Powershell with Word CheckSpelling and selected dictionary - powershell

Question

I would like to spell check some strings using the Microsoft Word API in Powershell and a specific dictionary ("English (US)").
I use the following code to do the checking but it does not seem to take into account the dictionary I want. Any ideas what is wrong? Also, command "New-Object -COM Word.Dictionary" seems to fail.
$word = New-Object -COM Word.Application
$dictionary = New-Object -COM Word.Dictionary
foreach ($language in $word.Languages) {
if ($language.Name.Contains("English (US)")) {
$dictionary = $language.ActiveSpellingDictionary;
break;
}
}
Write-Host $dictionary.Name
$check = $word.CheckSpelling("Color", [ref]$null, [ref]$null, [ref]$dictionary)
if(!$check) {
Write-Host "Spelling Error!"
}
$word.quit()
[System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($word) | Out-Null
Remove-Variable word

Answer 1

The COMobject word.dictionary does not exist (at least not on my machine), here is what worked for me in the short test i did:
$dic = New-Object -COM Scripting.Dictionary #credits to MickyB
$w = New-Object -COM Word.Application
$w.Languages | % {if($_.Name -eq "English (US)"){$dic=$_.ActiveSpellingDictionary}}
$w.checkSpelling("Color", [ref]$null, [ref]$null, [ref]$dic)

Answer 2

Another possibility in addition to Paul's:
$dictionary = New-Object -COM Scripting.Dictionary

Answer 3

I was experiencing the same problem, that the Word.Application.checkSpelling() method seems to ignore any dictionary passed to it. I worked around the issue creating a Word document, defining a text range, changing the LanguageID of this range to the language I want to proof read against, and then inspecting detected spelling errors. Here is the code:
<#Function which helps to pick the language#>
function FindLanguage($language_name){
foreach($element in $Word.Languages){
if($element.Name -eq $language_name){
$element.Name
return $element
}
}
}
$Proofread_text = "The lazie frog jumpss over over the small dog."
$Word = New-Object -COM Word.Application
$Document = $Word.Documents.Add()
$Textrange = $Document.Range(0)
$english = FindLanguage("English (US)")
$Textrange.LanguageID = $english.ID
$Textrange.InsertAfter($Proofread_text)
<#Handle misspelled words here#>
foreach($spell_error in $textrange.SpellingErrors){
Write-Host $spell_error.Text
}
$Document.Close(0)
$Word.Quit()
The output will be:
>>lazie
>>jumpss
>>over
I found it helpful to disable the language autodetection in word before starting the script. Especially when you plan to switch the language.