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1 Introduction

GNU Aspell is a spell checker designed to eventually replace Ispell. It can either be used as a library or as an independent spell checker. Its main feature is that it does a much better job of suggesting possible replacements for a misspelled word than just about any other spell checker out there for the English language. Unlike Ispell, Aspell can also easily check documents in UTF-8 without having to use a special dictionary. Aspell will also do its best to respect the current locale setting. Other advantages over Ispell include support for using multiple dictionaries at once and intelligently handling personal dictionaries when more than one Aspell process is open at once.

The latest version of Aspell can always be found at http://aspell.net

1.1 Comparison to other spell checker engines

Aspell 0.60.8Ispell 2.1.20Hunspell 1.1.12Microsoft Word 97
Open Sourcexxx
Suggestion Intelligence70-85527670
Personal part of Suggestionsxxxx
Alternate Dictionariesxxx?
International Supportxxx?

The Suggestion Intelligence is based on a small test kernel of misspelled/correct word pairs. Go to http://aspell.net/test/cur/ for more info and how you can help contribuxte to the test kernel.

If you have any other information you would like to add to this chart please contact me at kevina@gnu.org.

1.1.1 Comparison to Ispell

1.1.1.1 Features that only Aspell has

1.1.1.2 Things that, currently, only Ispell has

For a detailed description of how Aspell differs from Ispell, See Differences From Ispell.

1.1.2 Comparison to Hunspell

Hunspell is based on Myspell. Myspell was created as a simple spell checker for use in OpenOffice. Myspell’s affix support was merged into Aspell 0.60 so Hunspell and Aspell can use the same affix file to some extent.

Hunspell has better support for language peculiarities including compounding and complex morphology. However the Hunspell (v1.7.0) utility currently has problems with apostrophe (') in words.

Aspell generally has better suggestions for non-phonetic langauges such as English and French. Aspell suggestion speed also tends to be significantly faster than Hunspell. For a comparasion of suggestion quality and speed see http://aspell.net/test/.


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