# Hunspell and OpenOffice Dictionaries > Use Hunspell and OpenOffice dictionaries with TX Spell .NET: .dic and .aff files, the languages Text Control offers, archive contents, licenses and REP rules. - **Product:** TX Spell .NET for Windows Forms - **Section:** Documentation - **Kind:** Topic - **Path:** TX Spell .NET for Windows Forms > Dictionaries and Languages > Hunspell and OpenOffice Dictionaries - **1291 words** - **Web URL:** https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/hunspell/ - **LLMs URL:** https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/hunspell/llms.txt - **LLMs-Full URL:** https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/hunspell/llms-full.txt --- The dictionaries of TX Spell .NET are Hunspell dictionaries, the format of the spell checkers in OpenOffice and LibreOffice. They exist for more than 60 languages, most of them are free to use and to ship with your application, and Text Control tests them and offers the approved ones for download. US English comes with TX Spell .NET; every other language is a download away. Read on for what a dictionary consists of, which languages Text Control offers, and where the files go. ### What a Hunspell Dictionary Is A Hunspell dictionary is a pair of text files with the same name: | File | Holds | |---|---| | *.dic* | The word list: the number of words in the first line, then one word per line, with optional flags that refer to the affix file, such as `0th/pt` | | *.aff* | The affix rules that build the forms of a word from its stem, such as plural or past forms, and settings: the encoding of the files in the `SET` line, for example `SET UTF-8`, and replacement rules for suggestions | Because the forms of a word are built by rules, the word list stays small. TX Spell .NET loads the pair as an [OpenOfficeDictionary](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/reference/txtextcontrol-proofing/openofficedictionary/llms-full.txt). Words of your own go into a user dictionary, a plain word list with the extension *.txd*, which [User Dictionaries](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/user/llms-full.txt) describes. ### US English Is Included The NuGet packages of TX Spell .NET contain the US English dictionary, *en\_US.dic* and *en\_US.aff*, together with the US English hyphenation list and thesaurus and the language recognition data. When you build, they are copied into the folder *Dictionaries* and its neighbors in the output folder, so English text is checked in a new project without any setup. The setup installs the same files below the *Assembly* folder of the installation. ### Download More Languages Text Control offers the tested dictionaries as ZIP archives, one per language or region, on the [dictionary download page](https://www.textcontrol.com/product/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/download/dictionary/). Each archive is named *dictionary..zip*, for example *dictionary.de\_DE.zip*. [Supported Languages](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/overview/languages/#languages-and-their-data) lists the languages and what each archive contains; Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Urdu are written from right to left, and [Right-to-Left Languages](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/right-to-left/llms-full.txt) covers them. ### What an Archive Contains An archive holds a folder named after the locale, with the files already sorted into the folders TX Spell .NET reads. The German archive, for example, contains: ```text tx_spell_dictionary.de_DE/ Dictionaries/ de_DE_frami.aff de_DE_frami.dic README_de_DE_frami.txt COPYING_GPLv2.txt COPYING_GPLv3.txt HyphenationLists/ hyph_de_DE.dic README_hyph_de.txt COPYING_GPLv2.txt COPYING_GPLv3.txt SynonymLists/ th_de_DE_v2.dat th_de_DE_v2.idx README_thesaurus.txt COPYING_GPLv2.txt COPYING_GPLv3.txt ``` - **Dictionaries** holds the spell checking dictionary with its license files. Every archive has it. - **HyphenationLists** holds the hyphenation list of the language, where one exists; [Hyphenation Lists](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/hyphenation/lists/llms-full.txt) describes them. - **SynonymLists** holds the thesaurus, where one exists; [Synonym Lists](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/synonyms/lists/llms-full.txt) describes them. The name of the dictionary file doesn't always match the locale: the German archives contain *de\_DE\_frami.dic*, *de\_AT\_frami.dic* and *de\_CH\_frami.dic*, and the Catalan archive *ca.dic*. The name is what you pass when you load a dictionary by name. ### Install a Dictionary Copy the files of each folder of the archive into the folder of the same name that TX Spell .NET reads, and in a .NET project let the build copy them next to the application. [Add Other Languages](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/installation/language-data/#add-other-languages) shows the steps for .NET and .NET Framework projects, and [Loading and Managing Dictionaries](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/managing/llms-full.txt) how the spell checker chooses among the dictionaries it finds. ### Check the License of Each Dictionary The dictionaries are written and maintained by their own authors, and each comes with its own license, in the README and COPYING files next to it in the archive. Most use the LGPL, but not all: the German dictionaries are licensed under the GPL, version 2 or 3, the French dictionary under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, and the English word list under the license of its SCOWL source. Hyphenation lists and thesaurus files carry licenses of their own as well. The license agreement of TX Spell .NET places the dictionaries in its *Dictionaries* folder under the LGPL: they may be redistributed as long as they are unmodified. Ship the license files with the dictionaries, such as *README\_en\_US.txt* next to the US English dictionary, and follow the licenses of every file you ship. ### How TX Spell .NET Uses the Affix Rules TX Spell .NET reads the rules of the *.aff* file for more than word forms: - **Suggestions.** Replacement rules, written `REP` in the affix file, describe typical mistakes: a missing accent, an umlaut written as two letters, "ue" for "ΓΌ", or a phonetic spelling, "f" for "ph". TX Spell .NET considers them when it creates suggestions, so "Fone" gets "Phone" as its first suggestion: ![The context menu of the misspelled word "Fone" in TX Text Control Words, with the suggestions Phone, Phones, Phoned, Phony and IPhone.](https://docs.textcontrol.com/assets/img/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/suggestions-rep-flag.5d14a15d.webp) - **Word characters.** The flags `WORDCHARS`, `BREAK` and `ICONV` define characters that belong to words, characters that are both part of a word and a delimiter, and characters that are read as another character. The same flags work at the start of a user dictionary, as [User Dictionaries](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/user/llms-full.txt) shows. ### Next Steps - [Loading and Managing Dictionaries](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/managing/llms-full.txt): load the downloaded dictionaries and choose which one is used. - [User Dictionaries](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/user/llms-full.txt): add words of your own. - [Multilingual Documents and Language Scopes](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/multilingual/llms-full.txt): check texts in several languages at once. --- ## Nearby - **Previous:** [Dictionaries and Languages](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/llms-full.txt) - **Next:** [Loading and Managing Dictionaries](https://docs.textcontrol.com/tx-spell-dotnet-winforms/dictionaries/managing/llms-full.txt)