TshwaneLex Dictionary Production System

Download Free Evaluation (v4.0)
BUY NOW

 Detailed Overview and
Screenshots

Concise Overview

Our customers include:

• Oxford University Press
  
• Le Robert, France
• Pearson/Longman
  
• Van Dale Lexicografie, The Netherlands
• Institute for Dutch Lexicology, The Netherlands
• Macmillan
• Royal Spanish Academy
• Royal National Academy of Medicine
• Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
• Malaysian Institute of Language and Literature (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka)
• Grupo Clarín, Argentina
• Research Centre of African Languages and Literatures, Congo (DRC)
• Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium
• Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, Rwanda
• Department of Justice, Canada
• Welsh Language Board
• SatCon, Canada
• Slovak Academy of Sciences
• The Czech Language Institute
• South African Police Service
• Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) and South African National Lexicography Units
• Department of Arts and Culture, South Africa
• Pharos Dictionaries, South Africa

Over 6000 languages supported! Just a few of the languages currently in use in TshwaneLex by customers:
Afrikaans, Albanian, Alor Malay, Arabic, Acehnese, Bai, Balinese, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Buginese, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Cilubà, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, East Javanese, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Gimán, Haitian, Hmong, Iban, Icelandic, Indonesian, Inezeño Chumash, Irish, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Italian, Jakarta Malay, Japanese, Javanese, Javindo, Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili, Korean, Kupang Malay, Ladino, Latin, Lingála, Low German, Macedonian, Madurese, Makassarian, Malay, Menadonesian, Minangkabau, Moluccan, Muna, Norwegian, Old English, Papiamento, Pashto, Petjoh, Picard, Polish, Polynesian, Portuguese, Romanian, Rotinese, Russian, Sahu, Sasak, Scots, Sesotho, Sesotho sa Leboa, Setswana, Singhalese, siSwati, Slovenian, Spanish, Sranantongo, Sundanese, Surinamese Javanese, Swedish, Tamil, Terik, Ternate Malay, Tshivenda, Ukrainian, Virgin Islands Creole English, Walloon, Welsh, and Xitsonga.
User Map

TshwaneLex is a professional, feature-rich, fully internationalised, off-the-shelf software application suite for compiling dictionaries or terminology lists. It has been adopted by many major publishers, government organisations and individuals across the world, as it delivers excellent ROI.

TshwaneLex contains many specialized features that allow you to dramatically reduce dictionary production time and increase the quality and consistency of your dictionaries (from single-user projects to large teams). These include an integrated Corpus Query System, real-time preview, full customisability, advanced styles system, "smart cross-references" with tracking and auto-updating, automated lemma reversal, automated numbering and sorting, export to MS Word and typesetting systems (such as InDesign, Quark and XPP), multi-user support for managing teams, and much more. Publish to hardcopy, Web, or CD-ROM / software.

TshwaneLex supports virtually all of the world's languages (over 6000 languages), and is based on industry standards such as XML and Unicode.

Note: The TshwaneLex Suite also includes our TshwaneTerm Professional Terminology Software (termbase).

Screenshot of TshwaneLex, with French user interface selected, in use for the Dictionary of Louisiana French project.

What Customers Are Saying

"For the first time I’m working in TLex day in and day out, and I can’t tell you how impressed I am with the software that you’ve developed. It’s streets ahead of anything I’ve dealt with up to now, and we are heading for a dictionary database second to none. That I know for sure."

"Tshwanelex has become an indispensable working tool for me."

"I have been using TshwaneLex for slightly more than a month now and I want to recommend this excellent software to others ... I have found that it does just about everything I have wanted dictionary-making software to do. Many apparent limitations have disappeared as I have become more familiar with it. It's also worth mentioning that working with TshwaneLex has helped clarify a number of analytic issues that I had earlier ignored while working with less structured software.

That this is expensive software is completely wrong as well. It cost me slightly less than $200 US and ... for one like myself whose intellectual life focuses on dictionary-making, this is a very small price to pay for a thoroughly useful piece of software. It is also a very small price pro-rated over the months and years that I expect to be using it."

"The Tshwanelex DPS is an invaluable tool for enabling the National Lexicography Units to produce dictionaries more easily"

"We are indeed happy with Tshwanelex. It has been a great tool that has helped us all along the project. We are also happy with your customer service. You have always answered our questions and tried to solve our troubles without any delay."

"The software you've created is extremely helpful!"

"Thank you ... without TshwaneLex, this project would never come to an end"

Who is TshwaneLex Intended For?

