Google Hacks

Adding a Little Google to Your Word

Use Google with Microsoft Word for better spelling suggestions than the traditional dictionary.

Some of the hacks we cover in this book are very useful, some are weird, and some of them are not exactly useful but have a definite cool factor. The first version of CapeSpeller (http://www.capescience.com/google/spell.shtml) fit into that last category. Send a word via email and receive a spelling suggestion in return.

While cool, there weren’t many scenarios where you’d absolutely need to use it. But the newer version of CapeSpeller is far more useful; it’s now designed to integrate with Microsoft Word and provide spelling suggestions powered by Google as an alternative to the standard Word/Office dictionary.

Now, why in the world would you want another spellchecker in Word? Doesn’t it already have a rather good one? Indeed it does, but it employs a traditional dictionary, which falls over when faced with certain proper nouns, jargon, and acronyms. Google’s dictionary [Hack #16] is chock-full of these sorts of up-to-the-minute, hip, and non-traditional suggestions.

Using CapeSpeller

There are several steps to acquiring and installing CapeSpeller.

1. First, you’ll need to have the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit installed (http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/code/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/001/580/msdncompositedoc.xml). It’s a fairly small download but may take a little wrangling to get squared away. You must be running Internet Explorer 5 ...