Microsoft Word tells me my profession makes up words; I fight back.

By Carrie

Occasionally I do things that really make myself aware of how much of a nerd I am. Last week, I installed Skype on my work computer and the computer 10 ft away from me. This way, I could monitor my rats under anesthesia at my work computer, instead of at the anesthesia station a few steps away. Nerdy? Yes. But functional and exciting? Certainly!

Today I decided I've had enough of myself complaining when writing reports. I am in school for audiology, and the majority of times when writing a paper or patient report, it seems every other word is underlined for spelling errors; these words include retrocochlear, otoscopy, earmold, and  sensorineural. These are the most basic words used in almost any report! So today, I decided to set up a custom dictionary that could be added to any Microsoft Word.

Step One: Open up Microsoft Word and go to Word Options.

Click on any of these pictures to make them bigger.

Go to File -> Word Options

Step Two: Create the file.

Go to Proofing in the left hand column, then choose Custom Dictionaries

Click New, then name the file what you want, and click Save.

IMPORTANT: Take note where this file is saving to!

 

This is where I got lost. I created my custom dictionary, great, but why didn't it ask me to put any words into it? How does this help me?!

Step Three: Add words.

So, I found where the file was saved, and its nothing more than a notebook file! I opened up the one already saved to see their format-

These are the words I've right clicked and "added to dictionary". (Most of them are audiology related!)

So, I opened up MY custom dictionary, audiology.dic, and started adding in the words I wanted.

Step four will include sending an email with the dictionary attached, with instructions for adding it to Microsoft word to all my audiology friends. And hoping that I don't get made fun of too much.