Change Windows Live Writer spelling language

I have two blogs, one in spanish and one in english, and even though I rarely make mistakes when typing, you never know when you’re going to need a spelling check. I read about adding or changing the spelling language on WLW, only to come to this:

(If you are here, that means that you know what that image is about. If you don’t know what that image means, keep reading)

Anyway, after failing and failing, and failing a little more to find an answer, I stumble into this post. “Then I read in the internet that language dictionary files used by WLW are the same of office”. I keep reading and I found out that I can use Office’s dictionary to add the spelling options into Windows Live Writer. Let’s do this.

First you need to install Office 2013. I repeat, USE OFFICE 2013 for this guide. These MUST be in the language that you wish to add to WLW. If I want Spanish, I get Office in Spanish. If I want German, Office in German it is.

In case you don’t have Office and only need the language, you can install it and only select the language you want.

(Here’s the spelling in Spanish. I repeat, ONLY IN SPANISH HERE).

If Spanish is not your thing. Here’s the next steps. After the installation is done, go to your Office folder, and check under PROOF.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\PROOF
or
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\PROOF

In there you’ll see the languages that Office has for spelling and some .dll files. Like this:

As you see, these files have a ES at the end of the name. In case of Italian would be IT, English is EN, French is FR, and so on. Select all of those who end on ES, and include msspell7.dll, this is a very important file. After that, copy all of them (ctrl+c).

Go to WLW dictionaries, this is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Writer\Dictionaries

And paste all of them. You should have something like this at this point.

Ok, now to the important part. Remember that msspell7.dll file? Rename it to mssp7ES.dll.

French would be mssp7fr.dll
Italian would be mssp7it.dll

Now, start WLW and select your language. Hit apply. MAKE SURE THAT THE SPELLING OPTION IS ACTIVE.

And trust me, it works perfectly (at least for Spanish). You can unistall Office now if you want.

 

NOTE: When I used the Office 2010 files, the spelling didn’t work, I don’t know why. Using the ones from Office 2013 did the trick, that’s why I recommend using this last one.