Quiz-n-Spell©:  Building and Importing Word Lists 

There are two parts to this page:

1. The Basics, and

2. The Tutorial for Building a Quiz-n-Spell Word List

Before beginning the Tutorial, be sure that you understand the Basics of Delimited Text Files, the Basics of "Copying and Pasting", and you might want to learn more about shortcut keys in general since using shortcut keys can make getting around Microsoft Windows much easier.

There are five steps to the tutorial, including opening Notepad and another document, copying and pasting words from the document into Notepad, and  importing the list into Quiz-n-Spell.

The Basics

First, be sure to read and reasonably understand the concepts at:  "Delimited Text File".

You must understand simple "Copy and Paste" techniques.  Here is a short tutorial on that.  Also, become familiar with the mouse right-button context menu (move the mouse pointer over any window and click the right mouse button, and look at the context menu that pops open; it may be different for every window).

For a complete list of Microsoft Windows shortcut and hot keys, go to Microsoft's web site, and search  their documentation using this key phrase:  "Keyboard Interface Summary"

(link to Microsoft's web site)

Building a Quiz-n-Spell Word List on Microsoft Windows 98 SE using Notepad

NOTE:  If you use Wordpad instead of Notepad, you MUST save the file as a .txt file, because otherwise Wordpad will add formatting characters that Quiz-n-Spell will not recognize.  We advise you to use Notepad instead.

Begin the Tutorial

Step 1:  Open Notepad

• Click the Windows 'Start' button
• Click "Programs", then "Accessories", then "Notepad"
• Or, Click the Windows 'Start' button, then click "Run...", type in the word "notepad" (without the quotes), and press the <Enter> key.

Step2:  Open the "Gettysburg File"

Move windows around (point and click on the title bar of any window, then hold the left mouse button down and 'drag', or move, the window) until you can see at least part of both Notepad and the Gettysburg File.  They can, and probably will, overlap each other.  By pointing the mouse pointer onto part of the 'buried' window and clicking, you can 'pop' it back up to the top of the screen.

At this point, you should be ready to build a word list.  Let's make this list six words long, and we will name the list "GettysburgList".

Notepad is open, but should be blank.  Before doing anything else, save the empty file.

• In Notepad, click "File", then click "Save As..."  A file "Save As" dialog box will open.
• Type GettysburgList (or copy and paste) into the "File name:" edit box, then click the "Save" button.

Step 3:  Now copy words into the empty Notepad document

We will build the list using the following words:  conceived, dedicated, proposition, consecrate, hallow,  and perish.  Our list will only contain the words, and not any definitions, hints or sentences.  Those will be added in later lessons.

1. First, find in the "Gettysburg File" the word:  conceived.  Move the mouse pointer over it, then double click the left mouse button to highlight the word.  Then, without moving the mouse pointer, click the right mouse button to open the context menu.  Select "Copy".  Alternatively, click the browser's "Edit" menu, and select "Copy" from the menu that drops down.
2. (At this point, "conceived" should be on the invisible Windows clipboard.)
3. Now, bring Notepad to the top of the viewing screen.  Move the mouse pointer over a part of Notepad and click the left mouse button on any part of Notepad except the "X" on the right corner of the title bar, since that will close Notepad.  Notepad should pop to the top of the screen.  Move the mouse pointer into the blank 'client' area and click the right mouse button to open the context menu, then select "Paste".  Alternatively, click Notepad's "Edit" menu, and select "Paste" from the menu that drops down.
4. You should see the word there (if not, repeat steps 1, 2 and 3), but we learned that since this must be a "delimited" text list, and now we must add the delimiters.  For this list, let's use the semi-colon (;).  We learned that Quiz-n-Spell expects four parts to each word line:  a word, definition, hint and sentence.  And we learned that we separate the four parts with a delimiter, in this case a semi-colon.  Further, we learned that we could leave any part, except the word itself, blank or empty by just putting the next delimiter in the line.  So, since we only intend to put the word in the list, and leave off the other parts (definition, hint and sentence), we just need to add three delimiters after the word, like this:  

conceived;;;

5. Then, we tap the keyboard <Enter> key to finish the line (remember, the <Enter> key adds an invisible character to tell Notepad to start a new line).

One word down, five to go.

Go back up to the list of six words, find the next word in the "Gettysburg File" and add it, and the delimiters, to the Notepad word list.

When you are finished, save the Notepad file.  And remember the name:  GettysburgList.txt (the '.txt' part is automatically added to Notepad text files; you should remember that it is).

Step 4:  Open Quiz-n-Spell

Click the large "A", for Administrator.

In the dialog box that opens, type in the word:  GettysburgList.

Press the <Enter> key, or click the <Add> button.  Quiz-n-Spell will start a new list, named GettysburgList.

Now click the <Edit...> button.  A dialog box will open, and you should see that the Current List is "GettysburgList". If not, close the dialog and be sure that  GettysburgList has been added to the master list and that it is selected (highlighted).

Click the <Text Entry...> button.

Now we have to tell Quiz-n-Spell which delimiter we used in our delimited text file.  Recall that we used the semi-colon.  So check the "Other" checkbox in the "Delimiter" box and type in a semi-colon (;). 

Next, click the <Open File...> button.  A file-open dialog box will pop up.  You should be able to find "GettysburgList.txt" in it, and when you do, select it.  Then click the OK button.

You will see the file's text, and if you have correctly selected the delimiter (;), the text will be color-coded. 

Step 5:  Finished!

Click the <Merge> button to merge the new text into the list. 

If you were successful - then you are ready to build any and all lists that you will want.  Adding definitions, hints and sentences is as easy as adding words - just copy and paste.  You can verify the word list by clicking the "Print List..." button in the "Word List Utilities" dialog box, and selecting the "GettysburgList" from the dropdown list.

If you were unsuccessful, that is if you see a message box titled "ERROR:  Delimiter not found", then just click the OK button and Notepad will open with the GettysburgList.txt file.  Check that there are three semi-colons at the end of each line, and that each word is on a separate line.  This message usually happens when adding definitions and/or sentences, since if you select a comma as the delimiter and either a sentence or defnition (or hint or word, even) has a comma in them, then Quiz-n-Spell will count 4 or more delimiters and will not be able to finish importing the text list.

With practice, you should be able to add a list of words to Quiz-n-Spell in just one or two minutes, or even less time!

End of Tutorial

At this time, the new word list that you have built and imported into Quiz-n-Spell can be enhanced by adding definitions, hints, and sentences, or by recording a pronunciation for words if the Speech-to-Text engine does not pronounce them correctly.

To further edit this word list, exit the "Word List Utilities" dialog box, and - with GettysburgList still selected in the "Administer Word Lists" dialog box, click the "Edit..." button.  That will open the "Word List" dialog box, where you will be able to select a word to edit (add a definition, hint or recorded pronunctiation) or add and delete words from the list.  Please look at the extensive Quiz-n-Spell help system for help with this powerful feature.

Of course, if you want to, you can have your students begin drilling with this new word list immediately.