Get rid of LibreOffice’s all-language dictionary

Question

I use LibreOffice, and since I write in multiple languages, I would like to have one dictionary per language rather than one for all (so e.g. French spellings will get flagged in an Italian text and vice versa).

To this end I have created one dictionary per language (and assigned it the appropriate language), and removed the “standard” dictionary (valid for all languages). However, the standard dictionary keeps getting recreated whenever I run a spell check. As a result, I have to select a dictionary for each word I add, and the whole spell check seems kinda buggy (it randomly asks me to resume after I have added a word, or whether I want to resume from the beginning in the middle of the document, and other annoying stuff it hasn’t done before I added a dictionary per language).

Disabling the standard dictionary did not help, as it seems to re-enable itself. What gives?

Answer 1

A workaround which helped me was to edit the standard dictionary (Tools > Options > Language Settings > Writing Aids), changing its language from “all” (i.e. language-neutral) to a language not used by any other custom dictionary.

Apparently LibreOffice insists that one of the custom dictionaries be named “standard” and enabled – if not, it will create/enable it as needed. By default, the standard dictionary is for all languages, but this is not enforced. Hence you can freely choose the language for the standard dictionary, ensuring there is only one eligible dictionary per language.

One option is to use the standard dictionary for the language you write in most frequently, and create a separate dictionary for each other language you write in.

Or, if you have a naming convention for your dictionaries (e.g. requiring the dictionary to identify the language its entries are in), set the standard dictionary to a language you will never use, then create your own language-specific dictionaries with the names of your choosing.