One almost feels that the announcement of “the first ever British English electronic spellchecker”, and one with the “unrivalled spelling authority of Oxford”, ought to commence with a regal fanfare of trumpets. Whilst the introduction of this Oxford University Press CD‐ROM is most welcome, it must be said that at the outset that it is not yet quite deserving of trumpeting.
The publishers claim that the spelling checker and dictionary “fully integrates with Microsoft Office, replacing the Microsoft default”. Spelling is checked against the 2003 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, and the spelling checker offers help to users by advising on preferred Oxford spelling, commonly confused words, and also links direct to full dictionary entries so that the user can check meanings and usage, as well as looking up words independently. The spelling checker is stated to contain more than 340,000 words, including proper names, and technical and specialist terms.
Among other system requirements the publishers claim that the system requires a minimum of a PC with Pentium 166 MHz or higher, 128 MB RAM, approximately 50 MB hard‐disk space, Windows 2000 or Windows XP, and, of course, Microsoft Office 2000/2003 or Office XP. In the unlikely event that someone is considering installing this system on an absolute minimum set‐up then it should be noted that Microsoft state (on their XP website) that Windows XP (Home or Pro) requires a 300 MHz minimum processor, and so a 166 MHz processor would not be suitable. (This point has been put to Oxford University Press, who state that they will change it on their web site and update the packaging in the next edition of the software).
Installation of the software proved to be straightforward although it should be noted that Local Administrator rights are required to install the programme and also that users of Microsoft Office XP need to temporarily lower the security settings of Word before installation in order to properly install the Spellchecker and Dictionary. Clear instructions are given in the manual which accompanies the CD‐ROM. Installation should start automatically when the CD‐ROM is inserted in the drive and following the simple on‐screen instructions given by the installation programme will result in the Oxford Spellchecker & Dictionary being installed on the PC. Finally it is necessary to open Microsoft Word and set language to English (UK). During installation, the original Microsoft files are stored in a separate folder and will be automatically restored if the Oxford Spellchecker & Dictionary is uninstalled. During installation four buttons are added to the Microsoft Word Toolbar, one to start the spellchecking, another for the “confusables” function, one to open the dictionary, and finally one to open the spellchecker and dictionary's control panel. On my PC (which is set to quite a high resolution) I did not find the symbolism of the buttons terribly clear – they all appeared slightly greyed out.
I started the spellchecker in my customary way, that is by pressing the function key F7. Now, the publishers claim in their manual and elsewhere that the spellchecker “fully integrates with Microsoft Office”, so I was somewhat surprised to find that I had started the standard Microsoft Word spelling checker, and that “the first ever British English electronic spellchecker” had failed to materialise! It seems that the publishers had not anticipated that some users might not wish to click on an icon using the mouse. (This topic will be revisited later as it is an area that challenges the desirability of this package, at least for institutional use).
The publishers state that the spellchecker “will help you to spell according to the Oxford standard”. The spelling checker works as a standard spellchecker in Microsoft Office for the English (UK) language, and is available in all Microsoft Office applications. Misspelled words in the user's document are underlined with a red squiggly line, and suggestions from the Oxford Dictionary of English are shown by clicking the right‐hand mouse button on the underlined word. By default, only “Oxford‐preferred” spellings are accepted by the Spellchecker and Dictionary, so it is important to make sure that the language of the document is set to English (UK). (This is particularly important when cutting and pasting from other documents, including the internet where Word may “think” the document is English (US)).
By clicking on the Oxford spellchecking button, checking of the document is commenced. If a spelling error is encountered, a window is opened and the user is prompted to make corrections to misspelled words. This is the familiar ground of the user being able to select one of the suggestions given by the spelling checker, or type their own revision in the text box. The spellchecker window contains buttons that give various options. Like the Microsoft spellchecker, the user can change all occurrences of the current misspelling in the document to the selected suggestion or put in their own revision. The user can add a word to the custom dictionary. Definitions of the listed suggestions can be checked in the Oxford Dictionary of English by selecting the suggestion and clicking the Look up in Dictionary button.
The Oxford Spellchecker & Dictionary can advise the user on confusable words used in a document. “Confusables” are words that sound the same while having a different spelling, for example “principle” and “principal”, or “stationary” and “stationery“. It is necessary for the user to switch on confusables, as this function is switched off by default. The Dictionary part of the programme includes definitions, usage examples, pronunciation, phrases, and etymological information. When the cursor is placed within a word, the dictionary displays that word and its definition. It is also possible to look up the definition of a suggestion by clicking the Look up in Dictionary button or by typing it in the upper text box. A word list will automatically move to the nearest match and highlight it. Users also have the opportunity of selecting the “Oxford‐preferred” spelling, where colour is accepted and color is rejected, and adrenalin is accepted and adrenaline is rejected.
An electronic Help file, which can be accessed by clicking the Help button or by pressing F1 from within the application window, is provided. The information here is identical to that included in the comprehensive manual which is enclosed with the package in printed form. The only disadvantage in the printed manual is that the illustrations of buttons and icons are too small (for my eyes) to make them out properly. There are a few instances in the package of grey text appearing against the same dark blue background and users with a visual disability may find this difficult to read. Unfortunately the publishers say that they are not intending to make any change in this area.
The Oxford Spellchecker & Dictionary is reasonably simple to install and use. However, institutional users will need to consider carefully whether this version of the package is entirely suitable, as it would appear to fail in terms of accessibility. Users of Microsoft Word will be aware that they can, if they wish, access every function of Word by using key combinations (such as Control+S to save, ALT+E to access the Edit Menu, etc.) and without using a mouse. This facility is particularly important for users with a motor disability. The publishers claim that the Spellchecker and Dictionary “fully integrates with Microsoft Office”, but unfortunately in this area it certainly does not do so. Every function of the package has to be accessed via the mouse. This issue was taken up with the publishers who state that it is on the list of improvements currently under review for the next version. They go on to say that the actual words the document is being checked against is the Oxford Spellechecker Dictionary and not the Microsoft one because the Microsoft file has been replaced. Therefore, if the user calls up the spellchecker in the conventional way, including pressing F7, it is still the Oxford Spellchecker Dictionary that is being used, although of course, the user still cannot access the dictionary definitions without the mouse click, so this is not a solution to the keyboard shortcuts problem.
Oxford University Press has produced a most welcome enhancement to Microsoft Word, at a reasonable price, but institutional users are advised to wait for version 2 when it is hoped that the accessibility issues will have been resolved, and the Oxford Spellchecker & Dictionary will be truly deserving of a fanfare of trumpets.
