Dictionaries

[Mark Thompson]

It is clear that there are a number of dictionaries provided with Office
2004, but not all the dictionaries supported in Windows MSOffice are
available for mac--is this some sort of agreement with Apple because apple
doesn't support languages like Turkish, Arabic or Thai?


As a linguist, they would be useful, and I would gladly pay a bit extra for
them. The alternatives are not that attractive right now.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

It is clear that there are a number of dictionaries provided with Office
2004, but not all the dictionaries supported in Windows MSOffice are
available for mac--is this some sort of agreement with Apple because apple
doesn't support languages like Turkish, Arabic or Thai?

There are a number of proofing tools languages provided with Office 2004
- but only English Dictionaries (i.e., files that include definitions
and pronunciations).

The "missing" proofing tools would most probably not be by agreement
with Apple (which might be seen as an anti-trust collusion), though
Apple not supporting a language would tend to make me think that MS's
Mac Business Unit (MacBU) wouldn't put the time and money into it either.

As a linguist, they would be useful, and I would gladly pay a bit extra for
them. The alternatives are not that attractive right now.

Make sure you (and a few dozen friends) provide feedback to MacBU using
the Help/Feedback on <app> menu. Future efforts depend heavily on MS's
projected return on investment. If you can make a business case** that
adding language support will justify the cost of development, it will
help the program managers choose what to focus their efforts on.

**(Not that you need to crunch all the numbers, but a (realistic)
estimate of how many copies of such an add-on would likely be sold to
your group/company/field of study, etc., and how much you think people
would be willing to pay extra is more compelling than simply saying "It
would be nice to have...")