Mac Forum / Applications / Word / May 2008

PRODUCT NEWS
Spanish Custom Dictionary Bug™ v.4 Released

REDMOND, WA. – The Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) is pleased to
announce the release of version 4 of its popular Spanish Custom
Dictionary Bug™, a key component of the Office Suite of productivity
applications.

"It's very exciting to renew our commitment to tried and true bugs
users can depend on," said a marketing rep who spoke on condition of
anonymity. "Microsoft has millions of customers who rely on Macintosh
technology and they can be assured that Microsoft products for the Mac
will continue to be available.", he said. Whether available also means
usable, he didn’t say.

System Requirements
A Custom Dictionary defined as Spanish. If you define the same
dictionary as say, English, the Spanish Custom Dictionary Bug™ may not
work.

Key Features
The Spanish Custom Dictionary Bug™ will crash Word if you attempt to
spell-check a complex document.

Failing that, the “Add” button in the Spelling window will not be
grayed out and additions to a Spanish custom dictionary will appear to
be accepted. However, attempts to do so will result in the following
notification: “The word was not added to the custom dictionary. The
word you want to add might contain non-Roman characters, or the custom
dictionary might be full.”

If you OK this dialogue, you will then be notified as follows: “The
custom dictionary “NameofDictionary” is not available to be updated.
Some additions to it may be lost.”

Upon dismissing these dialogues your Spanish custom dictionary will
have undergone one of two possible wonderful metamorphoses: (1)
Accents and other diacritics will have disappeared or become reduced
to garbage (façade will become fa^ade, résumé will become r§sum∆,
etc.), thus rendering the dictionary useless; or (2) The entire custom
dictionary will have been zapped to an exact size of 1,024 bytes (1
Kb), no matter its previous size, which will have the welcome effect
of helping clear some space on your hard drive.

Troubleshooting
Despite its name, do not use our productivity suite for mission-
critical purposes. Since a proper spell check of Spanish text cannot
be performed, if your livelihood is producing clean Spanish copy for
public consumption, we will not be held responsible for egregious
errors that get you fired from your job or make you lose your client
roster or your career. Remember, you typed those errors yourself.

If it took you years to compile your custom dictionaries and the
thousands of specialized terms they may contain are vital to your
ability to produce clean copy, upon occurrence of (1) or (2) above
just replace a known working copy and refrain from adding new terms
until about 2010. A solid backup strategy is vital to the success of
this option.

The Spanish Custom Dictionary Bug™ v.4 has been an integral part of
the Office Suite through Office 98, Office 2001, Office X, Office 2004
and now Office 2008. At the MacBU, commitment and consistency are
words we live by.

For more information:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/browse_thread/th
read/62ac29601acbcf25/bd633a1ad86f72af?lnk