Troubleshooting Spell Catcher X

The answer to your question is almost certainly in our FAQs and Knowledge Base or Technical Support Forums!

Visit these areas of our web site for the best and fastest results. We cover only the most basic issues here, as Mac OS X, and the applications you use with Spell Catcher X are constantly changing.

Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Users: Make sure you are using Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later! 10.4.3 fixed an important bug related to the Input menu.

Q: I don't see the Input menu in the menu bar.

A: Open System Preferences from the Apple menu or Dock, click on International, click the Input Menu tab. Make sure "Show Input menu in menu bar" is selected. You should see a menu appear (probably a flag icon, representing your default or chosen keyboard), in the right-hand side of the menu bar. This is known as the Input menu.

Q: I don't see Spell Catcher in the Input menu.

A: Open System Preferences from the Apple menu or Dock, click on International, click the Input Menu tab, scroll to find Spell Catcher in the list, then check the box next to Spell Catcher in the "On" column. If you pull down the Input menu, you should now see Spell Catcher as an item in it.

Q: I don't see Spell Catcher in the list in the Input Menu tab.

A: Click the Name column header to sort the list by name. Scroll down to the items beginning with "S", and look for Spell Catcher. Sometimes it's easier to find when you sort by name.

Q: I sorted by Name, looked at all the "S" items, and still don't see Spell Catcher in the list.

A: In the Spell Catcher application, choose the Spell Catcher > Preferences menu item to open Spell Catcher's Preferences window. Click the Interactive icon, and take note of what is stated at bottom of the window.

If Spell Catcher's input method is truly not installed, you will see an Install Input Method button. Click it and follow the on-screen instructions. You may have to restart before Spell Catcher's input method will be available. If Spell Catcher's input method is installed but not available, you should see a note something like:

Spell Catcher’s input method is installed, interactive features are not available.
A restart is required before you can use Spell Catcher’s input method.

You should restart if instructed to do so, then Spell Catcher's input method will be available.

Q: I don't see Spell Catcher's yellow checkmark in the menu bar.

A: Make sure all that's mentioned in above Q&As seems OK. If all seems well, pull down the Input menu (likely a flag icon) and choose Spell Catcher to activate it's input method. You should see the yellow checkmark icon appear!

Q: No really, I tried everything. It's not there. I'm serious

A: You may be running into a Mac OS X bug (or two). These usually affect newly installed and (especially) newly updated input method components.

As of this writing (Mac OS X 10.5.5), there are two significant and serious bugs in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) that affect installing new and (especially) updating existing input method components. We managed to find a pretty successful work around, but if you are upgrading or updating an existing Spell Catcher X installation, you may be affected by these bugs. Thankfully, the solution is pretty simple - in the Finder, choose Go > Home, and navigate to your home folder’s Library/Components folder. Drag the Spell Catcher.component out onto your Desktop, then drag it back into the Components folder, and Restart right away. A restart alone will not clear up the problem.
A similar problem can occur on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) as well, although it appears to be related to updating an input method component without input modes, with a newer version that has input modes (Spell Catcher X 10.3 has input modes, earlier versions do not). The solution is the same as the one above for Leopard - in the Finder, choose Go > Home, and navigate to your home folder’s Library/Components folder. Drag the Spell Catcher.component out onto your Desktop, then drag it back into the Components folder, and Restart right away. A restart alone is sometimes good enough, but moving the component first definitely helps.

Q: I'm using Apple's Mail on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and when Spell Catcher makes a correction or shorthand expansion, part of the original word or abbreviation remains in my text.

A (Preferred): Use Apple's Software Update to update your Mac OS X installation to Mac O X 10.4.11. This bug was fixed in Mac OS X 10.4.11.

A (Prior to Mac OS X 10.4.11): Open Spell Catcher Preferences, make sure Mail is in the list of Applications. Select Mail in the list, then in Spell Catcher's Interactive pane, Typing tab, turn off the Make replacements directly (without backspacing) where possible preference. The text editing view used by Mail on Tiger does not properly implement this feature. More information is available in our FAQs.

Q: I lost my license code for Spell Catcher.

A: Visit the Lost License Codes page on our web site and e-mail it to yourself!

Q: You haven't answered my question or addressed my problem!

We know, this is necessarily brief because things change quickly, and we acquire more knowledge over time. The answer to your question is almost certainly in our FAQs and Knowledge Base or Technical Support Forums.

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