ispell is a Unix command line tool for spellchecking text files. You can use it to spell check your .tex files on our system

let’s try it on this file:

cp ~newhall/public/cs87/ispelldoc .
ispell ispelldoc

running in general

  • To run ispell:

    ispell filename

ispell -t filename.tex     # run ispell on a latex formatted document

ispell finds the next mispelled word and gives you some options for changing it or accepting it. After the last one if finds, it exits automatically saving the changes you have made in the session.

  • interactive commands:

    a: accept the word as is
0-#: replace the word with one of the suggested spellings
     (ispell numbers them, just enter the number of the one you want to use)
r: replace the word with one you type in
q: quit the ispell session and discard all changes you have made so far
x: exit (saves changes made so far in the session)

    After you exit ispell saves changes you made (unless you exit via q), but it also creates a file named filename.bak that contains the pre-modified version of your file (in case you want to recover anything).

  • See the man page for more options: man ispell.