Monday, March 25, 2013

Ad Free (Offline) English To Urdu Dictionary on Android

I am an Android user for above a year and one of most needed things on Android for me is a dictionary. I need English to English and English to Urdu dictionaries for my day to day work, to get meaning while reading or watching movie. There are very good dictionaries available for English and I am very much happy with Miriam Webster dictionary app. The problem for Urdu is frustrating though, because dictionaries are hellishly filled with ads and sometimes they won't even open if you are offline. I hate all of English to Urdu dictionary developers, most of them have got the data from other online sources (EnglishUrdudictionary.com, مقتدرہ قومی زبان) and now use that content for their unfair profit making. So seeking all this, I decided to do something, which was kind of simple. As I have already created a glossary file of about 92000 words, English to Urdu, I asked an internet friend Muhammad Saad to convert that to QuickDic format using linux based java tool. He did it and bingo, I use offline android dictionary now. And here it is for you people as well. Follow these steps to have a free offline English<>Urdu dictionary for your routine use on any Android device.
1. Install QuickDic from Play store.
2. Download English > Urdu dictionary file.
3. Unzip the file and get whatever is inside.
4. Connect your Android device to PC.
5. Find quickDic file folder in your device's SDcard, and put the file there.
6. Start QuickDic and it will automatically find new dictionaries in the folder.
7. Use and Enjoy! (And you can use the dictionary both ways English to Urdu, Urdu to English. Just use button on the left side of search box labelled EN).
And here is how the app and dictionary looks on my Nexus 7.