Check Spelling

David Sweet

Salma Sultana

T.C. Hollingsworth

Sonnet is the spelling checker used by KDE applications such as Kate, KMail, and KWord. It is a GUI frontend to various free spell checkers.

To use Sonnet you need to install a spell checker like GNU Aspell, Enchant, Hspell, ISpell or Hunspell and additionally the corresponding dictionaries for the languages that you wish to use.

Check Spelling


The Check spelling window.

Correcting a misspelling.


To check spelling, go to ToolsSpelling....

If a word is possibly misspelled in your document, it is displayed in the top line in the dialog. Sonnet tries to appropriate word(s) for replacement. The best guess is displayed to the right of Replace with. To accept this replacement, click on Replace.

Sonnet also allows you to select a word from the list of suggestions and replace the misspelled word with that selected word. With the help of the Suggest button, you can add more suggestions from the dictionary to the suggestions list.

Click on Ignore to keep your original spelling.

Click on Finished to stop spellchecking and keep the changes made.

Click on Cancel to stop spellchecking and cancel the changes already made.

Click on Replace All to automatically replace the misspelled word(s) with the chosen replacement word, if they appear again in your document later.

Click on Ignore All to ignore the spelling at that point and all the future occurrences of the word misspelled.

Click on Add to Dictionary to add the misspelled word to your personal dictionary.

The Personal Dictionary is a distinct dictionary from the system dictionary and the additions made by you will not be seen by others.

The drop down box Language at the bottom of this dialog allows you to switch to another dictionary temporarily.

Automatic Spell Checking

In many applications, you can automatically check spelling as you type. To enable this feature, select ToolsAutomatic Spell Checking.

Potentially misspelled words will be underlined in red. To select a suggestion, right click on the word, select the Spelling submenu, and select the suggestion. You may also instruct Sonnet to ignore this spelling for this document by selecting Ignore Word, or you may select Add to Dictionary to save it in your personal dictionary.

Configuring Sonnet

To change your dictionary, go to ToolsChange Dictionary.... A small window will appear at the bottom of the current document that will allow you to change your dictionary.

For more information on configuring Sonnet, see the Spell Checker System Settings module documentation

Thanks and Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Google Code-In 2011 Participant Salma Sultana for writing much of this section.