Reads markdown files and spellchecks them, using open source Hunspell dictionary files.

CLI Usage

There are two modes, interactive fixing, which will allow you to fix mistakes and add exceptions to a custom dictionary and a report mode which will just report the list of errors.

# install
npm i markdown-spellcheck -g

# run in interactive mode
mdspell "**/*.md"

# see help & options
mdspell

CLI Options

Excluding patterns

Multiple patterns can be used on the command line and can use ! for negation. e.g.

mdspell '**/*.md' '!**/node_modules/**/*.md'

Ignore numbers (-n, --ignore-numbers)

Ignores numbers like 1.2 and 1,2.4.

Ignore numbers (-v, --ignore-semver)

Ignores SemVer like 1.2.3 and v1.2.3-snapshot.

Ignore acronyms (-a, --ignore-acronyms)

Ignores acronyms like NPM. Also ignores numbers. Does not ignore single letters e.g. U.

No suggestions (-x, --no-suggestions)

Suggestions are slow at present, so use this to remove them.

American English (--en-us)

Use the American English dictionary.

British English (--en-gb)

Use the British English dictionary. Current default

Australian English (--en-au)

Use the Australian English dictionary.

Spanish (--es-es)

Use the Spanish dictionary.

Dictionary (-d, --dictionary)

Specify a custom Hunspell dictionary to load. The passed filename should not include a file extension and markdown-spellcheck will attempt to load the file with .aff and .dic extensions.

Interactive Mode

The default interactive mode shows you the context of the spelling mistake and gives you options with what to do about it. E.g.

Spelling - readme.md
 shows you the context of the speling mistake and gives you options
?   (Use arrow keys)
  Ignore
  Add to file ignores
  Add to dictionary - case insensitive
> Enter correct spelling
  spelling
  spieling
  spewing
  selling
  peeling

Where speling will be highlighted in red.

• "Ignore" will ignore that word and not ask about it again in the current run. If you re-run the command again though, it will appear.
• "Add to file ignores" will ignore the word in this file only.
• "Add to dictionary - case insensitive" will add to the dictionary for all files and match any case. e.g. with the word Microsoft both Microsoft and microsoft would match.
• "Add to dictionary - case sensitive" will add to the dictionary for all files and match the case that has been used. e.g. with the word Microsoft, the word microsoft will not match.

All exclusions will be stored in a .spelling file in the directory from which you run the command.

Target Relative Mode

Using the --target-relative (-t) option will augment the shared .spelling file with a relative .spelling file (sibling of the .md file) and give you the additional options with the interactive mode:

• "Add to file ignores" will be replaced with "[Relative] Add to file ignores". There is no need to add file ignores into the shared .spelling file.
• "[Relative] Add to dictionary - case insensitive" will add to the dictionary for all files within the current .md file and match any case.
• "[Relative] Add to dictionary - case sensitive" will add to the dictionary for all files within the folder of the current .md file.

Report Mode

Using the --report (-r) option will show a report of all the spelling mistakes that have been found. This mode is useful for CI build reports.

.spelling files

The .spelling file is self documenting as it includes...

# markdown-spellcheck spelling configuration file
# Format - lines beginning # are comments
# global dictionary is at the start, file overrides afterwards
# one word per line, to define a file override use ' - filename'
# where filename is relative to this configuration file

Use To Stop Spelling Regressions

Usage with npm

Add to your package.json and then run in report mode. If new spelling errors occur that are not ignored in the .spelling file, a error exit code will be set.

For instance, if your package.json has:

  "scripts": {
    "test": "gulp test"
  },

Change it to...

  "scripts": {
    "test": "mdspell -r **/*.md && gulp test"
  },

Dictionaries being used

Dictionaries are based on the NPM dictionary packages.

If you are missing a word, check the official spell project:

http://wordlist.aspell.net/contrib/