Catalan Language support for Pages and Mac OS X

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Level 1

8 points

Catalan Language support for Pages and Mac OS X

We are trying to write Catalan documents in Pages and there does not appear to be any dictionary spell checking support for this language.

Can anyone suggest how to fix this, by downloading a Catalan dictionary somewhere, or where I can officially complain to the iWork developers if there isn´t a solution.

We are also having troubles getting the Catalan language support in the Mac OS X 10.6.4 to work properly. Although we drag the Catala language option to the top of the Language list in the System Preferences, the menu systems within the Mac OS X are still not displaying in Catalan when we restart the computer. It seems to pick up the second language in the list which we have tried for both English and Spanish.

regards

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 14, 2010 12:40 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,952 points

Jul 14, 2010 1:21 PM in response to CrazyCatalan

Can anyone suggest how to fix this, by downloading a Catalan dictionary somewhere,

Try CocoAspell or the dictionaries from OpenOffice 2 (not 3)

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries

Although we drag the Catala language option to the top of the Language list in the System Preferences, the menu systems within the Mac OS X are still not displaying in Catalan

That is because OS X does not include a Catala localization. The 18 available are listed in the tech specs:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html

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Answer 2

CrazyCatalan Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 15, 2010 12:11 PM in response to CrazyCatalan

Thanks Tom,

Would you recommend installing Open Office 2 or 3 if we want Catalan language spell checking? Ie do you know if version 3 can be installed and the dictionaries from version 2.0 used. Bit disappointed that we purchased iWork, as seems that we will probably end up using Open Office now.

In regards to the localization you mention for the OS X, what do you actually mean by localization? Eg. that the Mac OS X and other Mac Apps is only available in the 18 languages? When we updated to 10.6.4 and went to the Edit List option in the Language setting there was quite a comprehensive list of other languages (other than the main 18). Are you saying that these languages don´t have real support by Mac OS X and Mac applications?

Sorry, if these questions seem stupid, we took a ´leap of faith´ by purchasing Mac for the first time after being quite content with the language support in the various applications under Windows Applications.

regards

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,952 points

Jul 15, 2010 1:18 PM in response to CrazyCatalan

Would you recommend installing Open Office 2 or 3 if we want Catalan language spell checking?

No. I was trying to tell you that the dictionary from OpenOffice 2 can be used in OS X and Pages. You download the .dic and .aff file from the link I gave you and put them in Home/Library/Spelling.

Mac OS X and other Mac Apps is only available in the 18 languages?

Yes, as it clearly says in the published tech specs for the OS.

When we updated to 10.6.4 and went to the Edit List option in the Language setting there was quite a comprehensive list of other languages. Are you saying that these languages don´t have real support by Mac OS X and Mac applications?

There are something like 130 languages on that list, but only 18 have menus/dialogues translations. The others have lesser support. For example, if you set system prefs/language & text/format to Catalan you can have various other things including calendars set for that locale.

we took a ´leap of faith´ by purchasing Mac for the first time after being quite content with the language support in the various applications under Windows Applications.

Unfortunately Mac has never equaled Windows as far as the number of localizations is concerned. On the other hand, every copy of OS X does all 18 languages, while Windows and Office often require buying separate copies for different languages.

You can ask Apple to add Catalan here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

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