Spelling Dictionary

Scrivener and Scapple use the dictionary and spelling and grammar checking features that are built in to macOS (as opposed to Word, for instance, which uses its own dictionary and spellchecker). This means that, in general, you can set Scrivener or Scapple's spellchecking to use any language supported by macOS. To change the spellchecking language:

1. Go to Edit ▸ Spelling and Grammar ▸ Show Spelling and Grammar.
   
2. Choose the language from the dropdown menu at the bottom of the panel.

By default, the spelling and grammar panel will be set to use "Automatic by Language". If this option is selected, the text system will try to determine which language is being used by what you type in the document.

What if I can't find my preferred language?

macOS doesn't provide spellchecking dictionaries for all of the languages it supports for the user interface. Fortunately, Apple has made it easy to add new spelling dictionaries that you can download online, so that you should be able to set up Scrivener and Scapple to use your preferred language for spellchecking.

The following steps explain how to add a new dictionary for spellchecking in most programs on macOS, including Scrivener. macOS can read Hunspell dictionaries, so in this example, we will download a Scottish Gaelic dictionary from LibreOffice, which uses the Hunspell spellchecker (but note that you can download Hunspell dictionary files from other sources, too).

1. Individual language files can be downloaded from this LibreOffice GitHub repository. Language folders will be listed by their ISO language code. To download Scottish Gaelic, locate the folder for “gd_GB” and click on it.

2. In the subfolder, click the “gd_GB.aff” file.

3. In the top right corner of the code viewer, click the ‘Download raw file’ button, as shown below:

   

   Save the file to your computer, then click your browser’s back button to return to the "gd_GB" subfolder. Locate the “gd_GB.dic” file and repeat this process to download it.

4. In Finder, copy the .aff and .dic files, then go to the ~/Library/Spelling folder and paste these two files into it. (If you can't find your Library folder, hold down the Option key and open the Go menu, where you should see the Library shortcut appear).

Now the Scottish Gaelic spelling dictionary should be available to any application using the macOS text system or libraries (you'll have to close and re-launch programs for them to find it). Quit Scrivener or Scapple and restart, then open up the Edit ▸ Spelling and Grammar ▸ Show Spelling and Grammar panel where you will see “Gàidhlig” available to select from dropdown list.