Converting Stardict dictionaries to Pleco format
- Thread starter lingshu8
- Start date
OK, I've found a partial answer my own question...
First, you have to unzip your Stardict dictionaries so that you have three files (the dictionary name plus the extensions *.dict, *.idx and *.ifo). N.B. You can download dozens of Stardict dictionaries here: http://yeelou.com/huzheng/stardict-dic/.
Use a program called CvtStarDict2Txt (Google to find free download) to convert the dictionary to TXT format.
In most cases, the resulting TXT file is already formatted as (word)<tab>(definition) so it can be directly run through Pleco's "MakePlecoDict" program (available on this website). The results will be rough but usable. Editing the TXT in Wordpad, MS Word, etc. can help clean it up. For example, I find all of the "/n" line break characters & replace with empty spaces. If anyone has a guide, macro, etc. for formatting the TXT dictionaries to better suit Pleco I'd love to see it. Changing the TXT format to (word)<tab>(pinyin)<tab>(definition) would be great for Chinese-to-English dictionaries.
First, you have to unzip your Stardict dictionaries so that you have three files (the dictionary name plus the extensions *.dict, *.idx and *.ifo). N.B. You can download dozens of Stardict dictionaries here: http://yeelou.com/huzheng/stardict-dic/.
Use a program called CvtStarDict2Txt (Google to find free download) to convert the dictionary to TXT format.
In most cases, the resulting TXT file is already formatted as (word)<tab>(definition) so it can be directly run through Pleco's "MakePlecoDict" program (available on this website). The results will be rough but usable. Editing the TXT in Wordpad, MS Word, etc. can help clean it up. For example, I find all of the "/n" line break characters & replace with empty spaces. If anyone has a guide, macro, etc. for formatting the TXT dictionaries to better suit Pleco I'd love to see it. Changing the TXT format to (word)<tab>(pinyin)<tab>(definition) would be great for Chinese-to-English dictionaries.
lingshu8 said:
Actually now you'd want to copy the text file to your device and import it into a new user dictionary instead - MakePlecoDict only worked with version 1.0 of our software, in version 2.0 our own proprietary database format got to be so complicated that it was no longer practical to release a converter for it. Though we do plan to release a desktop converter for our user dictionary format once it's been through another revision or two (adding full-text search and probably a couple more performance improvements).