• Dictionary publishing houses
• Individual dictionary compilers
• Dictionary development teams
• Terminology managers and practitioners
• Government and other organisations compiling dictionaries or terminology lists
• Organisations with a need to produce, manage and distribute terminology internally (e.g. publish on intranet)
• For the production of:
  • Monolingual, bilingual or multilingual dictionaries (paper, electronic, online/intranet)
  • Multilingual terminology lists
  • Other explanatory dictionaries (e.g. economic terms, mining terms etc.)
  • Large historical dictionaries
  • Many other kinds of reference works, e.g. thesauri

Using dedicated dictionary compilation software rather than general-purpose tools such as word processors or generic XML tools provides significant benefits in terms of both dictionary development time and output quality for both individual lexicographers as well as lexicographic (or terminology compilation) teams:

• Reduced project completion time, thanks to (amongst others) various levels of automation, such as automatic numbering, lemma reversal, cross-reference tracking/updating and error checking
• Increased consistency in the treatment of articles, thanks to features such as the article filter
• Leads to more consistent and balanced treatment of both languages in a bilingual dictionary
• Improved teamwork and team communication
• More easily scalable to larger team sizes

• Fast
• User-friendly: TshwaneLex and TshwaneTerm do not require advanced computer literacy skills - if you can use Microsoft Word, you will be able to learn TshwaneLex/TshwaneTerm
• Automatic sense numbering
• Automatic homonym numbering
• Automatic cross-reference tracking and updating of homonym and sense numbers
• Immediate WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) article preview
• Immediate preview of cross-referenced articles and cross-referencing articles
• Integrated corpus
• Full Unicode support - supports virtually all of the world's languages
• Easily enter any phonetic symbol (IPA ; phonetic extensions)
• Fully customisable and highly flexible (create any fields and structures relevant to your dictionary)
• Network and multi-user (team) lexicography support (supports all major database servers, e.g. MS SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL)
• Management Tools: Assign tasks to users and monitor user or team progress
• Export to:
      Microsoft Word format, RTF, HTML, XML, CSV
      Corel WordPerfect and OpenOffice (via RTF format)
      Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress
• Import from:
      Wordlists
      CSV (may also import corpus frequency counts)
      XML or word frequency counts from corpus query software
      CUSTOM: contact us for a quote for conversion of existing data in any format
• Various features for generating 'multiple dictionaries from one database'
• Customisable styles (font, colour etc.) for every field in the dictionary
• Customisable language of the meta-language
• Bilingual dictionaries: Automated lemma reversal
• Bilingual dictionaries: Side-by-side bilingual editing and "linked view" mode
• Bilingual dictionaries: "Translation Equivalent fanouts"
• Multimedia: Allows sound (e.g. pronunciation) recordings to be linked to any field
• Multimedia: Allows images to be added to entries
• IME "Windows soft-keyboard" support
• Right-to-left language support (Hebrew, Arabic etc.)
• Fast full-dictionary text search
• Filter: define criteria for viewing/exporting a subset of the dictionary based on specific characteristics
• Dictionary compare/merge feature: Integrate work done by different team members
• A unique Ruler Tool to ensure balanced treatment on multiple levels
• Automatic checking for various dictionary errors
• Electronic Dictionary (CD-ROM) software module available
• Place dictionaries online. Examples:
      Online dictionary module:
      · Swahili - English dictionary
      · Northern Sotho - English dictionary
      Direct export to "static HTML":
      · James Randi Encyclopedia
• Scripting language
• Customisable DTD (dictionary grammar editor)

Concise Overview	A concise introduction to, and overview of, TshwaneLex.
Detailed overview	A detailed overview of TshwaneLex, with many screenshots.
Dictionaries	A list of some of the dictionaries produced across the world using TshwaneLex.
euralex2004-TL.pdf (334 KB)	Joffe, D. & G-M de Schryver. 2004. TshwaneLex – A State-of-the-Art Dictionary Compilation Program. In Williams, G. & S. Vessier (eds.). 2004. Proceedings of the Eleventh EURALEX International Congress, EURALEX 2004, Lorient, France, July 6-10, 2004: 99–104. Lorient: Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, Université de Bretagne Sud. This document offers a lexicographic perspective on TshwaneLex, and is taken from the proceedings of EURALEX 2004, where TshwaneLex was presented. For more publications, see the Publications page.
TshwaneLex.mp3	Pronunciation of "TshwaneLex".