How to Install Spelling in Neovim

Neovim Spelling

Neovim does not have support for spelling other than English by default. Here are how you can get the required files to enable spelling in neovim.

You can find a list of dictionaries from LibreOffice at: LibreOffice Extensions.

A demonstration of the process can be seen below.

Portuguese (Brazillian)

Get Files

To install pt_BR spelling in neovim you will need to get the files. You can manually download the file at LibreOffice - Português do Brasil Spellcheck or run the following command

wget https://extensions.libreoffice.org/assets/downloads/z/veroptbrv320aoc.oxt

The license from each dictionary may vary.

Compile

The .oxt file is an archive, which can be unpacked using zip like this:

unzip veroptbrv320aoc.oxt

The result will be like this:

├── description.xml
├── dialog
│   ├── OptionsDialog.xcs
│   ├── OptionsDialog.xcu
│   ├── pt_BR_pt_BR.default
│   ├── pt_BR_pt_BR.properties
│   └── pt_BR.xdl
├── dictionaries.xcu
├── hyph_pt_BR.dic
├── icons
│   └── VERO-logo.png
├── Lightproof.components
├── Lightproof.py
├── Linguistic.xcu
├── META-INF
│   └── manifest.xml
├── package-description.txt
├── pt_BR.aff
├── pt_BR.dic
├── pythonpath
│   ├── lightproof_handler_pt_BR.py
│   ├── lightproof_impl_pt_BR.py
│   ├── lightproof_opts_pt_BR.py
│   └── lightproof_pt_BR.py
├── README_en.txt
├── README_hyph_pt_BR.txt
├── README_Lightproof_pt_BR.txt
└── README_pt_BR.txt

Now, open neovim within the directory these files are present and run the following command: mkspell pt pt_BR. A new .spl file will be generated. In this case, it will look like this: pt.utf-8.spl.

Usage

To enable your spelling you can do it in two interesting ways. Pick one:

1. Enable an Option
2. Create an Autocmd

Enable an Option

First, you will have to move your .spl file to spell folder within your neovim config, if you use LazyVim Distro, or you can set an option as well.

In your configuration file, you can add the following lines:

vim.opt.spell = true
vim.opt.encoding = "UTF-8"
vim.opt.spelllang = "pt,en_us" -- Optionally enable spell for both languages
vim.opt.spellfile="~/.config/neovim/spell/pt.utf-8.spl" -- Required if not using LazyVim

Enable an Autocmd

If you wish to only turn spelling on in specific files you can use an autocmd to turn spelling on in files like plain text and markdown. See an example:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("FileType", {
  pattern = { "text", "plaintex", "gitcommit", "markdown" },
  callback = function()
    vim.opt_local.spelllang = { "pt", "en_us" }
  end,
})

This will enable spelling on text, plaintext, interactive git commit messages and markdown filetypes.

Tips

You can toggle the spelling with the spell! command, or set it to a binding like so:

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>ts", ":set spell!<CR>", { noremap = true, silent = true, desc = "Toggle: [S]pell" })