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Glossaries

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Instead of each term being saved as a separate document as in a folder of terms, they can be collected within a single document called a 'Glossary.'

A Glossary is a standard Word document in which a (typically) large quantity of clauses has been stored. Each clause is separated from the others by a bookmark. (We 'show and tell' you all about bookmarks below.)

The clauses in a glossary can be in effect whole documents (a glossary term can be of any length) but more typically they are the various component clauses -- building blocks -- of much larger documents.

To use a Blossary for document assembly purposes, you must accomplish one or both of these simple tasks:

•map it to an empty 'Book.' See Adding a New Book

•assign it to a Pathagoras DropDown List. See DropDown Lists

A word on 'Containers'.

Everything has to be somewhere. Each clause that you use as source text in a document assembly session must be stored in some sort of 'container.' Each container, in turn, is stored in a larger container.

When we talk about 'Glossaries' vs. 'Books', we are really just talking about the type of container being used to store the text you want to assemble.

You already know about containers, and you know them in the same way that we are using the term 'container' in this discussion. When you draft a document on the editing screen, the characters you type onto the screen are 'contained' by the document you are creating. When you press the Save button and provide a name, the document is stored in a container called a folder. That folder in turn is probably contained by a parent folder, and that parent has a parent, all the way up to the 'c:\ drive'. The 'c:\ drive' is a subdivision of the hard drive, and the hard drive is contained within the computer box, the room, the building, etc.

A 'folder of clauses' (the most familiar of 'containers') is nothing other than a series of documents saved in a named container. It is nothing more complicated than that.

A 'Glossary' is not too dissimilar from a folder. It, too, is a container. Instead of clauses being stored in individual files in a folder, the clauses in a glossary are stored as individual clauses within a single document. The demarcation of each clause if a folder of clauses is 'a file.' the demarcation of clauses in a glossary is a pair of bookmarks. These bookmarks are named (just like a document is named) and that is how Pathagoras can find a clause in a glossary in the same way that Pathagoras can find a document in a folder.

So, when you begin contemplating 'Book' vs. 'Glossary', don't over-think the concepts. Just think 'container'.