Spell Check

• Feb 28, 2023
• 4 minutes to read

The RichEdit control allows you to use third-party tools to implement spell check. Use the client spellCheck option or the server SpellCheck(Action<SpellCheckBuilder>) method (for .NET Core) to specify the following settings:

Client Property	.NET Core Server Method	Description
enabled	Enabled(Boolean)	Specifies whether the spell check is enabled.
checkWordSpelling	CheckWordSpelling(String)	A function that checks a word.
suggestionCount	SuggestionCount(Int32)	The maximum number of suggested words that can be displayed in the context menu.
addWordToDictionary	AddWordToDictionary(String)	A function that is called when a user clicks the Add to Dictionary context menu command.

The isEnabled property allows you to enable and disable spell check at runtime:

JS

richEdit.spellCheckerOptions.isEnabled = false;

Tip

If your application is built on the Angular framework, refer to following section for instructions on how to implement spell check in the RichEdit: Angular Application - Spell Check.

Create an nspell Bundle for the RichEdit

The RichEdit npm package includes a webpack configuration file that allows you to compile the nspell library and dictionaries into a package bundle. The configuration file references the English dictionary.

Follow the steps below to compile the bundle.

1. Run the following command within the node_modules/devexpress-richedit directory:

   npm i --save-dev
   

   If you need additional dictionaries, install them as follows:

   npm i dictionary-fr
   

2. Add the import directive for every additional dictionary to the node_modules/devexpress-richedit/bin/nspell-index.js file.

3. Register additional dictionaries with a corresponding “lang” attribute prior to the default English dictionary to use them first while spell checking.

   nspell-index.js

   import enAff from 'dictionary-en/index.aff';
   import enDic from 'dictionary-en/index.dic';
   
   import frAff from 'dictionary-fr/index.aff';
   import frDic from 'dictionary-fr/index.dic';
   
   export const nspell = nspellImport;
   export const dictionaries = [
       { lang: 'fr', aff: frAff, dic: frDic },
       { lang: 'en', aff: enAff, dic: enDic },    
   ];
   

4. Run the following command that builds an nspell bundle according to the node_modules/devexpress-richedit/bin/nspell.webpack.config.js configuration file:

   npm run build-nspell
   

   The command creates the node_modules/devexpress-richedit/dist/custom/nspell.js file. A script in the file appends the nspell object to the JavaScript window object.

Use nspell With Web Worker

1. Create the spell-checker-worker.js file with the following content:

   spell-checker-worker.js

   importScripts('./nspell.js');
   var checkers;
   
   function checkWord(word) {
       for(var i = 0; i < checkers.length; i++)
           if(checkers[i].correct(word))
               return true;
       return false;
   }
   
   function getSuggestions(word) {
       var suggestions = [];
       for (var i = 0; i < checkers.length; i++)
           suggestions = suggestions.concat(checkers[i].suggest(word));
       return suggestions;
   }
   
   onmessage = function(e) {
       if (!checkers) {
           checkers = [];
           NSpell.dictionaries.forEach(function (dic) {
               checkers.push(new NSpell.nspell(dic));
           });
       }
       switch(e.data.command) {
           case 'checkWord': {
               var isCorrect = checkWord(e.data.word);
               postMessage({
                   id: e.data.id,
                   isCorrect: isCorrect,
                   suggestions: isCorrect ? undefined : getSuggestions(e.data.word),
               });
               break;
           }
           case 'addWord': {
               checkers[0].add(e.data.word);
               break;
           }
       }
   };
   

2. Place the nspell.js and spell-checker-worker.js files into the directory that contains the control scripts (wwwroot for .NET Core, Scripts for MVC and Web Forms).

3. For an application on a client framework, add the following code to the page that contains the RichEdit control:

   JS

   var spellCheckerWorker = null;
   var spellCheckerCallbacks = Object.create(null);
   var spellCheckerWorkerCommandId = 0;
   ...
   options.spellCheck.enabled = true;
   options.spellCheck.suggestionCount = 5;
   options.spellCheck.checkWordSpelling = function (word, callback) {
       if (!spellCheckerWorker) {
           var myDictionary = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('myDictionary')) || [];
           spellCheckerWorker = new Worker('./spell-checker-worker.js');
           myDictionary.forEach(function (word) {
               spellCheckerWorker.postMessage({
                   command: 'addWord',
                   word: word,
               });
           });
   
           spellCheckerWorker.onmessage = function (e) {
               var savedCallback = spellCheckerCallbacks[e.data.id];
               delete spellCheckerCallbacks[e.data.id];
               savedCallback(e.data.isCorrect, e.data.suggestions);
           };
       }
   
       var currId = spellCheckerWorkerCommandId++;
       spellCheckerCallbacks[currId] = callback;
       spellCheckerWorker.postMessage({
           command: 'checkWord',
           word: word,
           id: currId,
       });
   };
   options.spellCheck.addWordToDictionary = function(word) {
       var myDictionary = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('myDictionary')) || [];
       myDictionary.push(word);
       localStorage.setItem('myDictionary', JSON.stringify(myDictionary));
   
       spellCheckerWorker.postMessage({
           command: 'addWord',
           word: word,
       });
   };
   

   For an application on the .NET Core framework, add a script file with the following content into the wwwroot directory and specify spell check options in the RichEdit builder object:

   rich-scripts.js

   var spellCheckerWorker = null;
   var spellCheckerCallbacks = Object.create(null);
   var spellCheckerWorkerCommandId = 0;
   function checkWordSpelling(word, callback) {
       if (!spellCheckerWorker) {
           var myDictionary = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('myDictionary')) || [];
           spellCheckerWorker = new Worker('./spell-checker-worker.js');
           myDictionary.forEach(function (word) {
               spellCheckerWorker.postMessage({
                   command: 'addWord',
                   word: word,
               });
           });
   
           spellCheckerWorker.onmessage = function (e) {
               var savedCallback = spellCheckerCallbacks[e.data.id];
               delete spellCheckerCallbacks[e.data.id];
               savedCallback(e.data.isCorrect, e.data.suggestions);
           };
       }
   
       var currId = spellCheckerWorkerCommandId++;
       spellCheckerCallbacks[currId] = callback;
       spellCheckerWorker.postMessage({
           command: 'checkWord',
           word: word,
           id: currId,
       });
   };
   function addWordToDictionary(word) {
       var myDictionary = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('myDictionary')) || [];
       myDictionary.push(word);
       localStorage.setItem('myDictionary', JSON.stringify(myDictionary));
   
       spellCheckerWorker.postMessage({
           command: 'addWord',
           word: word,
       });
   };
   

   Razor C#

   <script src="~/rich-scripts.js"></script>
   ...
   @(Html.DevExpress().RichEdit("richEdit")
       .SpellCheck (s => {
           s.Enabled(true);
           s.SuggestionCount(5);
           s.AddWordToDictionary("addWordToDictionary");
           s.CheckWordSpelling("checkWordSpelling");
       })
   )