I couldn’t find another post discussing this. Has it ever been considered to add basic spell check for some objects in KiCad Schematics (or possibly even in the PCB)? I’m particularly interested in text and text box in the schematic editor. I’m atrocious at spelling (a personal fault, I know…), and I hate it when I send out schematics with misspellings. My current workflow is to copy-paste the text into an editor with spellcheck, but this is cumbersome, and I don’t always remember to do it when updating fields. I’m curious if anyone else is interested in this feature and if the devs have ever considered it.
Making this work on all OS and multi language could be challenging.
For labels, a spelling checker that compares with a generic dictionary does not make much sense to me. Label names can also be chosen from a drop down list. This helps to prevent spelling errors, or when you’re not sure about the used syntax. This drop down list also has all label names alphabetically sorted, and by looking at that list, you may find an already used misspelled label.
KiCad does have an option to set your preferred text editor, but it is not used much. Maybe it would be useful to use this external text editor for editing text in multi line texts and text boxes, but I’m not sure how to get the text into and out of a text editor.
Another option is to simply open a KiCad schematic file in a text editor. KiCad’s files are human readable ascii (or whatever it’s equivalent is in these “modern” times). Make sure you have a backup when doing this, as KiCad is sensitive about syntax errors.
For labels, a spelling checker that compares with a generic dictionary does not make much sense to me. Label names can also be chosen from a drop down list. This helps to prevent spelling errors, or when you’re not sure about the used syntax. This drop down list also has all label names alphabetically sorted, and by looking at that list, you may find an already used misspelled label.
Totally agree. There are way too many sensible label names that wouldn’t show up in a dictionary. FWIW, labels are not where I usually run into issues with spelling personally and the label system in KiCad is great. An idea here would be to have configuration for what objects get spell checking with sensible defaults (i.e. labels off by default, text and text boxes on).
KiCad does have an option to set your preferred text editor, but it is not used much. Maybe it would be useful to use this external text editor for editing text in multi line texts and text boxes, but I’m not sure how to get the text into and out of a text editor.
Another option is to simply open a KiCad schematic file in a text editor. KiCad’s files are human readable ascii (or whatever it’s equivalent is in these “modern” times). Make sure you have a backup when doing this, as KiCad is sensitive about syntax errors.
It looks like either of these options would stumble a bit when trying to find the text in questions among the S expressions, and also when editing multiline strings (they have the \n encoded in the string). I’d still mainly want to see the visual cue of a squiggly underbar directly in the schematic editor on misspelled words.
I totally get that adding a spell check feature is not a small lift, especially in an application with localization, and this likely isn’t the most pressing thing compared to other bugs and features. I am still curious if anyone else has similar feeling if for nothing else to know I’m not alone 
.
I think my current workflow is still the best I’ve got for now:
- Open the text field/box in question
- Copy the text
- Paste text in an editor with spell checking
- Spell check
- Copy that text
- Paste back into KiCad
if anyone else is interested in this feature and if the devs have ever considered it.
Yes, there is a gitlab issue regarding this topic. But the interest was low, and so the issue got moved to the backlog category: Spell-check in text boxes (#4216) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab
Thanks for the link to this. I did search Gitlab issues before posting, but it didn’t come up with the search term ‘spell check’ or ‘spellcheck’. I lodged my vote there, but totally get this is a very low priority. Thank you all for the info.
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There was some comments about when fixing another issue:
Potentially, it possible to use the scintilla library (actual textbox library used) to do spell check. Also using the own installed dictionaries (as Libre office and Linux libs), but this implementation, IMHO, appear to be OS dependent.