Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
I’ll admit it. I’m not the world’s greatest typist. In fact, I fall somewhere in the range of bad. I never learned standard touch-typing, and at my age, there is little sense in trying to retrain digits to do anything different than what they have picked up through years of repetition. Believe me, I have tried. Learning touch-typing slows me down to the point that I get frustrated and give up. As long as I don’t have to copy from a page, I do okay. I just copy from the text in my head. With that being said, I’m happy for the tools in LibreOffice that make my task a little easier, spell check and AutoCorrect. I misspell more words because I have fumbling fingers than I do because I’m not sure of the spelling. Spell check can mark these fumbling mistakes, but AutoCorrect actually corrects some of the more common ones. The options for AutoCorrect are many, so let’s take a look and see what it can do for us. To open the AutoCorrect dialog, Tools > AutoCorrect Options.
Replace Tab The Replace tab of the AutoCorrect dialog contains a table of replacement text and symbols. I did explore the list as there are many interesting replacements for symbols, Greek letters, and common fractions. The symbols are created by enclosing the text between colons (:). And while being able to generate these symbols, letters, and fractions is cool, it doesn’t solve the mistyping problem. Once I got past the colon bracketed replacements, I found the spelling corrections. When AutoCorrect is on and I mistype the word as it appears in the Replace column, it is replaced by the entry in the With column. The program comes loaded with many of the common finger-fumbling misspellings out there. It’s like magic when I see it happen. I can also add my own. I just type my common misspelling in the Replace text box, the correct spelling in the With box, and click on the Add button.
Exceptions Tab The Exceptions tab is for setting exceptions to two of the AutoCorrect rules (see Options tab later). The two rules are: 1. Capitalize the first letter of every sentence, and 2. Correct two initial capitals in a word. These two rules are great for fumbling fingers, but get in the way when you actually need two initial capitals (CDs) or to use abbreviations. The Abbreviations box lists the abbreviations already in the system. This allows the system to see them as abbreviations rather than the end of a sentence. Enter a new abbreviation in the text box above the list, and click the New button to add an abbreviation. Select an abbreviation from the list, and click the Delete button to remove it from the list. The Words With Two Initial Capitals box lists the words with two initial capitals already in the system. I can add and delete them just like the abbreviations. The two Autoinclude check boxes allow me to automatically add new abbreviations and words with two initial capitals when I force the issue in my document. To force the addition after LibreOffice has “corrected” the mistake, I go back and undo the correction. When LibreOffice sees me force this correction, it will add the change to the appropriate list. Autoinclude is only active when the two rules in question are activated.
Options Tab The Options tab is where I find the settings for AutoCorrect. There are two columns of checkboxes in the tab. They are labeled M and T. M is for the actions being active when I'm Modifying existing text, and T is actions active when AutoCorrect While Typing is active. Turn on AutoCorrect While Typing at Format > AutoCorrect > While Typing. Here I found the options for the two capitals and start every sentence with a capital. I found an option about whether or not to use the replacement table from the Replace tab. There's an option for controlling whether or not double-dashes get converted to em-dashes. A very handy option that automatically corrects those times when you accidentally press the caps lock key (I knew someone who removed their caps lock key because they kept turning it on by accident). One more fumble-fingers saving setting in AutoCorrect. Rather than boring you with the detailed list of all the options, here's a link to all the options https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Options_3. Just for your information, I just unchecked the URL option in order to paste in that link without LibreOffice automatically turning it into a link.
Localized Options Tab The localized settings are more specific to how I want things done according to my language and location. Just like the Options tab, it has two columns for the settings, M for corrections while modifying text, and T for modifying while typing. The Add non-breaking space before specific punctuation marks in French text puts a space before “;”, “!”, “?”, and “%” when the character language is set to French (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, or Switzerland). If the character language is set to French (Canada), it adds a space before “:” as well. The Format ordinal number suffixes (1st .. 1^st) formats the ordinals such as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd as superscripts. This applies only to languages like English that use superscription for ordinal suffixes. The bottom half of the tab has to do with single and double quotation marks. If I check Replace, the standard straight quotes are replaced by the curly quote marks by default. I can also click on the Start Quote and End Quote character boxes to bring up a font character table where I can select the character to use for opening and closing quotes. Click the default button to return them to their defaults.
Word Completion Tab The Word Completion feature is a system of collecting words from a document while I'm typing that are over a minimum length and prompting me with the replacement to complete the word quicker. This is especially handy when I repeatedly use a word that is long and complicated to spell. Instead of typing out the whole word, I can use the accept key to insert the word that appears in the tip box. The left-hand side of the tab shows a list of words the program has collected from my documents. To remove any of the entries, I select the entry and click the Delete Entry button at the bottom of the list. I’ve never felt a need to remove entries from this list, but you might have a word you want to expunge from the list for whatever reason. The option is there should you choose to use it. On the right-hand side of the tab are the options for controlling if and how word completion works. Enable word completion allows me to enable and disable the word completion feature. Append space will add a space at the end of the word after I accept it. I usually leave this disabled as it means hitting the backspace to make a noun plural by adding “s” or “es”, or a verb past tense by adding “ed”. If I check Show as tip, a tip balloon with the replacement word will pop up over the word I'm typing. If unchecked, the replacement word shows inline with my typing. Collect Words allows me to enable and disable the collection of new words. I also have a checkbox for removing words collected from the current document when I close the document. If I purged the list and turned this feature on, then I would see only replacement words related to the currently open documents.
The Accept With setting tells LibreOffice which key will accept the suggested word completion. I can chose from End, Enter, Space, Right or Tab. I prefer the default Enter. Space has gotten me into trouble. For example, I want to type computer and Writer is suggesting computers. When I press the spacebar to create the next word, I get computers when I wanted computer. So, I stay away from Space as the accept key. Enter works for me, but whichever works best for you is your choice. The default minimum word length is set to 8. If you use a lot of sesquipedalian words, you might want to increase it, but I wouldn't go any lower than 8. The default maximum entries threshold is 1,000. I can see decreasing the threshold, but I can't see going much higher. Too high and you run the risk of bogging the program down. One last note on Word Completion. When I start to type a word, the word suggested is not always the one I want. If I think the word I want is in the completion table, I can use the CTRL-TAB key combination to scroll through the list. To scroll back I use the CTRL-SHIFT-TAB combination. For fumble-fingers like myself, AutoCorrect is a time saver. It corrects my typing mistakes on the spot. But AutoCorrect does so much more, providing me with ways to insert symbols without hunting through a character chart and control the way ordinal numbers display, and the word completion feature can speed things along on those new, long complicated words. And it’s all adjustable to suit my needs, whatever they are.