up vote 89 down vote favorite
9

What are the steps to install the Spelling Check and other language supports for LibreOffice. For example spanish, french, italian, etc..

share|improve this question
up vote 71 down vote accepted

This is apparently managed at the system level. Go to the Language Support menu in the System Settings menu and add the languages you want to support. After that restart LibreOffice and you will see that the spellchecker for example will give you the option of using the newly installed languages.

share|improve this answer
1  
Ok I was into old school way of looking for the language support packages. This saves me a lot of hazzle. Thanks. – Luis Alvarado♦ Oct 25 '11 at 23:37
    
Worked for me, but is it possible from the command line? Other command line solutions proposed failed for me. – Ciro Santilli 华涌低端人口 六四事件 法轮功 Aug 12 '13 at 9:58
4  
@cirosantilli, did you try the other "command-line" answers below?, for example: sudo apt-get install myspell-es or aspell-es or hunspell-es – alfC Aug 12 '13 at 22:15
4  
does not work that way for most languages in Ubuntu 14.04 with LO 4.2 – cipricus Dec 12 '14 at 9:59
2  
Comment from Andre Blecha: a note of caution: the system will download language dependent files such a help and documentation for ALL your applications installed. This may be disc-space and time consuming. – Fabby Jan 4 '15 at 12:53
up vote 22 down vote

If you can't install system packages, you can install a spell checking dictionary extension manually. You'll need to restart LibreOffice.

US English Dictionary available here: extensions.libreoffice.org.

Instructions for installing extensions:

  1. Download an extension and save it anywhere on your computer.
  2. In LibreOffice, select Tools → Extension Manager from the menu bar.
    Tools > Extension Manager...
  3. In the Extension Manager dialog (Figure 2), click Add. Using the Extension Manager
  4. A file browser window opens. In Add Extension(s) dialog, you can find the extension's files in your system folders. The extension's files have OXT file extension. Add Extension(s) dialog
  5. Find and select the extension you want to install and click Open.
  6. If this extension it is already installed, you'll be prompted to press OK to confirm whether to overwrite the current version by the new one, or press Cancel to stop the installation. Replacing an extension
  7. After, you are asked whether to install the extension only for your user or for all users.
    • If you choose Only for me option, the extension is installed only for your user (the extension will be stored in your user profile and other users will not have access to it).
    • If you choose For all users, you must have system administrator rights. In this case, the extension is installed in LibreOffice system folder and will be available for all users.
    • In general, choose Only to me, that doesn't require administration rights on the operating system.
      Installation options: Only for me or For all users
  8. After, you may be asked to accept a license agreement. Use Scroll Down button to verify the license
  9. Use Scroll Down button to read the license agreement. At the end of license text, the Accept button will be enabled.
  10. Click Accept to proceed the installation.
  11. When the installation is complete, the extension is listed in the Extension Manager dialog. Extension Manager dialog (again), now contained the installed extension

Instructions stolen from libreoffice.org

share|improve this answer
    
worked like a charm. the only thing that i had to do was to add the oxt extension to the file because the extension manager not seeing the extension file. sorry for the bad english. – Engels Peralta Aug 5 '14 at 21:35
    
Libreoffice should really make this process simpler. – Ciro Santilli 华涌低端人口 六四事件 法轮功 Dec 14 '17 at 17:23
up vote 1 down vote

sudo apt-get --install-suggests install libreoffice-l10n-fr

This will install: hunspell hunspell-fr-comprehensive hyphen-fr libreoffice-help-fr libreoffice-l10n-fr mythes-fr

It was supposed to install libreoffice-grammarcheck-fr but for some reason the package is not available on my install of linuxmint

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

There is also a very popular extension supporting up to 20 languages which may also detect not only typos but some grammar mistakes and "false-friends". The extension is called LanguageTool.

share|improve this answer
    
Best answer in my opinion. LO specific, many languages included (as originally asked), updated extension, not system-wide, doesn't require root, not an "apt-get install" guessing game. – berbt Nov 23 '15 at 9:56
    
You need to install the "libreoffice-java-common" package for this to work (otherwise it fails with an UNO / java / NoClassDefFound error) – Grey Panther Aug 10 '16 at 15:29
up vote 9 down vote

For Ubuntu 12.04 and German (Austria), installing the hunspell package solved my problem:

sudo apt-get install hunspell-de-at

Remember to restart LibreOffice Writer after installing the package!

share|improve this answer
up vote 13 down vote

To install Spanish spellchecker on Libre-Office, You need the next package:

sudo apt-get install myspell-es
share|improve this answer
1  
+1. For me aspell-nl was not working, but myspell-nl was working – Jasper de Vries Nov 7 '13 at 8:44
1  
For German, unlike expected from the above example, the package name is myspell-de-de. – orschiro Feb 2 '16 at 12:32
up vote 28 down vote

The command: sudo apt-get install aspell-<language pack> will do the trick

For example, the spanish dictionary is:

sudo apt-get install aspell-es

share|improve this answer
    
That's specifically for the spell-checker though, right? That doesn't actually give you the thesaurus or other features in the language, does it? – Eliah Kagan May 30 '12 at 16:24
    
you are right Eliah its just the spell-checker – German Attanasio Jun 5 '12 at 21:23
1  
recently I had a similar problem with Evolution email, in that case the solution was to do a similar thing but with hunspell instead, sudo apt-get install hunspell-es – alfC Sep 4 '12 at 23:42
    
To list all available dictionaries sudo apt-cache search aspell – Philippe Gachoud May 26 '14 at 9:56
5  
Installing aspell dictionaries didn't work for me (Kubuntu 16.04, LibreOffice 5.1.4.2), but installing myspell did the job. – datka Nov 5 '16 at 20:46
up vote 1 down vote

You need to apply changes system wide in-order to reflect it in LibreOffice, Go to System Settings, Select your language preferences to get the language pack not just for LibreOffice but for your system.

share|improve this answer
    
No, you don't need to. See other answers. – berbt Nov 23 '15 at 9:53

protected by Community♦ Nov 14 '12 at 15:12

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.