Spell check thinks 'ans' is a word

[iD3Z1GN]

Why does Illustrator CC 2019 spell check consider the spelling mistake 'ans' (supposed to be 'and') to be an actual word? ... it does not exist in the English language!!

- This has caused extreme financial loss and a huge waste of precious time.

- I can't contact anyone at Adobe regarding this matter.

Overall Ai spell check is unreliable and has been the cause of recent issues. Can anyone suggest how to adjust this in Ai itself or maybe even suggest a work around?

[tromboniator]

At least one major dictionary (Merriam-Webster) has a listing for ans as an abbreviation for answer. Not a word, but the editors consider it a valid entry. No general-purpose dictionary, let alone an automated system, is going to be perfectly correct for every usage. At least in general, there really is no substitute for human proofreading.

Peter

[iD3Z1GN]

Peter, thanks for your attempt but none of your arguments are acceptable considering the company involved is Adobe and not some kind of upstart.

- The typo ans is highlighted by Apple Note, Pages and Numbers but not Illustrator or Indesign.

- Type the word ans in Google and no definition will come up. The word does not exist.

- No 3 letter abbreviation is written in lower case - ever!

- Why did the spell check not offer an option to click and or keep it as ans?

- Why did the spell check not offer to make upper case like all 3 letter abbreviations?

We realise that nothing is perfect but ask yourself how easy is it to type ans instead of and? this is a very plausible mistake likely made often enough to warrant a much more professional solution within Illustrator or Indesign.

[Doug A Roberts]

myAd0be  wrote

- No 3 letter abbreviation is written in lower case - ever!

This one would be written 'ans.', with the stop representing the abbreviated portion. You wouldn't write 'ANS' as an abbreviation.

[iD3Z1GN]

The spelling mistake was written as ans (no dot) By your account the spell check should have highlighted the option to change spelling to ans. therefore at least somewhat alerting me, but it didn't. Even the spell check on this site marks ans as a spelling mistake.

1. NO CORRECT ANSWER HAS BEEN GIVEN.

2. No one has been able to explain what ans or ans. means.

3. In this instant ADOBE'S SPELL CHECK FUNCTION IS INCOMPETENT.

[tromboniator]

I'm not trying to defend (nor condemn) Adobe, but language is not mathematics. It is subject to interpretation, regional differences, opinion, and all manner of other variables about which people tend to have very strong opinions. It is unfortunate when these differences of opinion cause problems, but there is no authority which governs right and wrong in the English language. It grows and changes by use and custom and whim.

Here is the entry from Merriam-Webster for ans:

You are welcome to dispute it, or to call the spellcheck incompetent, but there is nothing that could ever indisputably prove that this is wrong. I'm sorry,

Peter

[iD3Z1GN]

Merriam-Webster is US based, I have English UK selected in Ai CC therefore it should have behaved accordingly.

The overwhelming majority of spell check options do not recognise ans as a word. Simple and clear cut.

Some basic grammar research by the developers would have yielded the correct answer, as such the Spell Check function in Ai and Id CC is not up to professional standards.

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

There is no substitute for human proefreading as Peter mentioned.

InDesign and Illustrator use the open source Hunspell dictionaries.

InDesign also gives you the choice between Hunspell and Proximity.

Proximity flags the "ans" correctly.

I would suggest to request an update to the Hunspell dictionaries here:

Adobe Illustrator Feedback

[iD3Z1GN]

Thank you for you evidence based reply, much appreciated. My point is that Illustrator should not have an inferior spell check function. If Adobe believes that we should use another App for the purpose of professional level spell checking then do not make the spell checking function available in Illustrator at all.

[Ton Frederiks]

The best way to let the Illustrator team know is to report it here (with a link to this thread).

Adobe Illustrator Feedback

[iD3Z1GN]

Thanks for your suggestion Ton, I have followed up accordingly.

[Kurt Gold]

And I thought an ans is just a beheaded goose. Isn't that right?

[Ton Frederiks]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Kurt+Gold  wrote

And I thought an ans is just a beheaded goose. Isn't that right?

That is correct in Germany and the Netherlands.

[Kurt Gold]

In Switzerland the poor beheaded geese are called "ansli" (or sometimes "änzli"). In Austria it is an "ans" (or sometimes an "anz"), just as it is in Germany and the Netherlands. Not sure how they call it in Liechtenstein.

[Ton Frederiks]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Kurt+Gold  wrote
In Switzerland the poor beheaded geese are called "ansli" (or sometimes "änzli"). In Austria it is an "ans" (or sometimes an "anz"), just as it is in Germany and the Netherlands. Not sure how they call it in Liechtenstein.

Or Luxembourg.

[iD3Z1GN]

Thanks for your suggestion but wouldn't a Billion dollar company like Adobe have a proof reading team that tests the product on a regular basis?... the typo 'ans' instead of 'and' would not take long to come up - seriously!

I would expect this from Affinity Designer/Publisher but not Adobe.

[Doug A Roberts]

What more do you want from this forum? For whatever reason (and it is not implausible that an unusual abbreviation could be a valid entry in a dictionary), 'ans' is in the Hunspell dictionary. You can use Chrome, or Firefox, or OpenOffice, or a number of online spellcheckers and get the same result because they all use that dictionary.

[creative_curiosity1549]

ans seems to be a variable name in MATLAB (according to Wikipedia).

And if a job can lead to "extreme financial loss" you must be daredevil to not have a human spellchecker involved.

[iD3Z1GN]

Monika, I made the human mistake of relying on the professional reputation of the industry leading software built by the world's leading team to be able to flag a simple spelling error easily flagged by other software.

[iD3Z1GN]

Show us the evidence of your statement or is your contribution an Adobe paid spin?

[Doug A Roberts]

iD3Z1GN  wrote

Show us the evidence of your statement or is your contribution an Adobe paid spin?

Do you want evidence that 'ans' is an abbreviation or that it is included in the Hunspell dictionary?

[Mike_Gondek]

Whether the word "ans" or something else, you should be able to edit the application dictionary in addition to the user dictionary. I believe in Illustrator you cannot, unless you edit the code in some file that my memory foggily recalls exisiting somewhere deep in the Mac OS folder.

Best help I can offer, is you can in InDesign fix this word.

Edit >> Spelling >> User Dictionary

I tried to find the file Illustrator uses for application dictionary, but too difficult. and no luck. InDesign uses the file here:

/Users/YOURNAME/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Linguistics/UserDictionaries/Adobe Custom Dictionary/en_US/exceptions.txt

[Ton Frederiks]

Yes, Mike i don't know where to add words to correct in an Illustrator dictionary.

I see here that Illustrator uses the Proximity dictionaries, which I believe is wrong, the Proximity dictionary in InDesign flags the word ans:

Spelling and language dictionaries in Illustrator

[Mike_Gondek]

I remember working on an InDesign issue 2 years ago and searching Hunspell, had an Illustrator one. Currently only finding InDesign and InCopy. Don't think it was  a .bundle as I could click on it and see much more more.

[Ton Frederiks]

There is also a AdobeHunsperllPlugin.bundle in the Illustrator app.