By Andrew Morrison

St. Margaret's Bay Animal Hospital
Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia, Canada

You are visitor , Thank you.

Introduction.

The Veterinary and Medical Dictionary for MS Word is a custom dictionary that complements Word’s main dictionary with about 30,893 words that are used in veterinary medicine, medicine and general science. This version is designed to complement Word’s English (UK) Main Dictionary but will also work with other Main dictionaries.

Charity-ware

This version is charity-ware. If you use the dictionaries, please contribute the equivalent of 10 Euro, $Cdn 10 or $US 10 to an animal welfare charity of your choice. To those of you in Dublin, I can suggest purchasing a brick in the new DSPCA shelter.

Download.

Download one of these stuffed archives (see below for explanation):

Included files and where to put them.

There are 2 formats of the dictionary depending on the system and Word version you are using. According to the Microsoft technical data, all Windows OS versions of Word, and Word 98 for the Macintosh have custom dictionaries limited to 5,000 words and 65,593 bytes. Format 1 accommodates this in 7 dictionaries. Word 2001 for the Macintosh can use custom dictionaries of up to 10,000 words and 366,590 bytes. Format 2 accommodates this in 4 dictionaries.

That said, users have reported that a single dictionary functions correctly in Word 2002 for the PC. I have found that the single dictionary works in Word 2001 on Mac OS 9.1. Format 3 provides the single dictionary, use it at your own risk.

The archives also contain a read me file which contains the information from this web page.

Copy the dictionary files to the following directories (depending on your operating system and Word version):

• MAC: Microsoft Office 98:Shared Applications:Proofing Tools
• MAC: Microsoft Office 2001:Shared Applications:Proofing Tools
• Windows: C:\Windows\ApplicationData\Microsoft\Proof

If there are any difficulties, consult Word’s help files. Your path may be different depending on your system configuration.

How to activate and use a custom dictionary.

The following is excerpted from Word’s help file:

Before you can use a custom dictionary to check spelling, you must activate it. You can activate up to 10 custom dictionaries at a time.

The next time you check spelling, Word will use all active custom dictionaries. Ensure that the document’s language is not set to "no proofing". To check, select the entire text (Edit:Select All) then go to the Tools:Language:Set Language…. Choose the language of your choice.

Disclaimer.

Efforts have been made to ensure that words included are correct. However it is possible that errors have been made. The dictionary will only indicate if a word is correctly spelled and not if it is used correctly. It is highly recommended that authors proof-read documents thoroughly. Both British and American spellings of some words are included in the dictionary. This version has been tested on Word 2001 for Macintosh and Word 2000 for Windows. The main references are:

Baillière’s Comprhensive Veterinary Dictionary, 1998. Blood DC and Studdert VP, Baillière Tindall, London.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 8^th ed, 1990, Ed: RE Allen. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Words not appearing in the above references may be including if they are used in published texts or scientific papers.

Feedback.

Though this is the second release of this dictionary, it is certain that some words are not included. It is possible that there may be errors and that some words which have both American and British spellings have only one version listed. Please send all such omissions and any other comments to (this is not a link, please type this address into your mail program). There will, from time to time, be updates to the dictionary and they will be posted to this website. I'm also running a mailing list to notify users of updates. Please send me an email to be included. The list is strictly confidential.