name instead of the file size are subdirectories in
the current directory you are in. There also can be one other special
file name on the list ".." with the word "PARENT" after it. If you
select that file you will be taken to the directory that contains the
subdirectory you are in. The only directory that will not have a
parent is the root directory of the disk (either hard disk or floppy).
If you decide not to check a document just press the <ESC> key and you
will be exited from ShareSpell.
ShareSpell now scans your document file looking for all of the unique
words and then checks the list of words to see if there are any
misspelled words. If there are any misspellings ShareSpell will
start displaying your file stopping to show you the incorrect words.
When ShareSpell finds a word that it does not like it, will stop and
search the dictionary to find a list of words that it thinks you might
have wanted to use instead of the current word. On the lower right
side of the screen it will display the list of suggested words.
To the left of that you will see the list of available commands, and
just above that you will see the word that it does not like. After
the list is displayed, you can use the following keys to make changes
to the word. Before the list of suggestions is display you can also
use any of these commands, and ShareSpell will quit the search for
suggestions and display the list of alternative words that is has
found so far.
Page 6
At this point you can use the up and down arrow keys to move through
the list of suggested spellings. Use them to select the one that you
wish to choose. Pressing the <RETURN> key will replace the
currently misspelled word with the highlighted word. The empty word
at the top is a special location; If the highlight bar is on it when
you press the <RETURN> key, the current word will be skipped and not
replaced. If you wish to ignore all following occurrences of that word
in the document press the <ESC> key.
One of your other options is to correct the word manually. When you
press either the left arrow, right arrow, or backspace, you will see
the cursor move over to the suspected word window. Now you can use
the arrow keys to move around in the word and the <DEL> and
<BACKSPACE> key to correct the spelling manually. Once you press
<RETURN>, the corrected word will replace the misspelling in the text.
Before doing the replacement, however, ShareSpell will check to see if
the word that results from your changes is in the dictionary. If it
is not, it will ask you if you really want to make the replacement.
If you answer <N>o you will be back to editing the word. A response of
<Y>es will cause the word to replace the one in the document file. If
you decide that you do not want to correct the word manually use the
up or down arrow to move back to the suggestion list. Alternatively
you can press any of the other command keys to perform that command
instead of the manual correction.
Pressing the <F8> key will cause ShareSpell to add that word to its
dictionary. From that point on that word will not be flagged as
misspelled. If at a later date you decide that you did not want the
added word in the dictionary you can use the Dictionary Manager utility
to remove it from the dictionary.
Pressing the <F7> key will cause ShareSpell to mark the word in the
file for you by placing a '@' character before it and before all
further occurrences of that word in the document. The main use for
this is for cases where you think the word may be spelled correctly,
but do not have a dictionary at hand to check it. Later, you can use
your word processor to find all the marked words by having it search
for the '@' character.
To quit ShareSpell just press the <F10> key. If you have made any
changes to the document, it will ask if you want to save those changes
before quitting ShareSpell. If you answer <Y>es the updated file will
be written to disk in place of the old version and the old version will
be saved with a .BAK extension. If you answer <N>o the file will
remain as it was before you started ShareSpell.
Page 7
QUICK REFERENCE
Starting ShareSpell:
At the DOS Prompt type one or the following:
SS or SS filename
Starting ShareSpell without a file name will make it prompt you
for the name of the file to spell check. Otherwise, it will spell
check the file you specify. If the file does not exist, you will
be told so and asked for a new file name. Pressing the <ESC> key
will exit you immediately from ShareSpell.
ShareSpell will scan through the file until it finds a word that it
thinks is misspelled. It will than give you a list of possible
correct spellings. At that point you can press one of the following
keys:
<RETURN>
To accept the word as is and continue.
<ESC>
To ignore the word in the document. This is useful for words such
as proper names that you know are spelled correctly, but do not
want to add to the dictionary.
<F7>
Mark and ignore the word. Place a "@" in front of the word and
all later occurrences of it so that you can find it later with your
word processor.
<F8>
To add the current word to the dictionary. Good words to add are
things such as your name or other proper nouns that you use often.
<UP ARROW>
<DOWN ARROW>
To select one of the alternative spellings. When the word you want
to replace the misspelled word with is highlighted press the
<RETURN> key and it will be replaced.
<LEFT ARROW>
<RIGHT ARROW>
To correct the current word manually. After you press one of the
arrow keys you can use the <DEL>, <BACKSPACE>, and arrow keys to
edit the misspelling. When you have it corrected, press the
<RETURN> key to replace it in the document. Otherwise pressing
the up or down arrow will bring you back to the list of suggestions.
<F10>
Quit ShareSpell. If you have made any changes ShareSpell will ask
if you want to save the changes made so far.
Use the selected keys until you have corrected all of the document and
ShareSpell ends or until you end ShareSpell with the <F10> key.
Page 8
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
If you have any questions or comments I can be reached through the
U.S. Mail at:
Acropolis Software
P.O. Box 5037
Fair Oaks, CA 95628
Or electronically:
On CompuServe by sending EasyPlex mail to 75146.3471
Page 9
REGISTRATION
As the name implies it is a shareware product. This is not a demo or
crippled version of ShareSpell, but a full working version as all the
earlier releases have been. If you use ShareSpell, I ask you to send
$20 to Acropolis Software to register your copy in return you will
receive a disk containing the latest version of both the program and
the dictionary. When you register your copy of ShareSpell, please use
the order form below. If you do not use the form, please specify that
you are registering ShareSpell and indicate your preferred disk format
(5 1/4" or 3 1/2").
Purchases of 10 or more copies will receive a site license package
with consists of a master copy of the latest version and an agreement
that you can make the specified number of copies. Site license are
charged $10.00 per copy they wish to make.
The spell checking technology is also available for purchase. Contact
me for more information.
_______________________________________________________________________
Registration / Order Form
Name : __________________________
Company : __________________________
Address : __________________________
__________________________
City/State : __________________________
Zip Code : __________________________
(Optional)
Phone : __________________________
Basic registration (less than 10 copies) : $20 x ___ = $ ______
Site license registration (10 or more copies) : $10 x ___ = $ ______
** California residents please add sales tax. **
Disk Format: 5 1/4" ___ 3 1/2" ___
The product being registered is ShareSpell v2.3.
You will receive a registered copy of the latest version of ShareSpell
without the shareware screen at the end, the latest dictionary and
related utilities.
Send check or money order to:
Acropolis Software
P.O. Box 5037
Fair Oaks, CA 95628
