How could one setup a layout for a dictionary? (if possible)

Question

A friend asked me if I knew any free software for creating dictionaries - which is good at saving space (reduce total number of pages).

Example:

I suppose this might be possible in LaTeX. Thankful for any suggestions or pointers.

Answer 1

I guess the sorting can be done with xindy, glossaries, luatex or something else. And maybe the entrys should come from a database.

The following could be first approach for the layout. Please note that this is a draft only!

• I used a narrow font to get as much as possible letters in one line

• I added a macro to format the single entries. That makes later changes very easy.

• I guess it would be a god practice to define more macros for other extras (like reference-signs etc.)

• Chapter thumbs (german Daumenindex, actual letter in the margin) can be generated with TikZ and scrpage2 see http://www.komascript.de/node/200 for example.

Code

\documentclass[%
    a5paper,
    fontsize=7.5pt,
]{scrbook}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}

% narrow font
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage[scaled=0.85]{helvet}

% layout
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{%
    margin=1cm,
    includehead,
    includefoot
}
\usepackage{multicol}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\setlength{\columnseprule}{0.4pt}

\usepackage{scrpage2}
\clearscrheadings
\pagestyle{scrheadings}
\setheadsepline{0.8pt}
\setfootsepline{0.8pt}
\lehead{word}% first word on page
\rohead{word}% last word on page
\chead{W}% actual letter
\ofoot{\pagemark}
\setkomafont{pagehead}{\sffamily\bfseries}
\setkomafont{pagination}{\sffamily}

% entry command
% \dict{<word>}{<gender>}{<text>}
\newcommand{\dict}[3]{%
    \par\vspace{0.25\baselineskip}
    \textbf{\textsf{#1}} \textit{#2} #3
}

% testing
\usepackage{pgffor}

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{3}
\foreach \n in {1,...,200} {%
    \dict{word}{n}{Some text with mor explanations. Some text with mor explanations}%
}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

Information

To get more information about using scrpage2 for head and foot see scrguien or scrguide in german. In the printed version (german) you can find even a tutorial about chapter thumbs.