$ Linux Command

Text

ispell

Interactive spelling checker for text files.

spellcheckdictionarytextlanguage

Additional Notes

ispell is an interactive spell-checking program that scans text files for misspelled words and suggests corrections. It displays suspect words in context and provides a menu of possible corrections, allowing the user to accept, replace, or add words to a personal dictionary.

It supports multiple languages (through dictionary files), handles word boundary detection, and can check specific sections of a file. While largely superseded by aspell and hunspell on modern systems, ispell remains available and useful for checking plain text files, email, and documentation.

Syntax

ispell [options] [file...]

Parameters

  • file: Text file to check. If no file is given, checks standard input.

Common Options

  • -a: Pipe mode (used by mailers and text editors for background checking).
  • -b: Create a backup of the original file with a .bak extension.
  • -d file: Use an alternate dictionary file.
  • -l: List misspelled words (one per line) without interactive mode.
  • -p file: Specify a personal word list file.
  • -t: Treat the input as TeX or LaTeX (skip TeX commands).
  • -n: Treat the input as nroff/troff (skip formatting commands).
  • -H: Treat the input as HTML/SGML (skip tags).
  • -x: Do not create a backup file.
  • -S: Sort the output of -l before printing.
  • -w chars: Additional word-forming characters.
  • -W n: Specify the maximum word length for checking reports.
  • -T type: Assume terminal type type for display formatting.

Interactive Commands

  • R: Replace the word with a manually typed correction.
  • Space: Accept the word for this session only.
  • A: Accept the word for this session.
  • I: Accept the word and add it to the personal dictionary.
  • U: Accept the word in lowercase only.
  • L: Look up a word in the dictionary.
  • 0-9: Replace with one of the numbered suggestions.
  • E: Edit the file at the current location.
  • Q: Quit without saving.
  • X: Save the file and exit.
  • ^Z: Suspend ispell.

Examples

ispell document.txt

Check a text file interactively.

ispell -l document.txt

List all misspelled words without interactive mode.

ispell -d american-english -p ~/.ispell_words document.txt

Use a specific dictionary and personal word list.

ispell -t thesis.tex

Check a LaTeX file, skipping TeX commands.

Practical Notes

  • The personal dictionary is stored in ~/.ispell_default by default. Use -p to specify an alternate location.
  • Many editors (like Emacs) use ispell (or aspell in ispell-compatibility mode) for in-editor spell checking.
  • For modern systems, aspell and hunspell offer better dictionary support and are more actively maintained.
  • ispell expects ISO 8859-1 encoded text by default; UTF-8 support may be limited.
  • The backup file (created with -b) has a .bak extension.
  • The dictionary directory is typically /usr/lib/ispell/ or /usr/share/ispell/.