fixing spelling/grammar errors with SimPE?

[jennydeenyc]

One of my niggling gripes with some of the hacks I have installed is when there are spelling or grammar errors in text that pops up on my screen when the hacks are activated. It's just a glaring reminder that I'm using "non-official" content in my game. I understand that a lot of hack creators are not native english speakers, and I do notify them of such errors when I come across them, I also understand that fixing these kind of errors are low on the priority list. In the meantime, is there a way to find the offending text by opening the hack package in SimPE & correct it without risk of screwing up the hack's functionality or my game? Any advice appreciated.

jennydee

[RainbowTigress]

Usually you will see something called "Text Strings" in the left-hand column, and you can edit these without changing the way the mod behaves.  I've done this myself.  As long as you don't mess with anything else, you should be fine, but as always, keep a backup. 

[wes_h]

As usual, there are important exceptions to everything.
Some text string items (STR#) are used to define the object. Often these have an instance number of 0x00000085, and the name is the first or second item in the string list. If you change that one, you will break the link to the scenegraph.
You can usually recognize these easily, because the string might be something like "afMyObject" and the Resource (CRES) will be named "afMyObject_cres".
Leaving this alone should not be a problem, because that string isn't generally printed in the game, except for debugging cheats.