Making a Bilingual Dictionary - Software, Set of Macros, Methods?

Kjell Thornes wrote:
…I have no experience in databases, programming…

esperantisto wrote:



Then how are you going to maintain your dictionary as a web service?

esperantisto wrote:
As for creating a dictionary, first thoughts are:
1) Wörterbuch, an Excel macro set (the download link: Woerterbuch.xls, a description in German inside).
2) DSL, a rather simple tagged plain-text format.
3) XDXF, a more complicated, logical XML-based format.

Kjell Thornes wrote:

As a side-project I'm making a dictionary in a language combination where there is none available at the moment. (It' not really comercially viable.) The idea is to make it available as a web service, perhaps through an established multilingual dictionary web service, and/or as a printed (probably self-published, blurb-type). I've failed to find any useful software for this. I imagine there might be dedicated software out there, or perhaps a set of macros in Word, XLM or whatever. If not, perhaps someone else has found a method to exploit Word or Excel for this. I have no experience in databases, programming or even advanced Word/Excel, so basically I haven't

I need to:

Enter data and store it in a practical format.
Make this data searchable (for the web version)
Represent this data in a typical dictionary form (for printed version)

Proz member Linh Hoang has published a way to make a bilingual glossary in Excel here on proz (http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/3376/1/How-to-create-a-bilingual-glossary-of-terms-in-Excel?). I may go down this route just to get startet, but ideally I want something where more diverse data can be entered (word class, multiple meanings, example sentences etc., as in a 'proper' reference dictionary) and presented in a neat way.

Any ideas?

esperantisto wrote:



Then how are you going to maintain your dictionary as a web service?

As for creating a dictionary, first thoughts are:
1) Wörterbuch, an Excel macro set (the download link: Woerterbuch.xls, a description in German inside).
2) DSL, a rather simple tagged plain-text format.
3) XDXF, a more complicated, logical XML-based format.

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
Perhaps overkill, but you could create it in tlTerm (which I use myself), and publish it online using their e-publishing system:

http://tshwanedje.com/terminology/
http://tshwanedje.com/online/

I don't want to knock open source stuff, but I find you often spend more time geeking out than actually doing what you set out to do in the first place.

Sabine Cretella wrote:

Hi, I am wondering if you would like to add the data to an existing project like http://omegawiki.org. Once added a bilingual table can be exported so that the data can even be used in CAT-Tools and one can create also Dictionaries for DictForMids and other applications. It's just one of many possibilities.

All the best, Sabine

Sabine Cretella wrote:

... can be extracted.

Do you already have your data in a file or do you need to start from scratch?

As to the basis for a physical copy, could you please give me an example?

Kjell Thornes wrote:

I mean a format that can easily be converted to the typical visual representation that you find in an ordinary printed dictionary, a physical book.