This post is to consolidate all the various requests to add support for spellcheck in language other than English.
At the moment, we can’t leverage chrome/electron built-in spell check. @Licat made a pull request to electron to add support for interfacing the editor we use and the chrome’s spellchecker. When that goes through, we will have spellcheck in all languages.
52 Likes
Awesome, I wasn’t aware of why it wasn’t possible yet, thanks for letting us know
The ability to switch default dictionary from US English
I would like to ability to select a default dictionary for notes. I want to change the global default to British English. However other users may have requirements to keep notes in multiple languages so there my be a future requirement to set the default language at the folder or individual note level.
Proposed solution
In the Settings page under Spelling there should be an option to select a different dictionary.
Current workaround (optional)
Every time I see a red underline where the word is spelt correctly for the UK I just add it to the dictionary. Not a great solution but over time I should get less US spelling errors.
8 Likes
2 Likes
Can’t we like manually add hundreds of words in bulk in the User Dictionary?
Since, all the sations are actually zations for me, I keep getting those underlines 
1 Like
currently i have to open all my notes with other apps (mostly iA Writer) for spell check
i know that currently it supports only american english, but Electron has native API to use the system spellchecker https://www.electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/spellchecker
as we are here, it could be useful a flag to disable spell check for some notes (maybe a boll in the metatag) say we have a technical note or complex maths & code…
how hard is this feature?
thank you!
PS: it’s ok to use iA Writer … but not the best solution for everybody
2 Likes
Lots of lovely improvements to this software, but we are still do not have an option for anything other than ‘American English’? When will we get to type in our own language? I’m sure the Canadians, Australians, and the rest of the commonwealth are thinking the same?
Great software missing a basic option that respects the rest of the English speaking world.
7 Likes
Really sorry about that! I think soon with an Electron update, all languages will be automatically supported (similar to how things work in a browser).
@Licat has been working on this since August: https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/25060
In the meantime, any new languages implemented will be replaced once the upgrade happens, which is why we’re currently holding back doing work here.
I understand it’s very annoying, really sorry about that! (I live in Canada too so I think I can feel the pain)
Other than spelling, the current bundled dictionary is also pretty limited. I see perfectly fine words shown as typos all the time. This will be fixed with the upgrade as well.
3 Likes
NOOOOOO CodeMirror does not use a ContentEditable that’s why all electron text editors miss native spelling (at least on macOS)… i guess everybody is using CodeMirror 
I took a scroll through the Electron’s issues and I noticed that @Licat’s changes are merged and available in Electron since v11.1.0, released 27 days ago.
Does this mean we’re inching closer to this feature request getting implemented and that it’s now a matter of rebasing Obsidian to a newer Electron version?
1 Like
it doesn’t appear in the release notes of 11.1.
Does it take so long to confirm a request?
it’ll be included in electron 12.
4 Likes
Add Italian spellcheck too, please!
4 Likes
Hi, is there really no other way to add more languages to spell checking, than to wait until electron 12 comes out?
Electron is now at v11.3.0 stable, it could take months or over half year until v12 comes out. This would be so sad for such a valuable tool like obsidian.
1 Like
electron 12 was released today Release electron v12.0.0 · electron/electron · GitHub with correction # 25060, we will probably see something in the next releases …
yes, in 2/3 weeks.
4 Likes
We won’t update to electron 12 until this regression is fixed
With new electron, will spellcheck for other languages be available in short-term?