This is an introductory survey of lexicography. Its aim is to enable the user to plan and produce a dictionary. The text is, however, not organized in the form of a course. Instead, concepts and techniques are explained in their systematic context. The user may collect the information he needs by using the navigation.

The text focuses on the “general dictionary”. In contradistinction to specialized dictionaries, this is a general-purpose dictionary which purports to represent the vocabulary of a language in full. Special kinds of dictionaries are mentioned, too.

Lexicography is a highly developed discipline with a diversified specialized terminology (see Hausmann et al. (eds.) 1989-91). Little use will here be made of such specialized terms. The purpose is not to present (the metalanguage for) a precise formal analysis of the structure of dictionaries, but to give practical hints for the confection of a dictionary.

Explanations make repeated reference to the program Shoebox / Toolbox™. This is a software developed by the Summer Institute of Linguistics and designed specifically for lexicography, esp. for underdescribed languages. Version 1 – 4 of Shoebox were freeware; Version 5 (2001) was sold at 50 US$. This was superseded by the ‘Field Linguist's Toolbox’, of which version 1.4 has been available, again for free, since 2004. In 2010, the current version is Toolbox 1.5.8. The main difference between Shoebox and Toolbox lies in the latter's ability to handle Unicode. Up to 2010, Shoebox / Toolbox has been available only for MS Windows™.

From 2006 on, the SIL presented the FieldWorks Language Explorer (FLEx), a more comprehensive software which allows the confection of lexicons and dictionaries at more sophisticated levels. The present website does not take it into account.