Import Word's ACL files?

[DaveWritten]

Is there a way to import Word's Autocorrect (ACL) files into Textmaker? Thanks.

[raitis.veksejs]

I see that you already made this inquiry through our support form and received an answer.

For people that might need an answer to this in the future:
Our autocorrect dictionaries are stored in C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\SoftMaker\Languages in plain text format with the file extension *.aco and the country code as the name.

Microsoft Office autocorrect files are proprietary binary files stored in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Office with the file extension *.acl so you can't just open them directly and copy and paste the autocorrect entries.

I used this VBA script to export MS Office autocorrect entries into a plain text file that SoftMaker Office can handle:

Code: Select all

Sub ExportAutocorrect_SimpleUnicode()
    
    Dim acEntry As AutoCorrectEntry
    Dim fName As String
    Dim ts As Object
    
    ' Set a known, valid file path.
    fName = "C:\Users\[Username]\Desktop\language_name.aco"
    
    Set ts = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").CreateTextFile(fName, True, True)

    For Each acEntry In Application.AutoCorrect.Entries
      ts.WriteLine acEntry.Name & Chr(9) & acEntry.Value
    Next acEntry

    ts.Close
    
End Sub

Here are the steps to execute the VBA code and deploy the resulting dictionary file:

1. Open a blank Word document.
2. Press Alt+F11 to open the VBA editor.
3. Click Insert > Module.
4. Paste the provided code into the module.
5. Run the code. A new *.aco file will be created automatically with no pop-up messages. Note that the autocorrect dictionary will be in the language used by your currently open document.
6. You can now either replace the existing dictionary files or append the entries to the files.

To replace:

• Move the created *.aco file into the following SoftMaker folder: C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\SoftMaker\Languages. Place it in the folder that has the matching country code (e.g., look for en_us.aco, de_de.aco, etc., in the folder to identify the correct destination).

To append:

• Just copy and paste the entries into the files. Based on my testing, duplicate entries are ignored.