Hack 61 Adding a Little Google to Your Word
 
Use Google with Microsoft Word for better
spelling suggestions than the traditional dictionary.
Some of the hacks we cover in this book are very useful, some are
weird, and some of them are not exactly useful but have a definite
cool factor. The first version of CapeSpeller (http://www.capescience.com/google/spell.shtml)
fit into that last category. Send a word via email and receive a
spelling suggestion in return.
While cool, there weren't many scenarios where
you'd absolutely need to use it. But the newer
version of CapeSpeller is far more useful;
it's now designed to integrate with Microsoft Word
and provide spelling suggestions powered by Google as an alternative
to the standard Word/Office dictionary.
Now, why in the world would you want another spellchecker in Word?
Doesn't it already have a rather good one? Indeed it
does, but it employs a traditional dictionary, which falls over when
faced with certain proper nouns, jargon, and acronyms.
Google's dictionary [Hack #16] is chock-full of these
sorts of up-to-the-minute, hip, and non-traditional suggestions.
61.1 Using CapeSpeller
There are several steps to acquiring and installing CapeSpeller.
First, you'll need to have the Microsoft SOAP
Toolkit installed (http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/code/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/001/580/msdncompositedoc.xml).
It's a fairly small download but may take a little
wrangling to get squared away. You must be running Internet Explorer
5 or later. You may also have to update your Windows Installer
depending on what version of Windows you're using.
The CapeSpeller site (http://www.capescience.com/google/spell.shtml)
provides more details.
Once you've got the SOAP toolkit squared away,
you'll have to get two code items from CapeScience.
The first is a zipped executable that's available
from http://www.capescience.com/google/download/CapeSpeller.zip.
Download that one, unzip it, and run the executable.
After you've downloaded and installed the
executable, download the source code. The source code contains a
place for you to copy and paste your API. Unless
you've got a legit developer's key
there, you won't be able to get spelling suggestions
from Google.
The final thing you'll need to do to get CapeSpeller
to work with Word is to set up a macro. CapeScience offers
instructions for setting up a spellcheck macro at http://www.capescience.com/google/spelltoword.shtml.
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