Synonyms

Synonyms

Calm searches require exact matches, so sometimes a search on a single term may not find all the relevant records. For instance, if you searched for BBC, you would not find records that referred to B.B.C. or the British Broadcasting Corporation. To overcome problems of this kind, you can set up lists of synonyms of commonly used search terms. Each list of synonyms consists of a trigger term and a series of one or more synonyms.

Adding Synonyms and Wider Synonyms

Please note: Only people that are Administrators - set using security in the Admin program - can add synonyms, but everyone on the Calm system can use them for searching. On a network system, this facilitates consistent data entry.

To set up a list of Synonyms click the Search drop down menu and choose the Modify Synonyms... option. You will see the Modify Synonyms dialogue box, below:

 

Click the button in the Modify Synonyms dialogue box. Type the trigger term in the Trigger box, this should be the term you are most likely to search for (e.g. BBC rather than British Broadcasting Corporation). Click OK, you will then be able to enter expansion terms into the Expansion box. The expansion terms should be separated by spaces. If some or all of the terms include spaces, enclose each term in double quotes. Click OK. 

You can use the Query by Form search options to set your synonym searching to Wider. This means that searches on an expansion term will find other synonyms including the trigger term. If you select Search, Modify Synonyms with Wider synonyms selected, you will see the following dialogue box:

You can add synonyms by clicking on the required line and typing the extra synonym. To add a new list of synonyms, move to the end of the last line, press enter and type the new line.

Using Synonyms

Once created, synonym lists are available whichever database you are searching.
To search using synonyms you need to set the correct options in the Query by Form search dialogue box. A search for the trigger term will match with any synonym in the list, as well as with the trigger term itself.
If your synonym search options are simply set to On, then Calm only uses synonyms when you search for the trigger term. Sometimes, you will want to set up Calm so that a search on any of the synonyms (not just the trigger term) will match its synonyms, use Wider synonyms as described below.

Using Wider Synonyms

You can use the Query by Form search options to set your synonym searching to Wider. This means that searches on an expansion term will find other synonyms including the trigger term.

• Open the Query by Form, click
• Next to Synonyms, select Wider.
• Type the synonym in the appropriate field in the Query by Form and click

Calm will find all occurrences of the term and its synonyms, including the trigger term.