[Lexicog] Lexicography Software
Allan Johnson
allan_johnson at SIL.ORG
Thu Mar 13 00:14:33 UTC 2008
Dimitris wrote:
> Would you be so kind as to advice me about the possibilities and the
> available software? Again, note that my effort is in greek.
>
Neal_Brinneman at sil.org wrote:
> www.sil.org, look for software at bottom of home page and then get Toolbox
> which is a free program to handle dictionaries.
>
>
> Using a consistent change table, change the tab delimited text to \lx for
> the first lexeme, \ps for the second part of speech and \ge for the English
> gloss. Then open this file in Toolbox using MDF 4 database type.
> Neal
>
Two other programs to consider are:
FieldWorks (http://www.sil.org/computing/fieldworks/BTE-FW_downloads.htm)
This has an advantage over Toolbox of avoiding any problems with
inconsistent field order and with ambiguity regarding what sense a
particular field is intended to be grouped with. It allows the displayed
order of fields when viewing or exporting the dictionary to be readily
changed at any point in the process of compiling the dictionary, without
the tedious work that this requires in an SFM database of many entries.
It has a disadvantage compared to Toolbox of putting a heavy load on
system resources (memory in particular). If you want to use FieldWorks,
the best route might be to first convert to MDF as Neal outlined, and
then import this SFM database to FieldWorks. If you do the import to
FieldWorks before a lot of editing in Toolbox, you're more likely to
still have a consistent format which will readily import without the
need for tedious cleanup work. Another disadvantage of FieldWorks is
that its export formats are not yet fully developed. Currently the best
option I know for printing is to export a configured dictionary to SFM,
and then process this with Lexique Pro. The option for which I'm waiting
expectantly is to be able to export directly to Word or OpenOffice and
print from there. This is in the plans - hopefully to be available by a
year from now.
Lexique Pro (http://www.lexiquepro.com/index.htm)
This works as a companion to either Toolbox or FieldWorks, providing
additional functionality for viewing a dictionary and exporting it to
RTF or HTML. Though I believe it was originally intended for just these
things, it now also provides an editing capability, making it possible
to manage a dictionary with this program alone. If you're interested in
this approach, again the first step I believe would be to do the
conversion to MDF that Neal outlined. Using this approach, your data
will stay in the SFM format that Toolbox works with. It will continue to
be available for editing in either Toolbox or Lexique Pro (just not at
the same time). Being an SFM text file, it will still have the
disadvantages mentioned above which FieldWorks was designed to overcome.
Allan J.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:lexicographylist-digest at yahoogroups.com
mailto:lexicographylist-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
More information about the Lexicography
mailing list