TEA Tutorial

2.5 Searching for a word on the web

TEA allows you search for words and phrases using external resources such as Internet search engines. This is particularly useful for less common words and proper names that aren't included in the integrated dictionary and thesaurus.

In this step you'll see that "external" lookups can be done using similar techniques to internal ones (described in Step 1, Step 3 and Step 4). The only difference is the buttons (or keyboard shortcuts) that are used.

At the end of the previous step, the definition window was showing all the meanings of actual:

Step 5 initial image

We will explore external lookups using the third meaning of actual:

Step 5 intermediate image

Select the third meaning (labeled actual 3 adj.), either by clicking on it with the mouse, or by doing Ctrl+Tab twice. When you've done this, the definition should appear as above.

One word in this definition that you might want to search for on the web is Chesterton. Although famous people and places have definitions in the integrated dictionary and thesaurus, they are necessarily fairly brief. The Internet is the ideal way to explore such subjects in depth. The first step is to indicate which word should be looked up. As with internal lookups (see Step 3) TEA finds complete words for you automatically, so first position the flashing vertical line within the word:

Step 5 final image

Either click on the word Chesterton with the left mouse button or use the arrow keys to move the cursor (the flashing vertical line) within the word. The precise position of the cursor doesn't matter as long as it's either at the start or end of the word, or somewhere in between.

To look up this word, you can either click on the button or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Enter. If you have the default TEA configuration, you should see the result of searching for Chesterton in the search engine.

You can configure a different search engine using the Edit|External Lookup|Setup... command, which opens the Lookup Methods dialog. You can also use this dialog to make External Lookup search a number of windows dictionary applications. For further information about configuring the External Lookup feature, see the Dictionary Software page.

To do an external lookup of part of a word, you first need to select the text you want to look up (as described in Step 4), then click on or use Ctrl+Alt+Enter.

Finally, you can do an external lookup of a word in the main window using the commands on the Edit|External Lookup submenu. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Enter invokes the default method.

You have now completed module 2. Click on to return to the TEA tutorial index page.

Relevant Help Sections

Edit|External Lookup Command
Lookup Methods Dialog