Managing Dictionaries
As we mentioned, InCopy CS2 is installed with 35 different language dictionaries, most of which are for non-English languages. Believe it or not, that may not be enough for you. If you write specialized material, you will find that other words such as technical terms, proper nouns, and topic-specific jargon are not included in any of the 35 dictionaries.
Working with InCopy's Default Dictionaries
You can go about the tried-and-true method of clicking the Add button as you're running a spell check to add words to your Controlling Hyphenation for New Dictionary Words," later in the chapter.) The third pull-down in the box lets you look at a dictionary for a list of words you've added, complete with hyphenation settings, or words you've set to ignore. (Don't ignore the section on Ignore see "Using Spell Check," later in this chapter.)
Figure 4.4. InCopy's Dictionary dialog is where you add or remove words from existing dictionaries.

Creating New User Dictionaries
If you have many unique, industry-specific words, you might find the need to create an additional dictionary (or more than one!) that includes vocabulary specific to your topic. For this book, for example, words like spell check, pull-down, toolbar, .incx, OpenType, and Quick Apply are not in InCopy's English: USA dictionary. We had a significant list of terms we knew we'd be using, so we created our own dictionary.Open InCopy's Dictionary Preferences file, which Windows users will find under Edit > Preferences > Dictionary and Mac users will discover at InCopy > Preferences > Dictionary (Figure 4.5). Click on the New User Dictionary button

Figure 4.5. Add a new user dictionary using InCopy's Dictionary Preference file.
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Modifying User Dictionaries
Add words to your newly created dictionary from InCopy's Dictionary dialog (Edit > Spelling > Dictionary). Be sure to select the appropriate user dictionary from the target pull-down at the top of the dialog (Controlling Hyphenation for New Dictionary Words," later in the chapter). You can import as many different .txt files into a user dictionary as you want. InCopy CS2 is smart enough that it will not import duplicate words. If, however, you have the same word set to hyphenate two different ways in two different sources, InCopy will honor the hyphenation settings in the most recently imported .txt file. In the Import dialog, InCopy offers you the option of appending the new word list to the current list or replacing the old list with the new one.
Figure 4.6. In InCopy's Dictionary dialog, you can add words one by one or import a whole word list.

Adding User Dictionaries
In InCopy CS2, you can now simultaneously use multiple user dictionaries. Adding word lists to your existing user dictionary can be a helpful way of making sure InCopy spell checks against the unique, industry-specific words you need. Dividing up those unique words into multiple user dictionaries can speed up the spell check process. If you write technical documents for your company, you might use both a dictionary of industry-specific terms as well as a dictionary of the internal jargon at your company. When writing documents for internal use, you could invoke both dictionaries. When writing for external distribution, you might disconnect from the internal jargon dictionary so that InCopy does not waste time spell checking against that list.To add a user dictionary, click InCopy > Preferences > Dictionary on a Mac (Edit > Preferences > Dictionary on Windows) to open the InCopy Dictionary Preferences file. Click on the Add User Dictionary button (Figure 4.7) and navigate to the user dictionary (.udc file) you want to add. Select the dictionary, click Open, and your added user dictionary will appear in the list of dictionaries in the Dictionary Preferences dialog.
Figure 4.7. You can add user dictionaries from InCopy's Dictionary Preferences file. Just point and click.
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Prioritizing Dictionaries
When InCopy CS2 needs to check your text against a dictionary, either for puposes of spelling or hyphenation, it checks the dictionaries in the order in which they are listed in the Dictionary window of InCopy's Preferences file (Figure 4.8). If you have tremendous volumes of words in your dictionaries, the order of your dictionaries can speed up the process. Reordering the dictionaries is simply a matter of dragging a dictionary up or down the stack of dictionaries in the Preferences list.
Figure 4.8. InCopy checks text against dictionaries in the order in which they're listed in InCopy's Dictionary Preferences. You can drag them up and down in the stack to prioritize which dictionary InCopy checks first.
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Removing Dictionaries
If you're checking documents against irrelevant dictionaries, you're slowing InCopy down. Removing a dictionary is simply the opposite of adding one. In InCopy's Dictionary Preferences, click on the dictionary you want to remove and then click the Remove User Dictionary button

Using Multiple Dictionaries
User dictionaries can be located anywhere, but InCopy must be able to find them. That means that if a dictionary is moved or renamed, InCopy can't find the dictionary and therefore can't use it. InCopy warns you in two places when the link to a dictionary is broken. Because user dictionaries are part of InCopy's preferences file, when you restart the application, if InCopy cannot find one of the dictionaries that was in its list, it will display a dialog to that effect (Figure 4.9). InCopy will also warn you in Dictionary Preferences (Figure 4.10) by displaying a stop sign icon to the left of any dictionary to
Figure 4.9. If one of your dictionaries has moved, InCopy CS2 displays this dialog to warn you the next time you launch the application.
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Figure 4.10. InCopy's Dictionary Preferences displays stop sign icons next to user dictionaries it can no longer find.
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Sharing Multiple Dictionaries
It makes sense that everyone in your shop or workgroup should be using the same dictionaries. Ideally, in a networked or workgroup environment, everyone is using the exact same dictionaries, rather than copies distributed to each user. In this way, there is one master dictionary that holds all the changes, and any modifications to it are uniform. In the workgroup environment, the first user to load the dictionary has the ability to modify it, but for all others the file is locked, as indicated by a lock symbol to the left of the dictionary name in InCopy's Dictionary Preferences (Figure 4.11). A common approach in environments where the dictionary rests on a server is to set its permissions as read-only at the operating system level. Any modifications to the dictionary are then centrally made by an administrative user, typically your company's Systems Administrator.
Figure 4.11. The lock symbol to the left of the dictionary name in InCopy's Dictionary Preferences indicates that this dictionary is already open by another user and the dictionary cannot be modified by anyone else as long as that user has the dictionary open.
