[Aspell-user] spellchecking words with numbers

[Miles Waller]

Hi,

I am using aspell to as part of a website search engine, to provide a 
'did you mean' type function: user input is checked against a dictionary 
of words on the site, and if any are indicated as misspelt, the user is 
offered a suggestion.

Some of the terms entered are medical, in particular drug names and 
references (e.g. interleukin1, her2) which I would like to add to my 
personal word list so they can be used as suggestions.  The overall 
intent of the feature is to make it easier for non-medical users to 
search, without them needing to type and spell long medical terms correctly.

A particular problem is that if I ask aspell whether the word 'her2' is 
correctly spelt, it tells me it isn't, and suggests that i meant 'herd'!

The numbers are not always at the end, sometimes in the middle e.g. 
interleukin1beta.

I understand from the docs that aspell ignores numbers when spell checking.

My questions are:

 - is there any way to add words with numbers into a personal 
dictionary so that they can be used as suggestions (i am assuming not, 
but confirmation from someone more familiar with aspell than me would be 
useful!)

 - has anyone else dealt with anything similar and what did worked well?

Thanks for any assistance!

Miles