Let's start with word guidance. You probably have a list of words that are important to your brand, and you want your writers to use them consistently. Product names are an obvious example. These are words that a normal spell checker might report as a spelling issue. These spell checkers usually let you add words as spelling exceptions, and Acrolinx is no different. But a list of spelling exceptions isn't always the best place for these words.
Let's say you have a product line called "Awesome Thing®". Sure, you don't want this word to come up as a spelling issue, but it's more than that. The word is also part of your brand language. You want all writers to write it exactly the same way. It's not "Awesome thing", or "Awesome-thing" — it's "Awesome Thing®". You want complete control over that word. That's when you add a word to your terminology.
On the other hand, you might have a proper noun that also keeps showing up as a spelling issue. Suppose you're writing about Dysnomia, the Greek goddess of lawlessness and the name of a moon that orbits the planet "Eris". Acrolinx will probably highlight "Dysnomia" and "Eris" as spelling issues. These words aren't really part of your company terminology, but you don't want them to keep coming up as spelling issues either. That's when you add a word to your spelling exception list.
The word guidance page shows you words that frequently occur in your content, but are "unknown" to Acrolinx. You can then decide whether to add them as a spelling exception or to your terminology.
When you first open this page, you'll see a list of words and three possible "Actions" for each word. Acrolinx suggests an action for each word. You'll see Acrolinx-suggested actions highlighted in blue. We call these preselected actions the "default action". If you agree with the suggested action, you just need to confirm the decision. You can also change the action.
You have the following choices for each word:
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Add the word as a preferred term
Confirm that the word is part of your company terminology. It'll be added to your terminology database so that you can manage the term settings and translations.
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Confirm spelling
Confirm that the word is spelled correctly. It'll be added as a permanent spelling exception so that Acrolinx doesn't report it as a spelling issue.
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Mark as a spelling issue
Confirm that the word is a genuine spelling issue and continue to report it to writers.
To update your word guidance, follow these steps:
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Review the default actions for each word and confirm the actions that you're happy with.
Select the Confirmed checkbox next to each word.
You can also select batches of words in the following ways:
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Click SELECT ALL ON THIS PAGE to select only the words on the current page.
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Open the dropdown and click Select All Words on All Pages. If you want to cancel your selection, click Deselect All Words on All Pages.
If you want to hide the words that you've confirmed already, select the Hide confirmed words option.
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Update the words that need a different action.
Click your preferred action. If you change the action, Acrolinx automatically marks the word as Confirmed for you.
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If you're not sure about a word, try to look at examples of how writers have used the word.
There are two ways to do this:
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To see one usage example, move your mouse over the word. In the help section, you'll see one example sentence where Acrolinx found the word.
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To see all the sentences where Acrolinx found this word, click the word.
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When you've confirmed enough words, click Apply Changes.
Acrolinx then applies your changes, and all words that are marked as confirmed are removed from the Word Guidance page.
Acrolinx applies your changes with the following results:
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Words that you categorized as discovered terms are added to your terminology database as "preferred" terms and are put in a default domain.
However, you'll need to reload your language configuration to ensure that Acrolinx doesn't treat these words as spelling issues.
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Words that you categorized as spelling exceptions are added to a company-wide spelling exception list.
This change takes effect straight away. Bear in mind that this company-wide spelling exception list is different from the custom spelling exception lists that writers update from the Acrolinx Integrations. Those spelling exceptions can be specific to certain documents or Guidance Profiles. Your company-wide spelling exception list applies to everyone who uses Acrolinx. You can only update the list in the guidance wizard.
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Words that you categorized as genuine spelling issues are saved on your Acrolinx Platform.
This change also takes effect straight away. Acrolinx remembers that you've confirmed this word is a genuine spelling issue. It won't show it to you again in the guidance wizard. Acrolinx will still report this word as a spelling issue to writers when they check their content.