laspell

laspell is a spell-checking tool designed for LaTeX documents. It acts as a LaTeX-aware wrapper around a standard spell checker such as Ispell or Aspell, enabling users to check the natural-language content of a TeX source file while ignoring LaTeX commands, environments, and math.

Design and features: The tool analyzes a LaTeX source file to extract or filter text. It strips or ignores LaTeX commands, macro definitions, and math content (inline and display math) so that only prose is sent to the underlying spell checker. It can be configured to treat certain long names or technical terms as non-errors via dictionaries or exceptions. It supports multiple languages through the dictionaries of the underlying spell checker and can typically process single files or directories of TeX sources, with options to integrate with editors or build processes.

Usage: Typical usage involves invoking laspell on a .tex file or a project, with the output listing misspelled words and suggested corrections. The underlying spell checker provides the dictionary and suggestions, while laspell handles LaTeX-specific filtering and command handling. Some implementations offer options to customize dictionaries, ignore user-defined macros, or produce machine-readable output.

Limitations: No LaTeX-aware system is perfect; unresolved commands, proper nouns, or specialized notation may be misclassified, requiring dictionary maintenance and manual review. Heavy macro use or unusual syntax may challenge automated filtering.

See also: Aspell, Ispell, LaTeX, TeX, spell checker utilities.