"Learn" button in Spell Check is disabled. How to enable it?

Question

If I go to check selection or document spelling under the Edit bar while in a word processing document, my only options are Replace, Check (I have no idea what that means), Skip, and Cancel. Learn is there, but it is not an option.
On my iMac home, this was not an issue. Learn was enabled.
On this iBook G4 10.4.11 (Appleworks 6.2.4), it is not the case, and it is driving me nuts (I'm living in South America, writing in English, but with the same Spanish cities names and foods coming up as errors every time they are written).
CHORIZO IS A WORD!!! Please teach me how to teach my Appleworks this.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi Frederick,
You wrote:
"My problem now, is that I have to open up writing tools and choose the user dictionary every time I open AppleWorks. As soon as I quit the app. it goes back to main dictionary as a default setting. If I don't do it every time I open a document to work on, choosing spellcheck causes a crash. This is new mis-behavior for AppleWorks, that I have never encountered before. Is there a way to make the user dictionary the default? (If that is what's causing this)."
I doubt that "that is what's causing this."
What you are describing is, I suspect, normal behaviour. Try this:
Open an AppleWorks word processor document (new or existing)
Go Edit > Writing Tools > Select Dictionaries...
In the Select Dictionaries dialogue you will see the Main Dictionary radio button highlighted.
Click the radio button for User dictionary.
Click Done to close the dialogue.
Immediately go Edit > Writing Tools > Select Dictionaries...
When the dialogue opens, the Main Dictionary radio button will be highlighted. *This is normal*.
AppleWorks uses two spelling dictionaries. One is a Main dictionary, the other is a User dictionary. Both, when selected, become the 'default' spelling dictionary, and remain so. You must have a Main dictionary installed to use spell checking. A User dictionary is optional, and needed only if you want AppleWorks if you use words that are not included in whichever Main dictionary you have installed, and want those words to be recognized as being correctly spelled. (Example: If you regularly use your last name—Martello—in AppleWorks documents, you might want to include it in your User dictionary to let AppleWorks recognize it as a correctly spelled word.)
When you check spelling, AppleWorks first looks for a match for each word in whatever Main dictionary you have installed/selected. If it does not find a match there, AppleWorks checks for a match in whatever User dictionary you have installed/selected. When AppleWorks finds a match in either dictionary, it stops checking, moves to the next word in the document, and repeats the process. If the word is not found in either dictionary, AppleWorks displays it in the Spelling window as a "Questionable spelling", and offers a list of possible correct spellings.
Peggy's point regarding deleting the preferences files is well taken. Corrupted preferences are a likely cause of the problem you describe.
Regards,
Barry