First, download the dictionary and the affix file for spelling. In the case of Romanian, I use my own experimental dictionary (UTF-8 version).
Second, unzip the archive and extract the ro_RO.aff and ro_RO.dic files in the wordbook folder. See the next image for details
For the other files in the above image see the explanations in what follows.
Next look for the hyphenation dictionary. OpenOffice2 uses TeX hyphenation patterns. The generation of the TeX Romanian hyphenation patterns is explained by Beccari, Oprea and Tulei. For the generation of the patterns file used with OpenOffice see the Hyphenation Project page on the OpenOffice.org site. Locate the Romanian hyphenation dictionary. I found it on the OpenOffice.org dictionaries page. Put the content of the archive in your wordbook OpenOffice2 folder, as shown in the above image.
Third, create in the wordbook OpenOffice2 folder a file named dictionary.lst. This is a text file. Write in it two lines as shown in the next image.
Pay attention! Dictionary.lst is case-sensitive. Do not change capitalization.
Pay attention! In OpenOffice2, you may use the File->Wizards->Install New Dictionaries... from the OpenOffice menu. It installs old versions of the Romanian dictionaries. Use the rospell project for large and updated dictionaries. And I would still suggest a manual check of the content of the wordbook folder.
Now, you have to check the settings in the Tools->Options...->Language Settings->Writing Aids. I have used the User-defined dictionaries panel for the creation of a special personal dictionary, rom.dic, for the Romanian language. Then you have to edit the Available language modules panel as shown in the next image.
Choose Romanian as language and check the boxes for spelling and hyphenation.
In the OpenOffice2 documentation the recommendation is to have just a few (less than 10) active dictionaries. I use three dictionaries for English and two for Romanians. This improves OpenOffice performance. Obviously, you can change the settings if you write a document in some other language.
In order to test your new settings you have to restart OpenOffice. Then create a new document and set the language of the document using Format->Character menu as shown in the next image.
Write some text. I copied, for example, a fragment from a text translated by me. Start the spellchecker and work as shown in the next image.
You can add words to your personal dictionary. I added, for example, "orientăm", as one can see at an examination of the rom.dic file.
Hyphenate your text using the newly installed patterns. See the next image for an example of a hyphenation.
You can get help from OpenOffice on the subject of spelling and hyphenation.
Note that OpenOffice is compatible with LaTeX. I use almost the same dictionary for spelling and almost the same pattern file for hyphenation in the case of LaTeX texts. For this reason, I prefer OpenOffice to any other wordprocessor.
The steps under a Windows system are similar with those under GNU/Linux. I tested the solution described here under Win98. First, download the dictionary and the affix file for spelling. In the case of Romanian, I will use my own experimental dictionary (I use the ISO-8859-2 version version, but one should try the UTF-8 version first).
Then identify the folder wordbook in your OpenOffice installation. In the following image one can see an installation of OpenOffice1.1.1. OpenOffice is in a directory called "ooo". In the wordbook folder one can see the same seven files as under GNU/Linux. I created them with the help of tools described in the first part of this guide(in Romanian), but one may use any other archiver, file management and text editor program.
The next steps follow the same pattern as under GNU/Linux. When the system is functional, one can use the speller and hyphenator as shown in the next image.
In the image one sees the same example with "orientăm". The dictionary is experimental. It does not recognize this form of "orienta". We can add it however to our personal dictionary.
Most people buy a computer with a preinstalled Windows operating system on it. Then the majority does seem either to hesitate or to have difficulties to switch to a GNU/Linux distribution. They also seem to lack the will to use LaTeX as a typesetter. In these cases I strongly encourage the use of OpenOffice. Adding spelling and hyphenating functionality for your language to OpenOffice makes it an ideal tool for writing term papers and theses.