Getting Custom.dic Location   

I need to get the location of the custom.dic file on the user's machine. 
Unfortunately, I'll be doing this from Access, and I'd prefer to not use 
Automation, as that would create a delay while Word is opened. So......

1) Is there a way to determine the location of the custom.dic file without 
opening Word?

2) If not, how would one access that information from within Word (using 
Automation)?

Thanks!

Neil

date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:12:23 GMT   author:   Neil

Re: Getting Custom.dic Location   

The registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\Custom 
Dictionaries
contains a list of the user's custom dictionaries -- there can be more than 
one. The names of the values within the key are digits. Each value contains 
the full path to the dictionary _unless_ the file is in the default proofing 
folder, which is the user-specific location %appdata%\Microsoft\Proof 
_unless_ the "Proof" value in the key 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\General (properly 
adjusted for Office version) contains something other than "Proof".  :-b

It gets really complicated if the user has specifically designated a 
language associated with one or more custom dictionaries. In that case there 
can be a separate default dictionary for each language as well as one for 
"all languages". The language data isn't in the registry; instead, the first 
line of a language-specific custom dictionary file contains the string "#LID 
" followed by the language identifier; e.g., for English (US) it's #LID 1033 
and for French (France) it's #LID 1036. It appears from experiment that all 
the default custom dictionaries are listed with the lowest numbers in the 
registry key, followed by the non-default ones.

-- 
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP        FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so 
all may benefit.

Neil wrote:
> I need to get the location of the custom.dic file on the user's
> machine. Unfortunately, I'll be doing this from Access, and I'd
> prefer to not use Automation, as that would create a delay while Word
> is opened. So......
> 1) Is there a way to determine the location of the custom.dic file
> without opening Word?
>
> 2) If not, how would one access that information from within Word
> (using Automation)?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Neil

date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:41:56 -0500   author:   Jay Freedman

Re: Getting Custom.dic Location   

Thanks!

"Jay Freedman"  wrote in message 
news:OC0bO45JIHA.6108@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> The registry key
> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\Custom 
> Dictionaries
> contains a list of the user's custom dictionaries -- there can be more 
> than one. The names of the values within the key are digits. Each value 
> contains the full path to the dictionary _unless_ the file is in the 
> default proofing folder, which is the user-specific location 
> %appdata%\Microsoft\Proof _unless_ the "Proof" value in the key 
> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\General (properly 
> adjusted for Office version) contains something other than "Proof".  :-b
>
> It gets really complicated if the user has specifically designated a 
> language associated with one or more custom dictionaries. In that case 
> there can be a separate default dictionary for each language as well as 
> one for "all languages". The language data isn't in the registry; instead, 
> the first line of a language-specific custom dictionary file contains the 
> string "#LID " followed by the language identifier; e.g., for English (US) 
> it's #LID 1033 and for French (France) it's #LID 1036. It appears from 
> experiment that all the default custom dictionaries are listed with the 
> lowest numbers in the registry key, followed by the non-default ones.
>
> -- 
> Regards,
> Jay Freedman
> Microsoft Word MVP        FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
> Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup 
> so all may benefit.
>
> Neil wrote:
>> I need to get the location of the custom.dic file on the user's
>> machine. Unfortunately, I'll be doing this from Access, and I'd
>> prefer to not use Automation, as that would create a delay while Word
>> is opened. So......
>> 1) Is there a way to determine the location of the custom.dic file
>> without opening Word?
>>
>> 2) If not, how would one access that information from within Word
>> (using Automation)?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Neil
>
>

date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:18:47 GMT   author:   Neil