StarDict, a great Dictionary Program

Most of us will be aware of the default dictionary application that we get with GNOME. It works fine but without Internet its useless. StartDict on the other hand, not even solves this problem but also provides far more features than any Dictionary program I have ever used or heard of. There are 1000+ stardict dictionaries in multiple languages that you can use, making it a really powerful Dictionary program.

Lets begin with the usual installation and then you can discover its amazing features while reading this article.

Install Stardict on Ubuntu

[shredder12]$ sudo apt-get install stardict

Install Stardict on Fedora

[root]# yum install stardict

After installation, you can probably find it in Applications->Accessories->Stardict. Open it and you will see a window similar to this.

StarDict Net Dictionaries

The online feature can be easily activated. Just click the Menu button on the top right corner of the window, select preferences, go to netdict and click the icon and enable net dictionaries

Just type the word and it will automatically fetch the result for you.

StarDict Offline Dictionaries

For the offline feature, you will obviously have to download the free stardict offline dictionaries. Download whichever you want and extract the tar ball. Most of them would be in the .tar.bz2 format. In order to extract them run this command.

[shredder12]$ tar  -xvjf  file.tar.bz2

If the tarball's format is .tar.gz then use -xvzf in place of -xvjf.

[shredder12]$ tar  -xvzf   file.tar.gz

Now, keep the extracted folder in /usr/share/stardict/dic/ directory. You will need root privileges to do.

[root]# mv  extracted_folder  /usr/share/stardict/dic/

StarDict Scanning Feature

One of the great features in StarDict is its scanning feature. Enable it by checking the box in the left bottom corner of the application window and the next time you select a word(shift + arrow key) it will automatically be queried for you.

I am sure this article will be a lot useful for those who are always looking for a better Dictionary application for their work.