Arrow Electronics

Client

Examiner Publications (Cork) Ltd, www.irishexaminer.ie

Summary

Merge spelling exceptions dictionaries from multiple users into one file, removing duplicates and sorting them alphabetically and remove unwanted patterns (like possessive words etc).

Challenge

We've just purchased TextPipe, having tried it under your evaluation programme for about a week. Looked good enough to handle our requirements re: merging spell checker directories.

How this works: Our users are allowed to add spelling exceptions to a text-based list that is specific to them. This file is simply stored on a network drive (similar to an .ini file). The word processor they use is similar to MS Word, but has been developed as part of an integrated DB driven newspaper production system, developed by a company called Tera, based in Milan in Italy (they also have a UK support/development centre -here's a link to them http://www.teradp.com).

When users use the spell checker they add words like all those weirdly-spelled Irish place names (not unlike those in Oz!!) to their own specific exceptions dictionary. (We don't allow them to update the general exceptions list - believe it or not, there are a lot of journalists who are great at writing but terrible at spelling!). I can harvest these text files and compile them into one (using TextPipe) which we can then have checked (by our number one spelling guru to verify the exceptions are valid) and then add this new exceptions list to our general exceptions list (again using TextPipe to merge it and remove duplicates/sort it alphabetically - so everybody gets the benefit.

It makes everything much easier to check once the lists are alphabetical as errors or omissions become more obvious.

Absolutely huge benefits for any newspaper that needs to maintain flat-file exceptions lists (which are invariably unique to their part of the world).

I only plan to carry out this function a couple of times a year. Up until now it wasn't viable, because for me to do it manually over a couple of hundred users' exceptions dictionaries would have taken weeks. Now, I can copy their exceptions files to a folder on my desktop, and set up a filter to merge and remove duplicates and other patterns (like possessives) and jobs done - now in about 20mins.

I'm sure that the more I play with TextPipe the more uses I'll find for it. We also get occasional requests for handling information downloaded from websites/info sent as email attachment, which needs to be 'cleaned up' or reworked to have specific codes in specific places so we can import them into our editorial DB and auto format it for production. I see potential here also, in that TextPipe seems to be way quicker than opening a text file in Word or something like it and do find/replacing, which can take an age.

Editorial System Administrator