Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus (Jewel Case)

In the most important ways, this is pretty good. No word processor macros are included but the program can run in the background and respond to a certain key combination, providing dictionary and/or thesaurus info for the word under the mouse pointer. This doesn't work consistenty in my web browsers but it seems to work a little better in my word processors. The interface for the dictionary program is pretty good, the window size is not resizeable but boolean wildcard searches of the dictionary and thesaurus contents are available, which is a nice feature.

The dictionary/thesaurus itself is stored in a somewhat standard Windows helpfile, which might be useful for people in other programs.

The package includes a couple of bonus programs, one is a bunch of sample fill-in-the-blanks letters which someone must have thought would be useful for some strange reason, the other is a "Visual Dictionary." This is a sort of interesting program which matches words to pictures for no apparent reason. It wants to install QuickTime 2.03, a six year old version of QT, which is probably not worth the trouble for most people. Amazon is wise to not make a big deal about these bonuses in the product listing.

This dictionary appears to be a repackage of something sold by Macmillan several years ago. The most recent copyright in the program is 1998 and the README is also dated 1998, on the box the date 2003 is printed. Probably Topics Entertainment bought this title from Macmillan but it's not listed on their website. Don't expect any meaningful support in the event you have problems with the program.


A mixed bag   June 26, 2003
Yadda 2x (Area 51)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

In the most important ways, this is pretty good. No word processor macros are included but the program can run in the background and respond to a certain key combination, providing dictionary and/or thesaurus info for the word under the mouse pointer. This doesn't work consistenty in my web browsers but it seems to work a little better in my word processors. The interface for the dictionary program is pretty good, the window size is not resizeable but boolean wildcard searches of the dictionary and thesaurus contents are available, which is a nice feature.

The dictionary/thesaurus itself is stored in a somewhat standard Windows helpfile, which might be useful for people in other programs.

The package includes a couple of bonus programs, one is a bunch of sample fill-in-the-blanks letters which someone must have thought would be useful for some strange reason, the other is a "Visual Dictionary." This is a sort of interesting program which matches words to pictures for no apparent reason. It wants to install QuickTime 2.03, a six year old version of QT, which is probably not worth the trouble for most people. Amazon is wise to not make a big deal about these bonuses in the product listing.

This dictionary appears to be a repackage of something sold by Macmillan several years ago. The most recent copyright in the program is 1998 and the README is also dated 1998, on the box the date 2003 is printed. Probably Topics Entertainment bought this title from Macmillan but it's not listed on their website. Don't expect any meaningful support in the event you have problems with the program.


A great product!   June 14, 2003
8 out of 18 found this review helpful

- Installation is quick and easy
- The disc does not have to be in the CD-Rom to run the program
- Instant access to definition/thesaurus just by clicking the word from any application
- 500,000 definitions, synonyms and antonyms
- Easy to understand definitions
- Inexpensive
- Great bonus CD included (Visual Dictionary & Letter templates)


Best CD-ROM Thesaurus   May 7, 2006
C Kaufman (Ohio, USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Bar none, the best CD-ROM Dictionary and Thesaurus -- only problem is, it doesn't work on many versions of XP.

With over 500,000 definitions, synonyms, and antonyms, it offers twice the content of every other CD-ROM available. Merriam-Webster and Oxford, the most popular software, offer only 225,000 different words. The Visual Thesarus, while flashy, uses the MW thesarus, so it's just a different presentation of the same material. Once you get used to using WNW, everything else seems really sparse in comparison.

WNW has a lot of other nice features in addition to the comprehensiveness.

- You can use the dictionary and thesaurus simultaneously.

- Click on any word you want more information about, and the program jumps to that word and all of *its* synonyms. (I can't tell you how helpful I found this.) Clicking around like this can help you choose the synonym with the exact nuance that you need.

- It never gives you "can't find that word" error messages, like Webster's Talking Dictionary & Thesaurus. (I really have tried everything else out there.) If it can't find a word, it shows you the closest words, so you can pick from one of those. Roget's at thesaurus.com does the same thing, but not as well.

- If you search a version of the word, it will jump you to the root (e.g. if you search "sank," it will give you "sink" rather than give you an error message).

My only complaint: it doesn't run on most versions of XP. The computer works, spins that hourglass around a few times, and then gives up. You can't even get a splash screen.

Lots of sellers claim that they tried it on XP and it works, but it really does depend on your version. I have XP Pro 2002 SP1 on my work computer, and it works just fine. On my XP Home 2005, nada. I have actually avoided upgrading one of my computers because I'm afraid I won't be able to use my WNW.

Microsoft XP has an option that ostensibly lets you run programs that don't work in XP (you supposedly can choose to run the program in 95, 98, ME, etc. without restarting or running the rest of the computer on that OS), but it doesn't work for me that way, either.

Topics doesn't sell this software on their website anymore, so they aren't upgrading it or creating patches. I've been using thesarus.com, which (as mentioned above), uses Roget's, but the maneuverability is poor, and obviously they flash banner ads at you unless you give them money to turn those off.

This software is so great that it may be worth the $10 just to see if it'll run on your machine. I wouldn't recommend anything else to writers (or anyone else) when this is an option.