A Westeros dictionary for Word

To save you a lot of red squigglies when writing about Game of Thrones

Office-Watch.com talked about the spell-check options in Word and how to turn them off to suit George R. R. Martin’s dislike of red squiggly lines.

Another option is to have a specialist dictionary of terms that apply to that project or subject.

Some professions (medical, engineering, physics etc.) have a lot of special terminology not in regular dictionaries. In Microsoft Word you can add extra dictionaries when necessary.

The Westeros dictionary

This is a modest example of how a specialist dictionary can work using words from the Games of Thrones books:

Download Westeros.dic a small file of mostly proper names, place names and names of characters.

Once installed in Word, a document like this:

will look like this

Sure, not much practical use. We did it as a bit of fun and example of what’s possible in Word.  You might find it useful if you’re a GoT fan and write emails etc. about it.

In custom dictionaries, any words with a capital letter will enforce that capitalization when spell-checking. For example if the dictionary has an entry ‘Westeros’ then ‘Westeros’ in the document will be OK but lower-case ‘westeros’ will get a red squiggly line.

But multiple words aren’t supported so a term like “Vaes Dothrak” can’t be added so that the entire two-word term is acceptable but each of the words alone gets a spell warning.

A few notes:

• Obviously, the Game of Thrones books, TV series etc. are copyright.
  
• We’ve not gone into the vocabulary of created languages like Dothraki and High Valyrian.
  
• The dictionary list isn’t comprehensive,

How to use Westeros.dic

In Microsoft Word, go to Options | Proofing | Custom Dictionaries:

Then click Add and point to the westeros.dic file:

It will show up on the dictionary list as shown. Click OK twice to return to your document.

See Also

• Microsoft Word vs. Spelling Bee champions 2014
• Making Word compatible with George R. R. Martin
• Custom Dictionary shoot-out
• Removing words from the Word dictionary
• Word needs a Latin dictionary
• Language and Dictionaries in MS Word
• Word’s Symbol Spelling bug
• Adding repeating words or phrases to the custom dictionary
• Persistent spell check missing an error