Using the Thesaurus

The thesaurus is a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms. Using the thesaurus you can find synonyms and antonyms to many words to vary the vocabulary in your document.

You must first select a word or phrase to be checked before you can use the thesaurus!

To use the Thesaurus do the following

• select the word or phrase to be checked
• choose Tools Language Thesaurus (Windows) or Tools Thesaurus (Macintosh)
• the Thesaurus dialog box will appear; the word or phrase selected will appear
  • in the dropdown list under “Looked Up:” in the top left of the box (Windows)
  • in the dropdown list to the right of “The Word:” at the top of the box (Macintosh)
• possible meanings for that word will appear in a scrollable just below under 
  • “Meanings:” (Windows)
  • “Can Mean:” (Macintosh)
• click on the intended meaning; alternative words will appear in a scrollable list to the right
• select the alternative word from this list (it will appear above in the box labeled “Replace with Synonym:”)
• click
• or, select an alternative word and click <Look Up> to find other, related words; this new word will now appear in the dropdown list under “Looked Up:”
• continue selecting an alternative word and clicking <Look Up> as needed until you find a suitable word, then select it from the list and click
• you may “back up” at any time to earlier words by selecting the previous word from the dropdown list under “Looked Up:”

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last updated August 12, 2003