Write Your Own Dictionary

Posted by
Sharon Koss
Mar 18, 2007

Many people have their own words even though they all speak the same language. For example: accountants, computer gurus, lawyers, medical, military, police, religious people, teenagers, different industries and more.

Have you ever considered creating your own personal dictionary? A dictionary is nothing more than a list of alphabetical words, acronyms and abbreviations used to describe something. If you are a person who likes to write or does lots of typing, a personalized or business specific dictionary is the perfect thing to create for yourself and any other person in your field.

A dictionary is very easy to create, start by typing a list of the words, then alphabetize them. Select, Copy and Paste them into a Notepad document. This will remove all the formatting and the text will become plain text. Save your dictionary to C:/Documents and Settings/Your Name Directory/Application Data/Microsoft/Proof/Your new dictionary name.dic. You will see Microsoft's main dictionary "CUSTOM.DIC".

To Install Your Custom Dictionary:

Open any Word document
Click on TOOLS
Click on OPTIONS
Click on Spelling and Grammar
Under Spelling, uncheck Suggest from main dictionary only
Click on "Custom Dictionary"
Click on "Add"
Click on your dictionary
Then click on OK, then OK again and Close

Adding words to the main dictionary will work also, but having one with your name on it will impress your colleges.