Spellcheck a batch of Markdown files with Aspell

Let’s see how to spellcheck a batch of Markdown files with Aspell, a free and open-source spell checker supporting more than 90 different languages¹

1. Install aspell

Here with the english dictionnary:

sudo apt install aspell aspell-en

A list of available dictionnaries can be found on gnu.org

2. Open a terminal

3. Navigate to the root of your project

4. Run the following command:

grep -rlP 'title:' content/ | xargs -o -n1 sh -c 'aspell check "$@" --master=en_US --lang=en_US  --sug-mode=slow -x --mode=markdown < /dev/tty' whatever

(You may want to adjust --master=en_US --lang=en_US)

5. Browse the suggestions and apply with a single keystroke

Shortcuts and suggestions are shown at the bottom of the screen:

Caveats

There’s one single tiny drawback: when a file is closed, the next one is automatically opened, until the end of the list. I didn’t find a way to exit this loop whitout force quit the terminal.

But I’m fine with it so far: the files are written right after an update, so the modifications are not lost even when force exiting.

References

• Aspell’s presentation on Wikipedia
• This post was inspired by vendelin.org