The export from the lexical database is a structured text file which comprises the list of entries. Before the dictionary can be printed, a number of steps have to be taken.
The entry list is only one of the major components of the dictionary. The other components are just more or less normal text files produced with some text-processing software. They are all incorporated into one text file – the dictionary file –, whose main sections they are.
- The overall typographic layout of the dictionary is defined. This comprises:
- paper size,
- type area,
- printing in two columns (at least for the entry list),
- page heading,
- page numbering in the line of the page header,
- section numbering,
- font and font size, line-height,
- vertical distances (between subsections, headers, paragraphs ...).
- The file of the entry list is imported into the dictionary file in its proper place in the framing structure. The technical details of this process depend on the export format used for the output from the database and on the import capabilities of the text processing software.
- The layout of the entry list is determined. In addition to the above, this comprises:
- vertical distance (“lead”) between entries: between all entries, or only at certain breaks in the sort order,
- arrangement of each entry as a hanging paragraph,
- appearance of the first lemma of each page in the page header.
- Word separation is activated. If the dictionary is multilingual and elements of an entry have been marked for language, then a word processor can possibly separate the words correctly. Otherwise, it has to be done manually.
A possible layout of a bilingual dictionary entry is as follows:
hom.n°lemma (word class, morphological class, inflection forms) sense n° sense: example meaning. sense n° sense: example meaning.
as in this example from a German-English dictionary:
2Moment (n, n, -s, -e) 1 momentum: Antriebs~ power momentum. 2 motive: das ausschlaggebende ~ the decisive factor.
Finally, a printed dictionary has what may be called an access structure, which consists in systematic marks helping the user orient himself in the dictionary. The following may be relevant here:
- In a heavy volume, pages of a section may be notched or colored or provided with tabs.
- Section titles (of the framing structure) provide page headers.
- The typography of the elements of the entry (as already mentioned) fulfills an analogous orienting function at the level of the microstructure.
