Glossary

[John]

How can I make a glossary in Word 2000?

Thanks

 

[Pat Adams]

John, it's called AutoText in Word. Look it up in Help.

 

[John]

Unfortunately, the AutoText feature in Word isn't a
Glossary. It performs 2 operations:
1) it marks words for inclusion in an INDEX
2) it uses a file of word/defintion pairs to be used for
indexing.

In the end, this is actually the user creating the
glossary rather than Word. I want Word to provide me a
list of terms that I can then define and to place it in a
GLOSSARY... much like it does for TOCs and/or List of
Figures/Tables.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

AutoText actually has nothing to do with indexes--don't know where you got
that idea--but it also has nothing to do with glossaries except that
Glossary is the name that was used in early versions of Word for what is now
called AutoText. There is no built-in feature in Word to create a glossary,
and even if there were, it's hard to see how Word could create a glossary
without some action on the user's part to mark the terms to be included.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[John]

Suzanne,

After a little research on my own I came back and saw your
reply. I'm a little surprised by your response that:

1) "AutoText actually has nothing to do with indexes"
2) "...it also has nothing to do with glossaries"
3) "There is no built-in feature... to create a glossary"
4) "...it's hard to... create a glossary without some
action... to mark the terms to be included."

I'll attempt to address your statements with what I've
found:


1) I "got that idea" in Word Help when I looked up the
term 'Glossary' and was pointed to AutoText. Then, after
further investigation, I must have mixed up the
terms "AutoText" and "AutoMark" (see concordance):

'Glossary' -> "Keep 'boilerplate' text up to date without
retyping" -> "first define the current disclaimer as an
AutoText entry."


2) As I continued through Help, I came upon 'concordance'.
It was listed as:

"Create a concordance file" -> "...enter the text you want
Word to search for and mark as an index entry." ->
"...automatically mark index entries..." -> "On the Insert
menu, click Index and Tables, and then... click AutoMark"


3) The 'concordance' (file containing term/definition
pairs for AutoText use in auto index creation) is a "built-
in feature" to create indices with term/definition entries
(combined with indexed page references).

This comes 'pretty close' to a "glossary" since any
term/definition pair stored in the concordance is added to
the document 'index' (and cross-referenced!)

As an added bonus, I even found the following VBScript
macro snipit that creates hypertext links between
the 'glossary' terms and the 1st instance of the term in
the document:

Sub GlossaryHyperlinker()
Dim doc As Document
Dim glossTerms As Range, entry As Paragraph, term As
Range, glText As String, i As Long
Set doc = ThisDocument
Set glossTerms = Selection.Range
For Each entry In glossTerms.Paragraphs
i = i + 1
Set term = entry.Range.Words(1)
glText = Trim(term.Text)
If glText = "" Then
Else
With doc.Bookmarks
.Add Range:=entry.Range, Name:=glText
End With

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
With Selection.Find
.Text = glText
End With
Selection.Find.Execute
doc.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Selection.Range,
Address:="", _
SubAddress:=glText, ScreenTip:="",
TextToDisplay:=glText
End If
Next entry
End Sub

4) The user's creation of the 'concordance file', and
selection of that file by 'AutoMark' button on the 'Index
and Tables' dialog box is the "action on the user's part
to mark the terms to be included" in the 'glossary'.

So... it seems that there actually is a pretty fair, built-
in method to create a glossary in Word. Yay!

Thanks,
John

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This is certainly an interesting use of a concordance file.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi John,

I hadn't thought of using the index function to create a glossary, thanks
for doing the research and I've saved your message for future reference.
But if you're still checking the NG, I'm a bit confused about where AutoText
came into the process. What are you using it for?

Thanks,
DM

 

[John]

Hi DM,

The original answer I received on this thread, from Pat
Adams, indicated that glossaries were handled with Word's
AutoText feature. Then, as I looked into things, myself, I
just confused the 2 terms.

Pat is right, to an extent, that AutoText can be related
to glossaries in that text that is frequently reused in
Word can be saved as AutoText for auto-insertion (instead
of retyping each time).

Word suggests using AutoText for such things as legal
boilerplate language. So... it functions 'sort of' like a
glossary... in that a long definition type text entry can
be stored. However, that is very different than a standard
glossary that lists words and there definitions for
reference purposes.

Does that clear it up? Glad you liked the information and
found it helpful.

Thanks,
John Barton

 

[John]

Thanks Suzanne,

Though this may be something unique in current usage... I
think it's just an extension of the concept of a
concordance... to a glossary.

By definition:
1) a concordance is a list of words with their contexts.
2) a glossary is a list of words and their definitions.

So... really... we've just put in definitions... and
gained indexed page numbers in the process.

Cheers!