Synonyms
By defining a list of synonyms, you can increase the effectiveness of a search by grouping similar words together as a single result. For example, you define movie, video, and avi as synonyms. If a user searches for one of those terms, a match will be scored if any of the three are found in a document.
To add these definitions, you'll need to perform an override on a file called synonyms.xml, located by default in the ePublisher Designer installation directory here:
  \Formats\WebWorks Help 5.0\Files\wwhdata\common
Once the file is copied to the correct location in your project directory, open it in any text- or XML-editing application (e.g., NotePad), and add entries to the <WebWorksSynonyms> section. For example, your synonyms might look like this:
  <WebWorksSynonyms>
   <Word value="movie">
    <Synonym value="avi" />
    <Synonym value="video" />
   </Word>
   <Word value="picture">
    <Synonym value="image" />
    <Synonym value="graphic" />
    <Synonym value="photo" />
   </Word>
  </WebWorksSynonyms>
Please note that the Synonyms feature does not recognize multiple word values or synonyms. And, it ignores words (and synonyms) of 2 letters or less. Also, its search logic is quite literal. That is, it finds only what you type, and only if the exact form is in the text. For example, it does not find plurals or phrases, and it even includes punctuation.
Minimum word length & common words
When performing a text search, the WebWorks Help 5.0 search engine follows a couple of guidelines designed to make the search more efficient and the results more helpful. By default, the minimum length of a word in the search results is 3 letters. ePublisher Designer also comes with a list of terms which appear commonly in many types of documents, and are therefore left out of search results. You can modify both the minimum length and the list of common words by performaing a target override on a file called locales.xml, located by default in the ePublisher Designer installation directory, here:
2025.1\Formats\Shared\common\locale
Because this file is in the Shared formats directory, your project folder hierarchy should look like this:
MyProject\Targets\MyWWHelpTarget\Shared\common\locale
To change the minimum number of letters in a WebWorks Help 5.0 search result:
  1. Open locales.xml in an XML- or text-editing application (e.g., NotePad).
  2. Find the Locale used by your project (default English is "en").
  3. Under the <Search> section, change the MinimumWordLength value to the desired number of characters in the shortest word the search should return.
To change the list of words which will not be returned in a WebWorks Help 5.0 search:
  1. Open locales.xml in an XML- or text-editing application (e.g., NotePad).
  2. Find the Locale used by your project (default English is "en").
  3. Under the <Search> section, modify the <StopWords> values to reflect the list of words which should not appear in your project's search results.
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Last modified date: 01/28/2026