Use your PageMaker user dictionary in InDesign

You can’t use PageMaker’s user dictionary in InDesign, but there’s a way to add your exceptions to the InDesign user dictionary. It’s still a fairly slow process, but it beats starting from scratch, especially if you have quite a few exceptions to add. Just follow this two-part process.

To export your exceptions list:

1. Launch PageMaker’s Dictionary Editor, which is located in the Adobe PageMaker 7\Extras\Typography folder (Adobe\PageMaker 7.0\Dictionary Editor in Windows).
2. Choose File > Open and navigate to the Adobe PageMaker 7.0\RSRC\Linguists\Proximity\US English folder (Adobe\PageMaker 7.0\RSRC\LINGUIST\PRX\USENGLSH folder in Windows).
3. Select the AldUsn.udc file (or a custom user dictionary that contains the entries you want to transfer) and click OK.
4. Choose File > Export and, in the resulting dialog box, enter a filename with a .txt extension. (This is done for you in Windows.)
5. Click OK to save the dictionary as a text file in the US English folder.

To import your PageMaker exceptions list into InDesign:

1. Launch InDesign and create a new document.
2. Choose File > Place, locate the user dictionary text file you just created in the US English folder, and then click Open.
3. Click the loaded icon on the page to place the text.
4. Select the Type tool and click an insertion point in the text.
5. Choose Edit > Spelling > Check Spelling (Edit > Check Spelling in versions 2/CS) and click Start in the Check Spelling dialog box. As InDesign comes across unfamiliar words in the text file, click Add.
6. Click Ignore in the Check Spelling dialog box to continue to the next exception in the list.
7. Click Done when you’ve finished adding all the exceptions to the InDesign user dictionary to close the Check Spelling dialog box.

There’s no need to save the InDesign document.