Review – Spell Catcher 8

Spell Catcher 8
Company: Casady & Greene
Estimated Price: $40.00
http://www.casadyg.com

The last time I reviewed Spell Catcher, it was version 1.5.6 and I was impressed then with the capabilities of Casady & Greene’s product. Now out as version 8, let me tell you that Casady & Green has done a superb job of updating and improving their Spell Catcher product.

I know, I know… you’re all asking why should I pay for a spell checker when most of the word processing programs, Microsoft Word and AppleWorks included, come with their own spell checking capabilities. Because if a product does what it’s supposed to do (that is, check your spelling) but then does even more, then maybe it’s worth a look-see to check it out. With Spell Catcher, you can set it up to perform Interactive Checking as you type, signaling you each time you make a spelling error. Or you can type your letter/document and then let Spell Catcher perform a total check of your masterpiece. Spell Catcher doesn’t just check your spelling, it checks capitalization errors, punctuation mistakes and double word mistakes, covering just about every area where one might make a mistake.

Since Spell Catcher is now an application, Casady & Greene has greatly expanded its capabilities. You can teach Spell Catcher new words by adding words to its word lists, set it up to correct a typo mistake that you may commonly make (“teh” instead of “the,” for example) or use the Look Up capability to check through either the dictionary or the thesaurus (with over a half-million synonyms available for the 50,000 words you can look up in the dictionary). Interactive Checking can be set up to correct spelling errors, ignore your passwords, smarten quotes, fix doubled capitals, turn multiple hyphens into dash lines, prevent double spaces, and more. You can also import your words from previous spell checking programs by bringing them over as text files, import your own set of customized words for use in your projects, and even utilize the capability of its Speech feature (or the Mac OS speech feature) to hear a word pronounced for you. Oh, and you can also have Spell Catcher check your spelling in 8 different languages–U.S. English, UK English, Canadian French, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swiss German… perfect for those of you who communicate with friends/associates in other countries.

You can also use Spell Catcher’s Shorthand Glossaries to create self-expanding abbreviations for phrases that you type frequently, saving you time and effort. The Ghostwriter function of Spell Catcher lets you save each keystroke that you make as a text file (no bold, italic, or font choices, though) with each application that you utilize being saved into its own separate file. If your system crashes or freezes up, you can go into the Ghostwriter folder and pull out what you typed and use that file as a starting point to redo your project or letter.

Spell Catcher also lets you modify a select selection of text, converting text into paragraphs, convert all capital typing into normally capitalized writing, make straight quotes curly, change multiple spaces in a document to single space, and even provides statistics on the piece being evaluated by the program (number of characters, words, sentences, syllables, etc.). You can also set up your own set of macros to perform specific checks on your items. And if you write reviews or articles for submission, it certainly can’t hurt to harness Spell Catcher’s powerful capabilities with the power of your Macintosh to become your own “virtual” editor and make your “human” editor’s job a little easier. 🙂

Summary
Casady & Greene’s Spell Catcher is a marvelous tool for anyone that works with the written word. This single, easy to use program can work with all of your applications and perform an amazing variety of specialized tasks, which means you can use it in place of several other less powerful programs that may be taking up space on your hard drive. With all that, plus a fun, friendly user guide written by David Pogue, how can you go wrong?

You can’t. Highly Recommended.

System Requirements
Any Macintosh with a CD-ROM drive and running Mac OS 8.1 or later.

MacMice Rating: 4.5

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Russ Walkowich
editor@mymac.com

 

Websites mentioned:
http://www.casadyg.com