Why I no speekie da Pidgin?

October 7, 2007 1:16 PM

OK so I installed Pidgin (because you said to!). It installed beautifully and is now sitting on my desktop doing nothing.

It asked me for my gmail details, accepted them when I entered them, so now what?

I've been on IM with a friend and it is no different from before, I still make typos and nothing shows. ( I had expected it to show some kind of red-line underneath or whatever)
I realise for all you techies this is intuitive, but you really have to break it down for me, (please be gentle)
what am I not doing??

posted by Wilder to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

According to the FAQ I read, to get the spellchecker to really work right you have to download and install the installer. I'm not sure how simple you want/need this but here's my stps.

1. Go to this page
2. right click on the link to "full installer" near the top
3. From the contextual menu that comes up when you right click, choose to save this file. Put it on your desktop or someplace where you can find it.
4. right click on the file next to the word English, called aspell-en-0.50-2-3.exe, save it the same place
5. Double click on the first file, called Aspell-0-50-3-3-Setup.exe to install it & follow the instructions.
6. Double-click on the dictionary file called aspell-en-0.50-2-3.exe to install it into the spellchecker.

There are some more docs on the main Aspell page here. Try those first and let us know if it works or you have more questions.
posted by jessamyn at 1:27 PM on October 7, 2007

Response by poster: thanks Jessamyn, it all worked beautifully, except no 6. when I double click on the dictionary file, it opens a black command window that's clearly requires me to put code in. Sorry to be so dim, but when you say, "install it into the spell-checker" I'm expecting (needing?) a windows type screen with further intructions. A black command screen means nothing to me.
I now have two lovely IM client apps which clearly require some last step I'm missing. (
Other functions of pigdin are working BTW, it's just the spellcheck that I can't get.)
posted by Wilder at 3:40 PM on October 7, 2007

Response by poster: and in case anyone posts to this, I'll try it again in the morning. It's bedtime here in Europe, thanks!
posted by Wilder at 3:45 PM on October 7, 2007

Step 6 brings up a graphical installer for me. Odd.
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:01 PM on October 7, 2007

For me, step 6 brings up a black command window that shows some activity (copying, extracting, ?) going on, but it completes after a second or so without requiring me to do anything. Then a typical graphical installer starts up to finish the process.

Was 'How do I get a spell checker installed?' your only question? Your original post seems sort of vague, and I get the sense that you had another question. Were you asking a different question when you mentioned your 'gmail details'?
posted by philomathoholic at 12:12 AM on October 8, 2007

Response by poster: Sorry, I'll try to be clear, I was mainly interested in installing something that had a spell-checker for IM in Goggle mail. I read the back AskMe's on this and the main recommendation was Pidgin, which installed without any glitches. I note that some of it's functions are working but see no evidence of a spell-check. When I read their FAQ pages, I get no help there either.
posted by Wilder at 12:49 AM on October 8, 2007