3.2.1 As a Drop In Replacement

Aspell can be used as a drop in replacement for Ispell for programs that use Ispell through a pipe such as Emacs and LyX. It can also be used with programs that simply call the ispell command and expect the original file to be overwritten with the corrected version.

If you do not have Ispell installed on your system and have installed the Ispell compatibility script then you should not need to do anything as most applications that expect Ispell will work as expected with Aspell via the Ispell compatibility script.

Otherwise, the recommended way to use Aspell as a replacement for Ispell is to change the ispell command from within the program being used. If the program uses ispell in pipe mode simply change ispell to aspell. If the program calls the ispell command to check the file, then change ispell with aspell check.

If that is impossible then the run-with-aspell script can be used. This script modifies the patch so that programs see the Ispell compatibility script instead of the actual true ispell command. The format of the script is:

run-with-aspell command

where command is the name of the program with any optional arguments.

The old method of mapping Ispell to Aspell is discouraged because it can create compatibility problems with programs that actually require Ispell such as Ispell’s own scripts.