Introduction
Getting Started and Setting up the Visual Studio Solution
Links to HySpell Spellchecker Installers

The current HySpell GitHub project introduces the open source release of the actual HySpell Armenian Spellchecker Microsoft Office Add-in tool. The repository contains the complete source code of the latest 3.0.1.0 release, the binaries of which were previously released only in commercial package form.

The main goal of the current software package, historically speaking, was to introduce a complete and practical spell checking support for Armenian language in major text processing software applications, such as, Microsoft Office Word and Outlook, Adobe PageMaker/InDesign, OpenOffice, main web browsers, as well as, other similar systems. Back in 2008, with the popularity and success of Hunspell package as an open source project, it was decided to implement our linguistically complete spell check proof tool around Hunspell by introducing a .NET managed code wrapper upon the C-code Hunspell library. Moreover, given the capabilities of Hunspell in regards of the constructability of affix rule and dictionary systems, it was proper for usage on highly inflectional language, such as Armenian. After a year of linguistic work, an extensive lexicon of more than 150 thousand base words were collected and corrected to form the base dictionary file. Moreover, to capture all possible Armenian words, more than 300 affix rules were constructed, bringing the spell check accuracy to near 95%.

Subsequent versions of HySpell improved the software system both in integration with applications and the linguistic accuracy of the proofing tool. Given the fact that Hunspell got integrated with all major word processing applications, such as: Mozilla software (OpenOffice, Firefox), Adobe software (InDesign), support for Armenian spell checking, automatically got carried over onto most application, with the exception perhaps of the most important, namely, Microsoft Office suite (Word, Outlook).

Since Microsoft had no intention to integrate Hunspell as alternative proofing engine to their proprietary language support interface, even when Adobe adopted Hunspell as alternative, we had no option but utilize Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO), in order to implement Word and Outlook Add-in extensions to support the spell checking for Armenian. Besides, given the fact that there are still a number of issues in treatment of the Armenian language even at the Unicode level (for example mid-word punctuation that is unique to Armenian language), language support at a more custom level is required in the case of Armenian, and that VSTO Add-in alternative did provide a few advantages.

The current repository contains therefore the source code for this VSTO Add-in alternative implementation of the Armenian language support in Microsoft Office Word and Outlook (and for Windows OS).

The current document also includes links to the actual compiled binaries, as well as, language support for Mozilla series of applications, in particular, the complete suite of OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Google Chrome web browser, Adobe suite, in particular Adobe InDesign, and almost any software that is integrated with Hunspell.

Note that the proofing support at the web browser level (e.g. Firefox and Chrome), implies proofing support in any web application, such as Google Docs, Gmail, etc..

The current HySpell source code repository is prepared to be used based on the following platform requirements:

1.  Visual Studio 2017 on Windows OS (or above). Note that ever since version 2015, Microsoft has made free Community version of their Visual Studio, and Visual Studio 2017 contains all tools and features that are needed for HySpell compilation. Developers may download Visual Studio 2017 via the following link:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition

2.  The Visual Studio must be installed with all Office Customization templates and run-times (i.e. VSTO).

3.  In addition, to be able to compile the Setup project that exists in the HySpell VS solution, developers must also install Visual Studio Setup/Installer Project templates. The Setup/ Installer project template may be downloaded via the following link:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects

Finally, also note that in developing HySpell Armenian spellchecker we took a strategic initiative in utilizing the popular Hunspell C-library (developed by László Németh), while in the initial releases, we wrote our own C++ wrapper to port the C-library into .NET managed code, in the latest release of HySpell (i.e. the current release), we utilized instead an extended version of such wrapper, called NHunspell (developed by Thomas Maierhofer). The binaries of this .NET NHunspell.dll library along with 64-bit and 32-bit binaries of the actual C-code Hunspell are already included in the current HySpell repository. Therefore, there is no need to download anything from Hunspell or NHunspell sites.

For the completion of all references and to respect the open source MIT and/or LGPL license terms of respective authors, we have included the links to NHunspell and Hunspell sites below:

NHunspell site: http://www.nuget.org/packages/NHunspell/
Hunspell site: https://github.com/hunspell/hunspell

After installing and/or setting up all the required development tools and platforms, download the HySpell source file package from the current GitHub repository and extract source code files into a directory. Then, find and open the HySpell.sln solution file via the Visual Studio 2017. The solution should initialize and load into the IDE, and should look like the screenshot in Figure 1.

Figure 1. HySpell solution loaded in VS 2017

In particular, the HySpell solution comprises of the following VS projects:

1.  HySpell, which is the VSTO Word Add-in project, the main spellcheck controller that functions upon the Word DOM.

2.  HySpellOL, which is the VSTO Outlook Add-in project, the main spellcheck controller that functions upon the Outlook DOM.

3.  SetupApp, which is the HySpell setup application project.

4.  SetupForRequiredFiles, which is the HySpell setup for the linguistic support files, along with two extended Armenian keyboard layout drivers, standard Armenian fonts, and other auxiliary support files.

Finally, in order to be able to debug HySpell source code, a version of Microsoft Office must be installed on the development machine. In particular, for HySpell Word Add-in, Word 2010 or above must be installed and activated, while for HySpellOL Outlook Add-in, Outlook 2010 (or above). Note that the current HySpell version is tested against Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10, with Microsoft Office versions 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, Office 365, and all respective editions.

The following list contains links to the latest version of HySpell Spellchecker installers for various applications (in respective orthographies). These downloads are provided free of charge by www.hyspell.com:

For Firefox (any OS) - Classical Orthography | Դասական Ուղղագրութիւն, Size: 909KB
hyspellarmenianspellingmozillasuite_2.4.2.xpi
For Firefox (any OS) - Reformed Orthography | Նոր Ուղղագրութիւն, Size: 917KB
hyspellarmenianspellingmozillasuitero_2.4.2.xpi

OpenOffice (any OS) - Classical Orthography | Դասական Ուղղագրութիւն) Size: 904KB
hyspellarmenianspellingopenoffice_2.4.2.oxt
OpenOffice (any OS) - Reformed Orthography | Նոր Ուղղագրութիւն) Size: 913KB
hyspellarmenianspellingopenofficero_2.4.2.oxt

Microsft Office Word and Outlook 2010 (or above, Windows only) - Size: 36.3 MB
hyspell30installerwo.exe