Creating And Adding Custom Optometric Dictionary File for Microsoft Word 2007.

Problem Statement: Although Word® does contain a large dictionary file; it does not contain many of the terms and disease names commonly used in the profession of Optometry. This deficit causes medical documents to register as having numerous spelling errors. As a result, many practitioners forgo spell check consequently missing real spelling errors. Motivation: Every Optometrist has to write referral letters and it is important as professionals that these letters are free of errors. Approach: By creating a custom dictionary file for Microsoft Word®, Optometrists will be able to utilize spell check more often and write
letters with fewer errors. To create this file, the content pages of several highly circulated optometry desk references were analyzed to see what words came up as being misspelled. Additionally, the brand and generic names of top 200 prescribed drugs were added to the file as well as ophthalmic drug names and ophthalmic manufacturers. Results: After analysis of the results, a custom dictionary file was created and will be available online along with installation instructions. Conclusion: The ease of installation and availability, make this a must have for optometrists whom will at the very least catch an error or two. The dictionary file contains over 500 words which would otherwise be considered misspelled.