Windows Phone Thoughts: Trancreative's Wordbook v3 Reviewed

As You Like It
The Tools menu provides options for configuring word searching and the study list as well as selecting which dictionary file is to be used should you have more than one installed on your Pocket PC. The Text menu allows you to select the size of font and whether clear type is enabled as well and Copy and Select All functions. One other big feature of WordBook is the Word Picker tool invoked by the eye-dropper icon. This allows you to highlight any word and then tap this icon to automatically look up that word. The best thing about this tool is that it can be run outside of WordBook and be used to look up any word in another application that displays standard text – starting up the dictionary and displaying the chosen word at the tap of the icon.


Figure 10: The word picker tool running in the Notes application.


Figure 11: And tapping on lookup displays the highlighted word in WordBook.

So What Does it All Mean?
UK/Canadian and US English versions are both available for words where the spelling may vary. The definitions offered by WordBook are excellent with a good description and selection of usage examples where applicable. There is in excess of 147,000 entries which make this among the biggest, if not the most complete, standalone dictionary for the Pocket PC. Phonetic spellings are on offer as well as a good help file that details how they should be read. It also covers all important aspects of the dictionary.

Conclusion
WordBook has established itself as my number one choice for dictionary on the Pocket PC with version 3 proving fast and solid while easy to use. There are decent customisation options, but these really are secondary to the superb features on offer such as the Study list, word of the day and excellent searching. If you only need a simple dictionary for occasionally looking up the odd word, Trancreative’s product may well be more than you need but if you are a regular dictionary user, big on word puzzles or see value in any of the features on offer, I really can’t recommend WordBook 3 highly enough.