Overview of the spelling checker in Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003

This article discusses the spelling checker in Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. It discusses spelling checker requirements, describes how the spelling checker works, and contains information about how to configure spelling checker restrictions on the server and how to troubleshoot issues that may occur when you use the spelling checker.

Overview of the spelling checker

In the version of OWA that is included in Exchange 2003, you can click the Spelling icon to check the spelling of text in messages or posts that you compose.

If you want to check the spelling of each message that you send in OWA, you can turn on the Always check spelling before sending option. However, the spelling checker in OWA is a server-side process. This means that when you check the spelling of a message, the contents of that message must be sent to the server to be processed. This option may result in an additional load on the server, depending on the number of users in your organization that use it. Additionally, it may take longer to process messages if users connect to the server over slower network connections.

You can use the spelling checker when you perform the following tasks:

• Compose a message.
• Compose a post.

You cannot use the spelling checker to check the spelling of the Subject line of messages or posts. Additionally, the spelling checker is not available when you compose an appointment, a meeting request, or a meeting request response, or when you create a contact.

The spelling checker contains language-specific dictionaries that you can use to check the spelling of messages or posts that use the following languages:

• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Korean
• Spanish

Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains the following additional languages for OWA:

• Arabic
• Danish
• Dutch
• Finnish
• Hebrew
• Norwegian
• Swedish

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: The use of custom dictionaries is not supported.

Spelling checker requirements

Server requirements

By default, the spelling checker is available to OWA users as soon as you install Exchange 2003 on the server. You do not have to configure any additional settings to make the spelling checker available to users.

Client requirements

To use the spelling checker, you must have the following software and specifications:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.
• If you configure forms-based authentication for OWA in Exchange 2003, you must use the premium version of OWA. The spelling checker is not available in the basic version of OWA.
• The first time that you check the spelling of a message or of a post in the private mail store, you must specify the language of the dictionary that you want to use.
  
  When you check the spelling of a post in the public store, you must specify the language of the dictionary that you want to use, even though you may already have selected the language of the dictionary when you composed a message or in the private store. This procedure also applies when you check the spelling of a post more than one time. You must select the language that you want to use each time you check the spelling of a post in the public store.

Note To configure additional spelling checker options in OWA:

1. In the Folders list, click Options.
2. Under Spelling Options, configure the options that you want, and then click Save and Close.

Note When you turn on the option to ignore words that are typed in all uppercase letters, spelling checker does not identify words that are typed in all uppercase letters as misspelled words. For example, acronyms are not identified as misspelled words. When you turn on the option to ignore words that contain numbers, the spelling checker does not identify items that contain a mix of letters and numbers as misspelled words. For example, ID codes are not identified as misspelled words.

How the spelling checker works

The spelling checker uses a client component to search for and to replace flagged words, a server component to process the flagged words in the document, and an XML component to communicate the results from the server to the client.

The spelling checker does not flag the following items as errors:

• Roman numerals.
• Repeated words.
• Single letters.
• Initials that are capitalized.
• Two words that are separated by a �@� character (without the quotation marks), where the �@� character (without the quotation marks) is inserted after the last character of the first word and before the first character of the second word. For example, the spelling checker does not flag the following word as an error:
  someone@example.com
  However, the spelling checker does flag the following word as an error:
  @example.com
• Words that start with any of the following strings:
  • file:
  • http:
  • https:
  • ftp:
  • ftps:
  • \\
  • mailto:

How to configure spelling checker restrictions for OWA users

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Depending on the performance and scalability requirements of your environment, you may want to configure spelling checker restrictions for OWA users at the server level. These settings are stored in the following registry key on the server: The following list describes the registry values that you can add to this key to configure spelling checker restrictions for OWA users and contains information about the error messages (if any) a user receives after you configure spelling checker restrictions:

• The
  MaxSpellDocumentSize
  DWORD value
  
  To set the maximum size of a document that a user can check the spelling of, add the
  MaxSpellDocumentSize
  registry value, and then set it to the value that you want in kilobytes (KB).
  
  If a user checks the spelling of a message or a post that is larger than the value that you specified, an error ID 11 is generated. and the user receives an error message similar to the following:
  Due to the size of this item, only part if it can be checked by the spelling checker.
  To check the spelling of the document, the user must split the document into smaller sections, and then check the spelling of each section.
• The
  MaxSpellErrors
  DWORD value
  
  To set the maximum number of errors per message or per post that the spelling checker processes, add the
  MaxSpellErrors
  registry value, and then set it to the value that you want. For example, if you set the value to 5, and the user checks the spelling of a message that contains more than five errors, an error ID 9 or error ID 10 is generated. After the spelling checker flags the sixth error, the user receives an error message that is similar to the following error message:
  The maximum number of errors allowed by the spelling checker has been exceeded. Correct the errors that were found, and then check the document again
  To check the spelling of the document, the user must correct the errors that are flagged, and then run the spelling checker again.
  
