Creating A Shorthand Entry During Spell Checking

Instead of creating your shorthand entries manually, as described in the previous section, you may sometimes want to add entries in the process of checking your spelling. This way, you'll be staring right at the words that you frequently misspell, giving you the perfect opportunity to create self-correcting glossary entries for them. (See Spell Checking for details on checking your spelling).

When Spell Catcher finds an error, you'll see its list of suggestions. Here is how to create a shorthand entry.

• Once you're looking at the Suggest Spelling window shown in Figure 4-2, click to select the correct spelling in the list of suggestions. Actually, if the first suggestion in the list is the correct spelling, you may not even have to take this step.
  If the corrected spelling doesn't appear in the list of suggestions at all, type it into the "Use:" text field.
• Click Shorthand. Optionally, first click the pop-up menu next to the Shorthand button to choose the document to which the shorthand should be added.
  You return to your document, where the spelling error has been corrected. From now on, if you make the same error again, Spell Catcher will correct it without even notifying you.

Tip: In the Check Selection and Check Word windows, Option-clicking Shorthand will open the Glossary and automatically select the abbreviation you just added. Additionally, hovering over the Shorthand button in these windows will display a help tag containing the abbreviation, expansion, and Shorthand Glossary document to which the addition will be made.

Predefined Shorthand Entries For The Date And Time

Spell Catcher also lets you create shorthand entries for a wide range of date and time formats.

To change an existing abbreviation, or to select a different format for the date or time that gets inserted (such as 10/10/02 or Wednesday, October 10, 2002), visit the Preferences window, as described in "Customizing Shorthand Glossary Behavior" at the end of this chapter.

Deleting Or Editing Your Shorthand Entries

Editing or deleting shorthand entries one at a time is easy:

1. From the Input menu, choose Preferences.
2. From the toolbar, click References (if the References list isn't already displayed).
3. Select the Glossary you wish to edit from the References list. You'll have to click the disclosure triangle for the language to make it visible.
4. Click the shorthand entry you want to edit or delete.
   You'll see its expanded form in the right-hand box.
5. To delete the entry, click the - (minus) button. To edit it, modify the shorthand entry or its expanded form, and then choose File->Save.

Tip: To begin an in-place edit, double-click the word, or highlight it and press the Enter key.

How To Trigger Shorthand Expansions

The two ways to turn your abbreviations into their expanded forms correspond to the two ways Spell Catcher can check your spelling-either interactively, as you type, or all at once, after the fact.

Triggering Expansions As You Type

Open a program, such as TextEdit or your word processor, where you can type. Make sure that the Interactive Checking item in Spell Catcher's Input menu is checked, indicating that Interactive Checking is turned on. (If you prefer to type with Interactive Checking turned off, see "Triggering Expansions While Spell Checking," in the next section).

Try typing a sample sentence that includes one of the abbreviations you've set up. As soon as you type the abbreviation and then press the Space bar, Tab key, or another punctuation mark, Spell Catcher replaces the abbreviation with the expanded phrase.

(If the expansion doesn't take place as scheduled, see "Customizing Shorthand Glossary Behavior" at the end of this chapter).

• Tip: You may occasionally want to use one of your abbreviations in its original form, without expanding. For example, suppose your name is Brian Livingston Taylor, and you've set up a shorthand abbreviation BLT that expands to your full name. But now you're writing an e-mail to the local deli, ordering a BLT sandwich. How do you stop Spell Catcher from making it look like you're ordering a Brian Livingston Taylor sandwich?
  
  Easy: just hold down the Shift key as you type the space (or, if your Interactive Typing Preferences specify ignoring the most recently typed word when followed by a Tab, or Return, type one of those characters) that follows the abbreviation. Spell Catcher doesn't expand your abbreviation in that case. (Of course, you can also turn off the Interactive Checking command in the Input menu to disable shorthand expansions altogether).

Triggering Expansions While Spell Checking

When Interactive Checking is turned on in a certain program, Spell Catcher expands your abbreviations as you type them. But what if you prefer to type with Interactive Checking turned off? No problem-simply type the abbreviations as you prepare your document. Spell Catcher can expand them during Check Selection as well. Additionally, you can turn "Check spelling as you type" off (in Spell Catcher Preferences, Interactive pane, Spelling tab) and turn "Make Shorthand Glossary expansions as you type" on (in the Shorthands tab) to forego spell checking while you're typing, but still have your shorthands expand.

See Check Selection for details on checking the spelling of a finished document.

• If you notice that Spell Catcher isn't expanding the abbreviations in a document you're spell checking, it may be that this feature has been turned off. See "Customizing Shorthand Glossary Behavior" in the next section.

Other Ways to Create Shorthands

There are other ways to create new shorthands as well. To create a new shorthand with the currently-selected text as the expansion, choose the "New Shorthand for Selection" command that's in the Input menu, in Spell Catcher's Services menu, or the Spell Catcher application's Dock menu.

It's also possible to create a new shorthand from the Find in References window.

Customizing Shorthand Glossary Behavior

Spell Catcher's Preferences window, which you open by choosing Preferences from the Input menu, offers several controls over the way shorthands expand.

• During Interactive Checking. This checkbox (Make Shorthand Glossary expansions as you type) lets you specify whether or not Spell Catcher expands your abbreviations as you type. You might consider this the primary on/off switch for the short-hand feature. It is located on the Shorthands tab of the Interactive Checking preference.
• Shorthand Glossary expansions during Check Selection. "Check Selection," in this case, refers to all-at-once, after-the-fact, batch spell checking as described in Check Selection. This checkbox lets you specify whether or not Spell Catcher should recognize and expand abbreviations in chunks of highlighted text as it's checking your spelling. You'll find it on the Checking tab of the Spelling preference.
• Date and Time shorthands: Spell Catcher lets you specify Shorthand Glossary items for Date and Time in a wide variety of formats. You create the formats on the Date/Time tab of the Spelling preference. These formats become available in a Shortcut Glossary document window's Insert Date/Time pop-up menu. Create your Shorthand and choose the format to insert into its expansion from the Date/Time pull-down menu. Unlike Spell Catcher 8, no Date/Time shorthands are predefined. With the greater flexibility offered in Spell Catcher, you are empowered to create as many (or few) such abbreviations as you desire and name them in ways which are meaningful to you.

  Tip: You can apply an offset to the Date/Time format you've just inserted into an expansion by choosing it from the Offset pull-down menu. This makes it easy to create a shorthand that always inserts (say) yesterday's date-just choose "Yesterday" from the Offset menu.