Change Language for Spell Checking in Mail

Edit menu->spelling and grammar->show spelling and grammar. choose the language at the bottom.

there is no easy way to change the language for spell checking in Mail.

If what you are asking about is some kind of shortcut to avoid using the Edit menu, you are correct that nothing like that exists for Mail (or other Apple apps). I think if you use something like SpellCatcher you can switch via a single keystroke.

Tom Gewecke wrote:

there is no easy way to change the language for spell checking in Mail.

If what you are asking about is some kind of shortcut to avoid using the Edit menu, you are correct that nothing like that exists for Mail (or other Apple apps). I think if you use something like SpellCatcher you can switch via a single keystroke.

The fastest method I know of is through AppleScript. I personally use "quick and dirty" routines for shifting from French to English and vice versa, both in Mail and Safari. Your typical toggle-switch bare-bones app looks like this:

tell application "Mail"
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Mail"
set frontmost to true
try
click menu item "Show Spelling and Grammar" of menu "Spelling and Grammar" of menu item "Spelling and Grammar" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
set fen to window "Spelling and Grammar"
click pop up button 1 of fen
set lemenu to menu 1 of pop up button 1 of fen

if selected of menu item "Français" of lemenu is true then
click menu item "British English" of lemenu
else
click menu item "Français" of lemenu
end if
click button 1 of fen
on error
beep 2
end try
end tell
end tell
end tell

Nothing fancy here! Compile it, keep it handy (in the dock for example), and a single click does the switch for you. You can make endless variations on this, even make it look kind of smart, with dialogs and all that, thus defeating the purpose. 🙂

AppleScript support is kind of sketchy so you have to use UI programming.

Cheers,

RTP

That's crazy that any shortcut exist yet... It could be a good evolution for next update . A great shortcut like the one we have to change the general language.