Others say...

"Barely misses perfection"
If you're fed up with fumbling even a collegiate-sized or paperback book on your lap just to quickly look up a definition, synonym or spelling, you'll love this electronic dictionary/thesaurus, which conveniently presents all that right on the computer screen where you're already working.

But unfortunately, you'll have to minimize your current program to get to the desktop icon for this program, since it offers no way to pop it up from an icon in the tray -- its worst shortcoming, in my view.

The only way to have it immediately available is by running it, then minimizing it to the taskbar, where it consumes space along with other programs you may already have minimized there. I suppose that's really a minor quibble, but it bugs me greatly because there's no reason beyond lazy programming that it couldn't have offered a tray icon option.

The two exceptions to that are if you're writing in MS Word or Corel's WordPerfect, where macros can be installed as buttons, allowing you to highlight a word and pop it up in the dictionary/thesaurus by clicking that button.

But that's a sadly limited use of a major program's pop-up capability, which with a little extra programming could have been expanded to include virtually any selected word on the screen, as is possible with some other electronic dictionaries.

That notwithstanding, the program offers the same robust selection of definitions and synonyms you'll find in the printed Merriam-Webster Collegiate, but with a number of easily clickable search options for finding them. They're also presented in basically the same excellent format Merriam-Webster uses in its printed versions.

If you can't find a suitable word in the 225,000 definitions and 340,000 synonyms and related words available in this program, you're probably looking for something that'll drive whoever's reading what you're writing to a dictionary.

Selecting the dictionary or thesaurus is as quick and easy as clicking on either from a drop-down menu prominently at the top of the program -- and you can set either as the default on startup.

Other configuration preferences are sparsely limited to changing text size/color and background color, and setting a default for any of the 19 search "types."

To look up a word, you can select from three tabbed options:

Basic Searches (Entry word is...): You'd likely use this most. As soon as you enter the first letter a list pops up in a lower window with everything beginning with that letter. As you type additional letters, you increasingly drill down to words nearer what you're looking for, ending with your word highlighted when you type the final letter. This is basically exactly the same routine as when you use the "Find" feature of any Windows help program -- and sure beats flipping through pages of a book.

Advanced Searches: This is a Boolean thing using AND, OR, NOT and some possible parenthetical expressions. I found it to be mostly an advanced piece of uselessness.

Browse: This is basically like thumbing through a printed dictionary starting at some letter and functions exactly the same as drilling down through the letters of a word using the Basic search feature. But -- and that's a big BUT -- its two options of searching for either the beginning or ending of a word can be a lifesaver when you have no idea how to begin spelling that word. For example: Try looking up "ptarmigan" under "T" or "mnemonic" under "N." You'll get nowhere fast on either. But search for the fairly obvious endings and sooner than later you'll find those words.

One other quibble I have with this program is that it refuses to recognize my USB mouse wheel for scrolling through the word lists. But I've learned to be content with the side slider.

Its few shortcomings aside, at Amazon's price this program's a world-class bargain, functions flawlessly for what it's intended and hands down beats wrestling with a book.

"Perfect -- almost!"
This is a can't -live-without- it reference product. It's got all sorts of ways to help the writer or speaker. Is it Antartic or Antarctic? Athelete or Athlete? What's a four letter word synonym for morose? What is the correct pronouncement of herb? Whet? What rhymes with storage? There are at least 15 valuable word tools in this relatively inexpensive program. I would pay twice the price.

That said, I had difficulty installing the software on my iMac G5 running O.S. 10.4. I ordered the CD (so glad I did) and everything was a snap except ... no pronunciation unless the CD was inserted. This is fixable, but not without cnversations with M-W. And their instructions didn't work well. PCs? I couldn't say. What the hell -- take a chance.

"Historical Use of this Dictionary"
This edition of the Webster's Dictionaray was recommended to me when I began writing historical fiction. Many of the entries have a note giving the year the word was first used. I had previously used an Oxford English Dictionary, which does not give the year of origin. The nice thing about the Oxford, however, is that it contains many words used in England along with English, rather than American, spellings.

This would also be a useful dictionary for the high school student. It has a presentation page making it a nice gift for students.

"Very useful."
I have downloaded the dictionary/thesaurus on my laptop. It is very
convenient when writing papers. I certainly recommend it.

"Merriam Webster Review"
This is a very complete dictionary. The word derivations are quite good. Also more definitions than the competition (American Heritage and Collins Co Built).
I will not give it a 5 star, as the definitions are definitely more difficult to grasp than the ones from the above competitors.