I wouldn’t have thought that learning how to run an old Window ’98 program on a newer Windows XP machine would have been that well received. From the number of responses I got from readers I guess I hit a hot spot. Also, thanks to all of you who write and let me know when you like, or hate a particular column. I appreciate hearing from you!

I received a great question this week from Pam F. She uses Microsoft Word at work and adds many job-specific words to the Word dictionary. She realized that she has added many over the last few years. She wanted to know if there is a way to review the list of words in her dictionary and remove some of them that aren’t used any longer. I do this occasionally to make sure that the ones I have added are not spelled wrong … sorry to admit it, but I have made a few errors in my career.

Before I get to her answer I would like to make sure that the other MS-Word users out there know that they can add words that aren’t in Word’s default dictionary. That way you won’t have to choose “Ignore” when you spell check your commonly used words.

The easiest way to add a word to the dictionary is to simply right-click on the word you wish to add (a word not in the dictionary is the cause of the red squiggly underlines) and choose “Add to dictionary.”

The following directions are for editing the custom dictionary in Microsoft Word 2003. However, it will be identical or very similar for all of the versions since ’97.

To edit your dictionary:

Go to TOOLS | OPTIONS on the Menu bar.

Now click on the “Spelling & Grammar” Tab.

Next, click on “Custom Dictionaries” and the one that you use in the list box, which is probably named, “Custom.dic.”

Click the “Modify” button and you are there.

Type a word in the top text box that you wish to add then click the “Add” button.

To remove a word from the list, click on it and then click the “Delete” button.

When finished with everything just click OK, OK, OK.

Have fun creating your own dictionary, all you Webster wannabes.

Contact Ron Doyle at Ron@DoubleClicks.info