Configure NER models

NER stands for Named Entity Recognition. It detects named entities in text.

Supported entity types:

• Person

• Location

• Organization

Detected entities are not underlined by the spelling engine.

NER uses language-specific model files stored in the AppServer resources directory.

The default location is <WebSpellChecker_installation_path>/AppServer/Resources/. The actual path is controlled by ResourcesDir in AppServerX.xml. See AppServer parameters.

NER is configured via the NERModel tag in AppServerX.xml. It is nested under the Hunspell spell engine options for a CheckKit.

Each NER model is roughly ~330 MB on disk. When loaded, it uses roughly ~330 MB of RAM.

Warning: failed to load NER model

If the model file was not downloaded during installation, AppServer logs warnings. Example:

11/10/23:09:49:48.965   #15520:0    Subsystem_General   Warning GetNamedEntityExtractor, Failed to load NER model: en/ner_model_en.dat.

This warning usually means the model file is missing in the AppServer resources directory. It often happens when the download step was skipped during installation.

If your server has no Internet access, see Manually downloading resources (offline installation).

Default NER enablement by language

Language	Supported language IDs	Model file	Default status
English	en_US en_GB en_CA en_AU en_NZ en_ZA	en/ner_model_en.dat	Enabled
German	de_DE de_AT de_CH	de/ner_model_de.dat	Disabled
Spanish	es_AR es_CL es_CO es_CR es_DO es_ES es_MX es_PE es_PR es_UY es_VE	es/ner_model_es.dat	Disabled

Change NER settings (enable/disable)

1. Open <WebSpellChecker_installation_path>/AppServer/AppServerX.xml.

2. Find the NERModel tag for the language you need.

3. Change the Enabled attribute:

   • Set Enabled="true" to enable NER (common for German/Spanish).

   • Set Enabled="false" to disable NER (optional for English).

Example:

<NERModel Enabled="true" Path="de/ner_model_de.dat" ProbabilityThreshold="0.5"/>

1. Save the file.

Restart AppServer to apply changes in AppServerX.xml.

To restart: stop the application, then start it again.

Use Main AppServer commands.

If you enable NER but the model file is missing, you will still see the “Failed to load NER model” warning in logs.