How do I use the same spelling dictionary on two machines?

[prentice1024]

I just bought affinity publisher. I am using it on my desktop and laptop. I have done "learn spelling" to add hundreds of technical words to my desktop. Is there a file I can copy to get all the learned words to my laptop? 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

It will depend on whether you're a macOS or a Windows user.

For Windows you would need to copy the dictionary.propcol file from your users folder. More info about where to find that (for V2, and Windows) is in this FAQ:

For macOS it's different.

[prentice1024]

I think I found it. It looks like I can copy 

C:\Users\<username>\.affinity\Common\2.0\user\dictionary.propcol

then paste it to the other machine and it should have the learned words. Does that sound right?

(Running Windows 10 on desktop, 11 on laptop)

Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

Yes. 

Depending on your needs, it may be easier to Ignore the technical terms rather than Learning them. Ignored words are saved in the document, not in a separate file, so they'll be available wherever you work in that document.

[prentice1024]

I need them learned. Hundreds of technical scientific terms (Yangchuanosaurus, Psittacosaurus, etc.).

Thanks.

 

I think I found it. It looks like I can copy 

C:\Users\<username>\.affinity\Common\2.0\user\dictionary.propcol

then paste it to the other machine and it should have the learned words. Does that sound right?

(Running Windows 10 on desktop, 11 on laptop)

Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, prentice1024 said:

I need them learned. Hundreds of technical scientific terms (Yangchuanosaurus, Psittacosaurus, etc.).

If you need them in multiple documents, then they need to be Learned. 

If you're only using them in one document, Ignoring should work.

[prentice1024]

Multiple documents.

[prentice1024]

One correction: I found out through trial and error that the "learned" spellings are not in dictionary.propcol but instead in autocorrect.propcol.

 

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, prentice1024 said:

I need them learned. Hundreds of technical scientific terms (Yangchuanosaurus, Psittacosaurus, etc.).

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If you need them in multiple documents, then they need to be Learned. 

This reminds me to a recent thread: On mac one can edit an exceptions dictionary with a simple text editor. – Although it works different in Windows I wonder if the 100s of words may get added easier to one of the non-Affinity dictionary files (.dic)? …instead of numerous individual clicks to fill the words into the proprietary file types (.propcol).

[walt.farrell]

13 hours ago, prentice1024 said:

One correction: I found out through trial and error that the "learned" spellings are not in dictionary.propcol but instead in autocorrect.propcol.

 

Sorry, but that's incorrect.

The autocorrect.propcol file contains the settings you've made in the Publisher Settings, in the Auto-Correct section. For your Learned words, you need dictionary.propcol on Windows.

[prentice1024]

Not sure why I am having so much trouble. Will go back to dictionary.propcol and try again.

Thanks.

[prentice1024]

Still not working. When I "learn" spelling of a word on my Windows 11 laptop, Windows file manager shows that the dictionary.propcol file in the users folder has updated to the time and date when the action took place. 

When I "learn" a word on my Windows 10 desktop computer (where I do most of my editing), the changes take place in affinity publisher. The words are no longer highlighted, but the Windows file manager continues to show the date and time on dictionary.propcol as 1/8/2024, the date of installation. 

When I copy that file over to the users folder on the laptop, the changes do not move with it and I still have hundreds of words highlighted as misspelled. 

Is there another location for dictionary.propcol on the desktop? I used file manager but could not find another one. 

In short, I still cannot migrate my spalling updates from the desktop to the laptop. 

[carl123]

22 minutes ago, prentice1024 said:

but the Windows file manager continues to show the date and time on dictionary.propcol as 1/8/2024, the date of installation

Sounds like you are not copying the right dictionary.propcol file

Are both Publisher versions exactly the same?

Were both Publisher installations from the same source (Affinity website or Microsoft store)?

and were they the same as regards you installed either the ".exe" version or the "MSIX" version?

 

[walt.farrell]

Also, make sure you're not copying the file while the document is still open.

[prentice1024]

Document is closed before I copy dictionary.propcol.

[prentice1024]

20 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Sounds like you are not copying the right dictionary.propcol file

Are both Publisher versions exactly the same?

Were both Publisher installations from the same source (Affinity website or Microsoft store)?

and were they the same as regards you installed either the ".exe" version or the "MSIX" version?

 

I downloaded both from the affinity site. It's been a couple of weeks but  think that the first one, which I installed on my desktop PC, was originally in the msix format. I was trying it and after a few days an update came out. I downloaded the update from the affinity site by clicking on the "update" link but when I installed it it still showed version 2.3.0.

I redownloaded the update to 2.3.1 from the affinity site to my desktop, but this time in the exe format. The upgrade to 2.3.1 worked correctly. 

 

After a few days or so, I decided to buy. When I downloaded the file to my laptop it was in msix format. 

Everything seems the same except that I can't find any updated "learned spelling" file on the desktop that was installed using the exe format. 

[walt.farrell]

The MSIX versiions and the EXE versions use different directories, as shown in the FAQ I mentioned earlier.

[prentice1024]

As I realized in my last response above, I downloaded the program twice, both times from the affinity site. I investigated and found that my list of programs in the start menu has two entries for Affinity Publisher 2. Both open up to version 2.3.1, but the arrangement of the tools on the "studio" panels are different when I click the top icon on the start menu vs. when I click the second icon. 

Somehow the program has acquired a dual personality. If I uninstall both versions and reinstall the msix version, will I lose all my settings and spellings? 

[prentice1024]

11 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

The MSIX versiions and the EXE versions use different directories, as shown in the FAQ I mentioned earlier.

Ahhh! The version that the program seems to be using must be from the exe installer. The dictionary is in users\<myname>\ appdata\roaming\affinity\common\2.0\user\dictionary.propcol. 

 

Why did some programmer make this different in the exe and msix installers? I never would have found it if you hadn't guided me. Thanks.

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, prentice1024 said:

Why did some programmer make this different in the exe and msix installers?

Weren't different paths one reason for the different installers?

[walt.farrell]

35 minutes ago, prentice1024 said:

Somehow the program has acquired a dual personality. If I uninstall both versions and reinstall the msix version, will I lose all my settings and spellings? 

re: dual personality: It is very easy, if you decide to use the EXE/MSI version, to make a mistake while updating and instead download the MSIX version. You need to be very careful that that doesn't happen. Perhaps someday Serif will update the website to help users avoid making that mistake.

re: uninstalling and reinstalling: If you use the standard Windows uninstall processing, you don't lose any user data. But, as the new application would be using files in a different directory, you would need to copy everything across from the old directory to the new one.

[prentice1024]

It's really odd. While an affinity guru would know, a new user such as myself would have no way to know that the exe and msix versions follow different paths. I just accepted the defaults. 

Not very user friendly. Somebody at Serif/affinity should make this clear to new users!

[walt.farrell]

It wouldn't matter to most users, as they would use a consistent installer. And most would start with the MSIX. 

And when users need to know the details of the file locations, the FAQ provides it.

[prentice1024]

I want the two machines to be consistent. If I copy the files from the .exe installation and delete the .exe stuff, could I then copy the files form .exe to .msix ? Would it work properly then?

[walt.farrell]

22 minutes ago, prentice1024 said:

I want the two machines to be consistent. If I copy the files from the .exe installation and delete the .exe stuff, could I then copy the files form .exe to .msix ? Would it work properly then?

It should.