  Note OWA permits users to correct X+2 errors, where X is the value of the
  MaxSpellErrors
  registry value.
• The
  MaxSpellUniqueErrors
  DWORD value
  
  To set the maximum number of unique errors per message or per post that the spelling checker processes, add the
  MaxSpellUniqueErrors
  registry value, and then set it to the value that you want. For example, if you set the value to 5, and the user checks the spelling of a message that contains more than five errors that are unique, an error ID 9 or error ID 10 is generated. After the spelling checker flags the sixth unique error, the user receives an error message that is similar to the following error message :
  The maximum number of errors allowed by the spelling checker has been exceeded. Correct the errors that were found, and then check the document again
  To spell-check the document, the user must correct the errors that are flagged, and then perform another spell-check operation.
• The
  MaxSpellRequests
  DWORD value
  
  To set the maximum number of client spelling checker requests that the server processes at the same time, add the
  MaxSpellRequests
  registry entry, and then set it to the value that you want. If a user checks the spelling of a message and the maximum number of spelling checker requests is reached, the user receives an error message that is similar to the following error message:
  Your Exchange server is busy and cannot run spelling checker for you at this time. Please try your request again later.
  To check the spelling of the document, the user must run the spelling checker later.
• The
  DisableSpellCheckOnSend
  DWORD value
  
  If you do not want users to turn on the Always check spelling before sending option, you can disable this option at the server level. When you do so, users cannot use this option to automatically check the spelling of messages and posts that they send. After you disable the Always check spelling before sending option at the server level, the option is disabled for users, even if a user already set this option in OWA. To disable the Always check spelling before sending option at the server level, add the
  DisableSpellCheckOnSend
  registry value, and then set it to a non-zero value. For example, set the value to 1.
  
  To permit users to turn on Always check spelling before sending option, set the
  DisableSpellCheckOnSend
  registry value to 0 (zero).

Additional error messages

The following list describes how to troubleshoot additional error messages that a user may receive:

• When a user tries to check the spelling of a message or a post, they may receive an error message that is similar to the following error message:
  The dictionary language you requested could not be found on the server. On the Options page, please choose another language, or contact your administrator.
  This issue occurs when a language dictionary is not loaded on the server and an error ID 0 or error ID 4 is generated. This issue may occur if the dictionary files were present on the server, and then the dictionary files were removed from the server after the user selected a dictionary to use.
  
  To troubleshoot this error message, make sure that the dictionary files are located in the \Exchsrvr\Exchweb\Bin\Spell folder on the hard disk of the server and in the Exchweb/Bin/Spell virtual directory in Internet Services Manager.
• When a user tries to check the spelling of a message or a post, they may receive an error message that is similar to one of the following error messages:
  
  Error Message 1
  Outlook Web Access was unable to check the spelling on this item due to an error.
  Error Message 2
  The spelling in this item can't be checked. Try again later.
  To troubleshoot this error message:
  • In Internet Services Manager, make sure that the Exchweb/Bin/Spell virtual directory exists and that it contains the dictionary files.
  • In Internet Services Manager, make sure that that the authentication methods set on the /Spell virtual directory are inherited from the /Bin virtual directory. To verify the authentication methods, follow these steps:
    1. Open IIS Manager.
    2. Right-click the /Exchweb virtual directory, and then click Properties.
    3. Click the Directory Security tab.
    4. Click Edit next to Anonymous access and authentication control.
    5. Click Integrated Windows authentication, and then click OK.
    6. Click Apply.
    7. If you are prompted to do so, click Select All in the Inheritance Overrides window to select all the Child Nodes in the window, and then click OK.
    8. Click Edit next to Anonymous access and authentication control.
    9. Click to clear the Integrated Windows authentication check box, and then click OK.
    10. Click OK,
  • In Internet Services Manager, make sure that that the Execute permissions that are set on the /Spell virtual directory are inherited from the /Bin virtual directory. Specifically, the Execute permissions should be set for Scripts and Executables.
  • Make sure that all OWA users are using Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.
  • Investigate whether antivirus programs or other programs that perform file-level scanning are preventing the spelling checker from working correctly.

For more information about Exchange 2003, visit the following Microsoft Web site: