Thesaurus Question

Hi, so not sure if this is the right forum/place to log this concern/question....


As seen in the disappearing thesaurus for pages 7.3 upgrade question (quasi-solved), what's up with the oversight that if a word of interest is an adverb there is no synonym/thesaurus options available? Yet, if same word is on selected on a word doc, adverbs doesn't stop synonym options. This issue is time consuming and frustrating for those writing.


Ex. On my Apple pages doc (which I prefer for work-related layout continuity) if I right click on the word "adequately" there are no thesaurus synonyms suggested, but if I delete the -ly and add e, to instead make the word in its "adequate" noun form, now I can see synonyms! Grr. Is there a way to correct this?

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Mar 28, 2019 11:47 AM

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Posted on Mar 28, 2019 2:33 PM

You can certainly enter an adverb (e.g. adequately) on thesaurus.com with the synonym search category, and get beaucoup adverbial synonyms as result. This suggests how thesaurus.com organizes their available content, versus how the content is entered into the dictionaries that Apple provides for lookup in Pages v7.3, or v8.0. Pages is doing what it can with the content that it has at its disposal. Nothing you can do about this in Pages from a user perspective, if you absolutely must have adverbs.


Many sites that offer synonym lookup may also offer a programming interface, so that one could build a service, right-click on a word, and pop-up a dialog of found synonyms. Unfortunately, the better ones also charge for a user-specific application developer key to use their service.

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Mar 28, 2019 2:33 PM in response to DrSandi

You can certainly enter an adverb (e.g. adequately) on thesaurus.com with the synonym search category, and get beaucoup adverbial synonyms as result. This suggests how thesaurus.com organizes their available content, versus how the content is entered into the dictionaries that Apple provides for lookup in Pages v7.3, or v8.0. Pages is doing what it can with the content that it has at its disposal. Nothing you can do about this in Pages from a user perspective, if you absolutely must have adverbs.


Many sites that offer synonym lookup may also offer a programming interface, so that one could build a service, right-click on a word, and pop-up a dialog of found synonyms. Unfortunately, the better ones also charge for a user-specific application developer key to use their service.

Mar 29, 2019 4:49 AM in response to DrSandi

You can certainly bookmark Thesaurus.com on your Safari browser Favorites bar for ready access, or even create a bookmark folder on your Favorites bar and add Thesaurus.com and other writer immediate need bookmarks into that folder. I did this with Weather sites:



You can also visit Thesaurus.com and from the browser address, click, and drag it out onto your Desktop as a .webloc file. At any time, you can double-click that .webloc (Safari icon) file, and it will either open a new browser tab to the Thesaurus.com site, or launch the browser if not active. I would advise doing this with restraint to avoid unnecessary Desktop clutter.



I do not have any Office for Mac or Windows Office installed at home to determine: 1) Does Micrsoft use their on bundled dictionaries; 2) combine [1] with, or exclusively use Apple's dictionaries, or 3) access an Internet synonym server if a network connection is available.

Mar 28, 2019 11:10 PM in response to DrSandi

"…if MS word has access to this feature, why not Pages/Apple Dictionary?"


Apple has never claimed that Pages is an MS Word clone, and it is quite apparent to anyone who has used both that Pages is not, and was not intended to be a Word clone.


If you need this feature, then the appropriate tool for the job may be MS Word, available as part of MS Office Mac.


In any case, the question is more appropriate in direct message to Apple than as a question in this user-to-user community.The people here can offer advice on how to use the software as it currently exists, but have no control over what the software might be like.


For those topics, use the feedback route, available via Provide Pages Feedback, a menu item in the Pages menu.


Regards,

Barry

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