[Lexicog] Inverse dictionary and importing

[Norbert Rennert]

Tommaso,

I can't answer all of your questions, but on 2 of them I'll do my best. 
First of all, you mention Shoebox. In order to do unicode stuff you'll 
have to upgrade to Toolbox, the successor to Shoebox. The program runs 
much in the same way as Shoebox, but has important features that allow 
you to use Unicode characters.
It is possible to view and sort from the end of words in Toolbox. Go to 
Database > Sorting and select the checkbox 'Sort first field from end'. 
Alternately, you can also use your mouse to sort from the end by doing 
ctrl+ left mouse click on a column header in browse view.
I haven't tried working with non-alphabetic scripts so I won't comment 
on that. Others on the list might have experience with that.
Toolbox does not import .xls files directly. Toolbox files are textfiles 
where every field begins on a new line and has a special marker. 
Probably the easiest way to export an xls file to Toolbox format is to 
add an empty column before every column of data in Excel and then type 
in the code Toolbox needs in front of that column and then 'fill down' 
to add that code to all the cells which contain data. Then save as plain 
text or .csv format. Then use a text editor to search and replace all 
the tabs with spaces and then another search and replace all '\' with a 
new line and '\' so that each '\' begins on its own new line.
If the above is too confusing, you can contact me offline and I'll be 
more explicit.

Norbert Rennert


Tommaso Pellin wrote:

> Dear all,
>  
> I would like to know a couple of things about Shoebox:
>  
> 1. is it possible to view, sort and do what I want to the lexemes 
> according to an inverse order, that means, like a book of rhymes, from 
> the last letter to the first? Is it possible also working with 
> non-alphabetic languages like Chinese? That would be quite interesting 
> for studying morphological roots and quasi-suffixes.
>  
> 2. is it possible to import data from .xls files or should I try to 
> transform them into some other type of file?
>  
> Thank you
>  
> Tommaso Pellin 
>  



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