JOrtho - a Java spell-checking library

JOrtho (Java Orthography) is a Open Source spell-checker entirely written in Java. Its dictionaries are based on the free Wiktionary project and can therefore be updated for virtually any language. The library works with any JTextComponent from the Swing framework. This includes JTextPane, JEditorPane and JTextArea.

Table of Contents

• Features
• System Requirements
• What it looks like
• Download
• Licensing
• FAQ
• Creating Dictionaries
• Changes

Features

What does the library do when it is bound to a JTextComponent?

• highlight the potentially wrongly spelled word
• offer a context menu with suggestions for a correct form of the word
• context menu with options to change the checking language
• dialog (when pressing F7 key) to continuously spell check the text
• user-defined dictionary for words that are not in the global one (this is an option that appears inside the continuous checking dialog)
• translated spell checker GUI so users will see buttons and labels in the language of the current locale
• standalone API, no server is required but applets are possible, see the sample.
• detects capitalization errors
• enable or disable each feature separately

System Requirements

JOrtho has the following requirements to run smoothly:

• Java 5 or higher
• 2 - 5 MB free memory in the JavaVM (depending on the dictionary)

What it looks like

There is a small live sample applet of JOrtho where you can test the spelling of a text. You can freely modify this text to get an impression of JOrtho in action.

Download

The free tool and the dictionaries can be downloaded at .

The API is available here. You may also view a live sample.

Licensing

JOrtho is published under the GNU General Public License (GPL) for inclusion in programs published under a compatible open-source license. If you want to use JOrtho in a commercial product then you can order it in our shop.

If you have further questions on licensing, please contact: Sales@inetsoftware.de

FAQ

Which languages are supported by JOrtho?

Please have look at the download area at SourceForge.

JOrtho does not support my language. How can I add a language?

• Have a look at the Wiktionary project for your language. There should be at minimum 50.000 entries.
• Translate the resource file of JOrtho into your language and send it to us.
• Help us on parsing the Wiktionary for your language. We will have some questions to the language dependent format of the flexion (i.e. the various grammatical forms of words).

Where can I get support for this tool?

• For the GPL license, support is available on .
• For the commercial license, support is available via e-mail.
• For any other questions, please contact us.

Some important words are missing in the dictionary. How can I add them?

Look in the Wiktionary for your language. If the word is missing, then add it. If the word exists, then look at how recent the entry was added/created. We will be creating new dictionaries periodically. It could also be that JOrtho is incorrectly parsing the entry. In this case, please let us know.

Who is responsible for JOrtho?

JOrtho is an Open Source project of i-net software

Creating Dictionaries

File Format

The dictionaries files are a list of words. Every word is saved in a separate line. The word list is saved in UTF8 encoding. The resulting file is compressed with gzip.

Generate dictionaries from Wiktionary

The dictionaries are based on the Wiktionary dictionaries. This is a step by step description how you can generate a new dictionary version.

1. Download the data from Wiktionary. The file for the English language is http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiktionary/latest/enwiktionary-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2 Replace the red part with your language. Some languages also require the data of the English Wiktionary (currently Polish and Arabic)
2. Extract the XML file from the archive
3. Download or check out the sources of JOrtho and compile it.
4. Execute the command
   java -Xmx256M com.inet.jorthodictionaries.BookGenerator en <wiktionary folder>
   Replace the red part with your language.

Changes

Changes in Version 0.1 (2007-12-13)

• This was the initial public version.

Changes in Version 0.2 (2008-01-02)

• Threading problems fixed.
• Single characters are ignored.
• The extension for the dictionaries can be set now. This fixes a problem with unknown extensions and IIS.
• Added support for a configuration file.
• Added support for formatted text.
• Improved suggestion list.
• Added a reference implementation for UserDictionaryProvider.
• Added an editor for the user dictionary.

Changes in Version 0.3 (2008-03-11)

• Use mouse position and not cursor position in text for suggestions.
• Added support for Escape key.
• Added alphabetical sort order in the user dictionary editor.
• Added support for setting an application name.
• Added some improvements to the user dictionary editor.
• Application sample added.
• The method SpellChecker.showSpellCheckerDialog( JTextComponent ) was added.
• Italian, Spanish, French and Russian translation added.
• Dictionaries for Italian, Spanish and French added.
• Support of capitalization improved.
• The class SpellCheckerOption added and add as optional parameter to many methods.
• A JPopupMenu with suggestion was added.

Changes in Version 0.4 (2008-12-05)

• Added an Icon for the dialogs. This only works with Java 6.
• Add the polish translation.
• The pressing of the ENTER key in text and creating a new paragraph has not handle correctly the highlight. The effect can be doubled underling.
• Email addresses and web addresses will be ignored.
• Added the options IgnoreCapitalization, IgnoreAllCapsWords and IgnoreWordsWithNumbers.
• Translations for Czech und Slovak are added.
• A memory leak in SpellChecker.createLanguagesMenu() was fixed.
• The spell checker dialog position is set relative to the visible rectangle and not the bounds rectangle.
• A possible IllegalArgumentException which could occur with the context menu if the mouse pointer was not on a valid position was fixed.

Changes in Version 0.5 (2010-06-10)

• Add the Croatian translation.
• Add the interface CustomDictionaryProvider.
• Translation for Dutch added.
• After a change in the spell checker dialog the search has continue from the wrong position if it was not the first sentence in the current paragraph.

Changes in Version 1.0 (2013-03-11)

• The method SpellChecker.isDictionaryLoaded() was added.
• The dictionary is now reloaded after deleting a word from the custom dictionary.
• Reduced the temporary memory usage on loading a dictionary. For example for the current English dictionary memory usage reduced from 47 MB to 30 MB.
• Fix a bug in the suggestion list where there are shorter words that start with the same characters.
• Translation for Danish added.
• Words ending with a period such as "etc." are checked now.
• Handle a colon like a period: the next word can start in upper case.
• Add a tool for converting a plain txt file with words to a dictionary.
• Dictionaries are searched in the classpath if there is no base URL.
• Translations for Portuguese added.
• Handle words with curly apostrophe (’) for the French wiktionary.
• Added an "about" dialog.
• Improved the parser for the Spanish dictionary.