Quick start

Want to get your hands dirty with tersen? You’ve come to the right place!

  1. If you have not done so already, install Lua and LuaRocks, then run luarocks install tersen to install tersen.

  2. Copy the following to a new text file and save it as tersen_dict.txt:

    and => &
    with => w/
    without => w/o
    Personal Identification Number => PIN @n_acro
    

    This is a dictionary, which explains how words are abbreviated in your preferred abbreviation system.

    Each line is called a mapping. The part of a mapping before the => is called a source, and is what tersen will try to replace in your input file. The part after the => and before the @ or line break is called a destination, and is what tersen will replace the source with when it encounters the source in your input file.

    The bit starting with an @ is an annotation; that causes tersen to add a plural form of the acronym, so that it knows how to abbreviate Personal Identification Numbers to PINs as well.

  3. Create a test input file containing one or more of the source phrases above and save it as test.txt.

  4. Run tersen:

    $ tersen tersen_dict.txt test.txt
    

    An abbreviated version of your test file will be printed to the terminal. The first argument to tersen is the dictionary file; any number of input files can be specified thereafter, and tersen will read them in turn and print the tersened versions to standard output.

At this point, you are ready to build up a dictionary for your preferred system. Check out Terms and The tersen dictionary format if you get mixed up about the syntax of the dictionary file or how punctuation is handled. If you are building a complex dictionary, you may also want to read about annotations and hooks before you get too far in, as they may allow you to simplify your dictionary somewhat.