Emacs Windows spellcheck - aspell or hunspell

Question

I use emacs 23.1.50 version on Windows XP operation system. I could not setup hunspell or aspell as part of emacs with the example provided by the emacs wiki. Anyone has working confiugration for windows xp and please help me out.

Answer 1

See http://blog.binchen.org/posts/what-s-the-best-spell-check-set-up-in-emacs.html

It explains why aspell is better for programmers.

Answer 2

aspell can be easily installed on windows using cygwin. In the cygwin setup, search for aspell in the search bar and select it for installation. Remember to also select the dictionary you want to install (for the english language - aspell-en). Add the cygwin/bin directory to the load-path in emacs, so that emacs can find the executable when it needs it. Finally, add the following line to your .emacs file:

(setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")

HTH

Answer 3

I use aspell for spellchecking with emacs on Windows. Looking at my .emacs file I can see these configuration variables.

(custom-set-variables
    '(ispell-dictionary "british")
    '(ispell-program-name "H:\\bin\\aspell\\bin\\aspell.exe"))

I installed aspell with the installation wizard. M-S-$ ispell-buffer flyspell-mode and the like all work correctly for me.