Welcome to the Multimedia Edition of the Macmillan 
Dictionary for Children. This multimedia version of the 
dictionary gives you all kinds of neat ways to learn things 
about almost 12,000 different words. 

As soon as you start the dictionary, you can use this text 
to follow along and you'll learn how to use the dictionary. 

Help is also available on any page in the dictionary. Just 
click on the word bubble with the funny letters in it, at the 
lower right of the screen. And you can leave the 
dictionary at any time by clicking the little grey button in 
the upper left corner of the screen.

Let's start by looking up the word autumn. 

The first list, which is the list all the way to the left of the 
screen, is the A to Z list. It shows you all the letters of the 
alphabet. Click once on A, the first letter in the word 
"autumn." The dictionary will show you the first page of 
"A" words.

The list next to that is the Guide List. Click on the three 
letters closest to the three letters that begin the word 
"autumn." That's "a u g." Remember, you only need to 
click once. 

Next is the Word List, which shows a portion of the 
alphabetical list of all words in the dictionary. The words 
you see now are the words near "a u g."

You'll notice that the word "autumn" isn't there. That's 
because it's further down in the alphabet. You can find it 
by clicking once on the small grey arrow at the bottom of 
the screen,  which brings you further down the list. Now 
you can see the word "autumn" in the list.

Click on the word "autumn." Now you see the Word Entry 
page, which tell you lots of things about the word you've 
selected. To learn more about the parts of the word, click 
on Help. 
You can click on any other word in the entry, and go right 
to it. Try clicking the right mouse button while pointing
to the word "and" and you'll see its word entry. 
See that little red guy hiding there? That's Zak. He lives 
inside the dictionary, and you'll be seeing a lot of him. 
Click on him and you'll see what he thinks of this word.

He didn't find that too exciting. Let's pick another word, 
"alphabet." Now click on Zak, and see what he thinks of 
this word! 

When you see a button like this one at the lower left of the 
page, make sure you click on it, because you'll get 
interesting information and fun surprises.

You can click on the page turners in the lower right hand 
corner to go back and forth through the pages one at a 
time. Click on the upper page turner and you'll go back 
one page to the word "alpaca."

The little pictures on the right-hand side of the screen are 
icons. The bull's-eye is the Go To icon. You can go right 
to a word just by typing the word. Try typing the letters a p 
p l e. Now click on the Find box, and then click on the 
bull's-eye. Now you'll see apple's word entry page.

The icon that looks like a piece of paper with a paper clip 
is called My List. You can make your own personal list of 
words, and that can come in handy for doing homework or 
playing a game. Click on the plus sign to add a word to 
the list. Click on the minus sign to take the word away. 

The next icon is for games. When you want to try playing 
a game, click on the ABC block, and then choose one of 
the three games. 

The last icon is for Help. It's very useful when you have a 
question about what you're seeing on the screen, or when 
you're in a game.

Now go ahead and explore on your own!