Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition

Checking Spelling Using Ispell

Emacs includes two spell-checking interfaces: to the Unix spell checker, spell, and to Ispell, which many people, including us, prefer. We say "interfaces" because Emacs does not include the executables for either of these spell-checkers. Because Ispell is superior and runs on a variety of platforms, we'll cover only Ispell here. If you attempt to run Ispell and it is not available, you'll have to install it. Chapter 13 provides details on installing Ispell on Windows and on Mac OS X.

A further enhancement to Ispell is Flyspell, a command that highlights misspelled words on the fly. If you have Ispell installed, you'll have Flyspell support as well.

Checking a Buffer

Ispell includes options to check a buffer, a region, the comments in a program, or a single word. After you type the command telling Ispell what area you want to check, it works the same way for all these options. We'll describe ispell-buffer here. If all the words are spelled correctly, Ispell displays the message, Spell-checking done. If Ispell finds a misspelled word, a screen like the following appears. Let's spell-check a hastily typed passage from Homer's Odyssey.

Type: Esc x ispell-buffer Enter

Ispell finds the first unrecognized word in the buffer.

Ispell moves to the first unrecognized word, in this case a proper name correctly spelled (except for the proper accent marks). ...