Using Word, I need to write a story using only certain words. Is there a way to create a "checker" for this?

Question

I tried to create a new dictionary, but either Word fails to recognize it, or defaults to its original dictionary. I want something that will flag me when I have written a word that is not in the dictionary. Any ideas?

Answer 1

This may be more hassle than you want, but this works for what it needs. I don't know how much you know about Word, so I'll risk talking down to you. This should work for most versions of Word

First select from the menu, Tools, Macros, Macros (also Alt+F8).
Type in the name of the macro you want (I suggest FlagInappropriateWords).
Click on Create.
Now, the Visual Basic Editor should be open with the cursor sitting between a line that begins with "Sub..." and a line that reads "End Sub."
Between those two lines, paste in the code I'm placing at the end of this message.
Close out of the Visual Basic Editor.
Return to Word and go back to the Macro screen (Alt+F8).
Run the macro you just created.

What this macro does is it compares each word to a list (known as an array) that you create. You can edit this by changing strWords(1 to 6) to some other number. Add your words to the list of StrWords, incrementing each value.

The code to paste follows:
===================


Dim strWords(1 To 6) As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim intWord As Integer
Dim blnMatch As Boolean
Dim rng As Range

strWords(1) = "once"
strWords(2) = "upon"
strWords(3) = "a"
strWords(4) = "time"
strWords(5) = "the"
strWords(6) = "end"

For intWord = 1 To ActiveDocument.Words.Count
Set rng = ActiveDocument.Words(intWord)
blnMatch = False
For i = 1 To UBound(strWords)
If StrComp(Trim(rng.Text), strWords(i), vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
blnMatch = True
Exit For
End If
Next i
If blnMatch = False Then rng.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Next intWord

Answer 2

You cannot create your own dictionary using Word, but there is another method for checking your story that might help you.

Go to "Edit" and click on "Find". In the space marked "Find What" you can type in either a word that are forbidden in your story, or a word you must use. Then click "Highlight" in the lower left corner.

The word you typed will now be highlighted (in gray ) every time it appears in your story.

If you print a copy of your story ahead of time, you can use markers to highlight the words you need to have or need to erase in different colors.

Good luck with your story!

Answer 3

To save yourself a headache, it would be best to type the story first and then search for the word you need to not have in there. Creating a new dictionary would flag that combination of the letters in the word you can't use (e.g., if you can't use "what", the checker would block "whatever" too).