Two Alternatives for Searching in MS glossaries
by Anna Kuzminsky
This article will describe two alternatives to managing Microsoft glossary searches. If you do not have the MS glossaries on your hard disk the only option is the Microsoft Language Portal. If you have the MS glossaries you can also use a nifty little local application called Ransack.
Let’s start with the MS Language Portal.
Use the URL http://www.microsoft.com/language, which will take you to the splash screen. On the bar to the left, select your language or Other Languages (at the bottom of the list) if your language is not listed. On the next screen, on the far right under Search Terminology, enter the English term, select your language and click on the Search button. The next screen shows two sections, Terminology and Software Strings. I do not have to explain the differences. At this point I recommend you bookmark this address (i.e. add it to your favorites), which means the next time you do not have to go through the first few steps described above, all you have to do is enter a new search word in the text box at the top and hit Enter or click on the magnifying glass.
Pros: The presentation is clean and well organized. You can see all the files the term occurs in. You do not have to have all the MS glossaries on your hard drive and they will always be current.
Cons: You have to be online. Only works with MS glossaries.
If you have all the MS glossaries you need and perhaps some additional glossaries and do not want to be online, try Ransack. The basic program is free and can be downloaded from http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/.
Once installed the opening screen looks like this:
First you have to browse to the folder where your glossaries are located (click on the button with the single folder icon). Then enter your search word and click on the Start Search button. A list of files containing the search word is displayed in the left column. Click on the file you want to look in, in this example I chose Word2007. The resulting screen will look something like this:
As you can see this program does not handle extended characters and is a little more cumbersome to use. I have not played around with other types of glossaries, since I tend to convert glossaries to files that I can import to a TM.
Pros: The program runs locally. There are advanced search functions that you can learn and use.
Cons: More complex, you have to click on each glossary to see the translation. And you have to have the glossaries on your hard drive.
A note if you use Vista. You have to download the WinHlp32.exe from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6EBCFAD9-D3F5-4365-8070-334CD175D4BB&displaylang=en to be able to use the help function in Ransack.
