max 1KB size for CUSTOM.DIC

Lil · Guest

Dear people:

Since one or two months I've been experiencing an annoying trouble in my
CUSTOM.DIC. I have MS Office 2003 on XP, and I use it a lot to write
technical reports for my job and university. So I wrote many entries in
my own dictionary (called then BioChem.dic), but never as many as 5.000
(which is the maximum size, as far as I know after visiting in some
troubleshooting forums). One day, after adding a new entry, all
dictionary, everyone of the approx. 300 entries, disappeared. I was not even
able to restore using restoration tools, like Handy Recovery or so. I
definitely lost
that dictionary.

I've tried several ways to fix this recurrent problem. Note that:
- I did not installed anything new.
- I have my PC up to date and with no malware at all that could be
corrupting my dict.
- I have already tried to re-install and repair all MS Office: first
"detecting and repairing", later reinstalling it from the beginning.
- I have already tried the posted solution consisting in renaming
MSSPELL3.DLL to MSSPELL3.OLD ... and the rest of the solution steps
[published in MS official page].
- I have already changed the default dictionary language.
- I have already changed the path where MS Office saves and reads the
dictionaries.
In my case, it was in: C:\Documents and
Settings\_MYUSERNAME_\ConfiguraciÃ³n local\Datos de
programa\Microsoft\Proof
(which in Spanish stands for: C:\Documents and
Settings\_MYUSERNAME_\Local\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof )

I then placed the dict (and told Word to do so) to the following
independent-of-user directory:
C:\Archivos de programa\Archivos comunes\Microsoft Shared\PROOF
(in Spanish that stands for C:\Program Files\Common Files\MS Shared\Proof)

- I tried everything: adding one word, erasing it, editing the ___.dic
(CUSTOM.DIC, PERSONAL.DIC, WHATEVER.DIC...)
in Notepad, in Wordpad,
via Word application, and also via Power Point,

- I tried erasing every dic and then restore them, ... almost every
"trivial" solution in my hands and capabilities, and also every suggest
found in the web, in wiki, in google, in your forums, in MS support
page... result: NOTHING. All the entries disappear after adding the 21st
(or 23rd... really unpredictable) word.

I explain in detail the strange behaviour I detected:
For some reason, now, my *.dic (no matter the name; custom.dic or any
other one) cannot hold more than 20-25 entries... and the longer are
the words, then, when adding a new one, the earlier it eliminates
everything. I have a hypothesis, but no idea on how to solve it (or even
if it is true). I think that, fore some unknown reason, my dict has a
minimum size established somewhere else (not in Word; maybe in the
Win Registry? not in normal.dot, as far as I know) of about 1KB (and... why
so little? if it were at least 64 KB, as it should be, I could hold a
"respectable amount of entries" dict).
So, after adding the first 10-15 words, depending on the length (if
they're short --2 letters-- I guess I can add 100 entries). Then, when it is
reaching
the maximum size limit, suddenly, (some times with an error msg,
sometimes WITHOUT warning msg), the whole wordslist disappear. As if it had
never existed. No tracks. Nothing.

And this "erased file" it's "unrestorable" (I mean, one can erase files,
but then use a restoration utility that totally or partially recovers
the file).

No matter if I hide the folder containing it (changing its folder
attributes), no matter if I set the dict file as read-only (in this case, the
dict would be static and its functionality, quite limited).

I wouldn't be writing to you if I hadn't search by myself long enough...
but at this moment it seems impossible to me. And (i know it is not of
your matters), but I have to submit an important paper for my research
group and also for a University Proffessor... and having a dict is quite
effective for that kind of technical texts. Hummm... it is essential.

The only relevant issues I found on the web that are related with this
specific behavior are the following. One person who referred the same
problem as me, much more synthetic, I recognize Smile

