Exporting From WeSay via Lexique Pro to Word

René van den Berg

9 November 2007

Preliminaries

In order to make a nice paper print-out from WeSay using this method, you need the following:

1. A file with language data in WeSay.
2. The programme Lexique Pro loaded on your computer (e.g. version 2.6.1 or later; the current version is 2.6.13).
3. The programme Microsoft Word loaded.

Step 1: Export from WeSay

1. In the Configuration Tool, choose Actions, and on the line ‘SFM exporter’ change from ‘Not in WeSay’ to ‘Visible in WeSay’ by clicking on this line.
2. Close all of WeSay (both configuration and user programme).
3. Open WeSay again, go to Actions and choose Export to SFM.
4. The file now opens in Notepad as a plain xxx-sfm.txt file. You can see your data using standard format backslash markers.
5. Close Notepad.

Step 2: Import into Lexique Pro

1. Open Lexique Pro.
2. Go to File, Open. Find your vernacular data. (The xxx-sfm.txt you created in step 1 above is stored directly under your project subfolder in the WeSay folder. The whole WeSay folder and everything in it is normally stored under My Documents). Open it.
3. Follow the steps in the ‘Configure Lexicon Wizard.’ Specify the language. For most of the other steps you can just click ‘next’. The default options are usually OK, and you can always change things later.

Important note if you are making a trilingual dictionary

• If you have a glossing language (e.g. Tok Pisin) in addition to English, you will need to specify that. In the fourth window, called Gloss Languages, English should already be ticked. Click on ‘Other’, type the name of other glossing language (e.g. Tok Pisin), then OK. You now have two languages specified as gloss languages. At the bottom of the page you can choose which one of these you want to appear first on the screen (and on the printed page). Select one of the languages and move it up or down, using the appropriate buttons.
• In the next window, called Gloss languages, choose the (e.g. Tok Pisin) tab and enter n in the marker letter box (n stands for national language).

Important note if you have special characters [untested]

• In the 3rd window of the wizard, called Encoding, use the Unicode format.
• In the 8th window, called Default fonts, choose a Unicode font for the vernacular.
• In the 13th window, called Upper and Lower Case, add your special characters.
• In the 14th window, called Sort Order, add the special characters in the correct place.

4. Finish the wizard. Your lexicon should now be displayed in Lexique Pro.

5. If you see that your lexicon is not alphabetised correctly, go to Tools, Configure, Languages, Sort order and select ‘Sort lexical entries after loading’.

6. Click on Edit to change from View to Edit. This allows you to see the underlying standard format markers used (the same ones as in Toolbox). It also allows you to make changes. Remember, however, that any changes you make here are not made in WeSay.

Step 3: Export from Lexique Pro into Word

1. In Lexique Pro, choose File, Export as Document.
2. Follow the Wizard, and click on ‘Next’ for each choice. Most of the unmarked choices are fine.
3. Your lexicon should open in Word. You can now print this document.
4. For making a reverse dictionary (English->Vernacular), do the same but on the first page of the Wizard choose ‘Index table’.

Step 4: Modify the appearance of your document

You can modify the appearance of the document you want to print in two ways.

1. Before you export to Word, you can modify the appearance in Lexique Pro by choosing Tools, Configure, Default Fonts, as well as the Formatting tab (on the left). You can modify fonts, sizes, colours etc. for the various fields. The advantage of doing this in Lexique Pro is that you need to do this only once.
2. After exporting to Word, you can modify the appearance by changing styles.

For example, if you want all your entries bolded and in a bigger font, or with more space between the entries, simply change the LP Lexical Entry style to whatever font, size and paragraph spaces you want. (This assumes you know how to change a style in Word.)