I recently upgraded to OpenOffice.org 3, and amongst the raft of new and enhanced features is the Extension Manager -- under the Tools menu -- that handles all manner of add-ons, including dictionaries. Then I hit a snag: no dictionary for New Zealand English. There's English-English, Aussie-English, US-English but nothing for NZ. Never mind. This is open source. I built my own!

Actually that's a slight exaggeration. Oh, all right, it's a huge exaggeration. In the best traditions of open source I merely stood on someone else's shoulders.

The NZ English dictionary in OOo 2 was compiled by Tristan Burtenshaw who localised the original English one by adding a ton of Kiwi place names, Maori terms and local lingo. I tried contacting him via the email address in the accompanying README file but my message bounced. (If you're out there Tristan, I hope you don't mind!)

As a piece of programming, creating an Extensions format NZ dictionary was remarkably straightforward. I simply took Tristan's OOo 2 dictionary files, popped them in an OOo 3 Extensions container and tweaked a couple of the controlling files. (You'll find more details here if you're technically inclined.) I then uploaded my creation to the OOo Extensions server and within 24 hours more than 100 people had benefited from my labour.

You'll find the new NZ dictionary here. I'm currently looking at updating and maintaining it so if you find any errors, omissions or have any other suggestions, let me know.

(And if you need help with spell checking and language configuration, try this link.)