Importing a thesaurus from a text file

In this lesson you are going to learn how to import a thesaurus from a text file.

Here is what you are going to do in this lesson:

Prepare an import file from earlier versions (optional)
Characteristics of import file
Import a thesaurus from a text file

1. Prepare an import file from earlier versions

If you have thesauri in older versions of MultiTes (MultiTes 8.0x,or earlier), you must first convert the thesaurus to a text file.

Start MultiTes 8.0x
Open your thesaurus
Select Reports - Alphabetical report
Output to Text File, saving your report as convert.txt.

2. Characteristics of import file

In order to import your data into MultiTes Pro successfully, your text file must have the following characteristics:

The file must be saved as plain text
Each term must be followed by its relationships. One term per line, and one relationship per line.
Each relationship must have the label of the relationship with a colon ":"
Continuation lines for comment fields (Scope Notes) must be indented at least one blank space
You must leave one blank line before the next term block (a term and its relationships)

Sample text file

USA
 UF: United States of America
 NT: California
 NT: Florida
 NT: New York
 NT: North Carolina
 NT: North Dakota
 RT: American

North America
 NT: USA
 NT: Canada
 NT: Mexico

Costa Rica
 BT: Central America

Guatemala
 BT: Central America

3. Importing a thesaurus from a text file

Start MultiTes Pro
On the File menu, click New (follow the steps to create a new thesaurus)
Add any user-defined relationships or comment fields from your original thesaurus (skip to 3.6 if you do not have any user-defined relationships in your thesaurus)
To define a new relationship, go to the Define menu and select Relationships, and then click the New button.
The system allows you to define Equivalence, Hierarchical and Associative relationships; Comment fields or Notes; and Categories (classification). If your import file contains translations, use Define - Languages to create the corresponding language codes.
Enter the Relationship code and description and the same information for the Reciprocal relationship. Then click the Save button.
On the main menu, select File - Import
Locate your text file (convert.txt) and click Open.

The system will perform the same type of validations as if you were entering the data manually. No conflicting relationships will be added to the thesaurus.

Please note that the process may take a few minutes depending on the file size.

When done, the system will notify you if any errors were found during the import process. If this is the case, you will have the option of viewing the error log.