Word Web is installed on every machine I touch. I've been using it for longer than I can remember. Word Web is a small, free dictionary utility.
It runs as a background process within your Windows session.
With a hot key stroke (configurable) it will jump to the foreground and automatically scrape the text you have selected from you active window. I can be working in Notepad2 for instance, double click a word (to select it), and hit the Word Web key combo (I have it set to Ctrl+W), and Word Web will look up the spelling and give me whatever definition if finds. I can then use Word Web to find alternate spellings, synonyms or antonyms and use it's "replace" button to then send the spelling choose to the window I was working with.
Here is a demo of what I'm talking about...
Cool features
- Totally free
- It's totally disconnected - No connectivity required. It's an amazingly small install footprint for the coverage in this dictionary
- Hugh dictionary - I don't remember every looking for something it didn't find. It even understands most slang.
- Small footprint - Install is small, and runs light (between 4 and 10 MB usually)
It's ugly yes, but invaluable... check it out.