____________

Google · Sponsor

hennie · Guest

I am not sure what to make of your persent problem and do not have a
solution to the problem. What I do have is a way for you to create an
new custom dictionary. It may take a little work but I do believe it
will be quicker than adding one word at a time. This method captures
all the words and not only your technical words. Afterwards you may
want to remove the common everyday words by deleting them in the
dictionary file. Word 2002 and upwards do not have a limit on the total
of words you can store in the dictionary. Try the method I suggest
below to build your new custom file. I assume you have several
documents that may be fairly large and you know the words are correct.
Depending on the size I would suggest you combine it all into one file.
This was originally written for a manual.
Copy or save it to one file only, as it will ease the operation that is
to follow. Glance through the file and get an idea of the type of
characters to remove. The following characters that must be replaced
will include a full stop or period, coma, !, ~, “,’,” -, &, *, %, #, @,
(, ) and any other character that is not part of a word. Take care when
replacing a hyphen, and a “ ‘ “ that may be used as in “can’t”.
Before you proceed to replace the characters open a new custom
dictionary. Go to Options\Spelling and Grammar\Dictionaries\New. Name
the dictionary and take note where it is saved, as you will need too
open the new dictionary in NotePad/WordPad. If you want to use this
dictionary as your default dictionary now is the time to set it. Click
OK and return to your document.
To create your word list go to Edit\Find and Replace\Replace. The first
item replaced is the white space between each word and is replaced with
a paragraph. This will force each word to be on a separate line. To be
able to do that go to Find what and press the spacebar once or click on
More\Special and find at the bottom of the list White space.

--
hennie

Lil · Guest

Hi, hennie:

Thanks a lot for answering and for your nice suggestions to make a new
custom.dic. It's a very intelligent and efficient way to create it! In fact,
I think I will use it when I have fixed the error.

The problem now is that if I create a new one, even if it starts directly
with hundreds or thousands of entries, when Word uses it adding a new Word.
It would be useless as a custom.dic if I cannot update it every time I use a
new word; you can't imagine how frequently that occurs when writing on some
issues, as Molecular Biology.

Otherwise, I would have an extensive dictionary, but completely static.

I have been thinking about the problem and... does anyone know if the cause
could be having installed several IME Keyboard configurations? I have done so
(Japanese, Chinese and more), and, considering that the "character
repertoire" of these languages is much bigger than the latin ones, could it
(I don't know, I am just guessing; I can't stand lacking explanations) be
possible that, whenever I edit my custom.dic (even using only the spanish
configuration), the system would consider that I am "overloading" it with too
many bytes (every single character then would have a "bigger information
content" since the total repertoire is much more extensive) and that would be
the reason for erasing all the previous words?

hmm... I don't feel this is the reason (and I hope not, of course), but I
dont' have anything better...

Of course, as soon as I get the solution, I'll post it here. And then I'll
use the "hennie's-not-patented-way-to-create-dicts". :-)

Thank you!

"hennie" wrote:

hennie · Guest

Hi Lil

I hope it will work for you and get much joy from using it. It should
not take long to create one and remember not to replace a symbol that
may be part of a word.

Good luck in finding a solution to your problem.

Have you moved to a different computer to check if you have the same
problem?

Hennie

--
hennie

Lil · Guest

Hi, Hennie...

In other computers I don't experience this problem... Even if I install
there chinese and japanese IME keyboards, my CUSTOM.DIC in other computers
seems perfectly normal (64 KB size, and not the strange, or not so strange,
erasing-all-entries-behavior)

I really wonder what's up with it

"hennie" wrote:

hennie · Guest

Hi Lil,

I still do not know what to do about your problem. You could try one
of two things although the first I do not think will do anything. It is
the easiest. Rename you Normal.dot file and close and open word to
create a new one. Check if anything else has changed. Change it back
to the original if nothing changed or move some special formating to the
new one if it solved the problem.

Check if the problem is only focused to Word and not to any other
Office application. If it is only Word remove it from your PC by
downloading this program that would remove more than the normal
Add/Remove function. *WindowsInstallerCleanUp*. Reload Word again and
see if that has solved your problem.

Good luck.

Hennie
Lil;8068939 Wrote:

Lil · Guest

thank you again, hennie!
I already tried changing Normal.dot, but not the rest of your solution.
maybe it will work. But the problem is NOT restricted to Word... it affects
all MS Office applications...

BTW, today I thought a new one... but didn't try it yet, cause I'm not
sure...
In REGEDIT:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Open Find\Microsoft
Office Word\Settings\Agregar diccionario â€Žpersonalizado

(add custom dic)
there are some "fields" where the entry "Maximum Entries" can be modified. I
had the MaximumEntries value established to "hexadecimal value: a" (decimal:
10); changing it to a number as 100 or 1000 could work.

Anyway, I'm not sure of what of the fields or tags (don't know how to call
it) modify without crashing my system... I'll keep trying and then I'll tell
you.

thanx again! Smile

"hennie" wrote: