# Searching synonyms in Lightroom Classic



## Terributlerphotography (Apr 22, 2020)

I decided to finally clean up my keywords.  I had over 2200 of them and as I'm a windows 10 OS user, I'm obviously challenged by the LR Adobe bug that only allows me to display 1600 rows of them in the keyword panel  _(this is a known bug for over 8 years that Adobe is unwilling to invest the hours needed to fix and only impacts Windows users, not Mac OS)..._

That said, I have now invested hundreds of hours in building a keyword hierarchy of almost 4500+ words (including the synonyms) that I can use to tag my stock inventory.

*MY QUESTION that I can not seem to find the answer for is this:
HOW DO I SEARCH THE SYNONYMS.  *The Adobe literature does not address searching them, only how to build them and export them with your images.   I've search several other site and have not found the answer.  Perhaps some here has the secret.  Maybe a plug-in?  or undocumented trick?  I've tested all the various search prompts in the metadata and text areas and nothing seems to read the synonyms.

Any help is appreciated.  Thanks in advance.
Terri


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## johnbeardy (Apr 22, 2020)

I may be wrong, but I don't think you can search for synonyms. Obviously they export, and I seem to recall that you can target them in smart collection criteria. But if you want to look for them, I think the only way is exporting the keywords list (Metadata menu) and examining the output in Notepad or something like Word or Excel.

Plugin access to keywords is a little patchy, and I don't think I've seen any plugin that might help.


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## clee01l (Apr 22, 2020)

The  closest thing that I can suggest is to export your Keyword List as a text file.  Synonyms will be listed inside brackets {Synonym}.  From that your can beard for its host keyword.


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## Paul McFarlane (Apr 22, 2020)

You can search for synonyms using the Text filter.


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## clee01l (Apr 22, 2020)

Paul McFarlane said:


> You can search for synonyms using the Text filter.


Not intuitive since there is a search field on the Keyword List  panel.  But it is nice to learn something new.


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## johnrellis (Apr 23, 2020)

In the Adobe forum, Terri expanded on the goal:


> As I'm cleaning up my old flat structure, I want to search the new hierachy to see if I have the word as either a top-level keyword or synonym so I can map my exiting images to the new hierachy and delete the existing flat keyword from the old list.  But I can't search for the synonyms.. so I don't always know if I added it to the new hierarchy as a synonym or not; only the top-level keywords are searchable under either the "Filter Keywords" or Text->Any Searchable Field search areas.


To build on John's reply, the only way to explicitly see your synonyms is by doing Metadata > Export Keywords to save your your keyword list into a text file. The structure of the file is pretty apparent -- synonyms will be enclosed in curly braces { }.

You could use this recipe to indirectly see if a synonym has been added to your new hierarchy:

1. In the Library Filter bar, click Text and do Keywords Contains Words _synonym. 

2. _Click on one of the matching photos.

3. look in the Keywording panel for the keywords currently assigned to the photo.  Make sure Keywod Tags: Keywords & Containing Keywords is set in the panel.

4. If you see only top-level keywords, then you know the synonym must be attached to one of them; ditto if you see only hierarchical keywords. But if you see both, then you'll have to look into the exported keyword list file to see which keyword has that synonym.


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## Deleted member 39308 (May 31, 2020)

I ran into this "annoyance" not being able to search for a synonym in the Keyword List panel. When keywording photos this is where you want to search for keywords that may match. As far as I can work out the text filter only works for photos containing keywords.

My example. I just created a large plant keyword list but I have issues searching it. E.g.

Japanese Larch keyword (what we call it in Europe) has Karamatsu (what they would call it in Japan) as synonym but you can never find Karamatsu by searching the Keyword list panel. So do you need to create an entry for Karamatsu with Japanese Larch as a Synonym as well?


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## johnbeardy (May 31, 2020)

OK, LR could do better with synonyms. but bear in mind that LR's competitors don't even offer synonyms as a feature. You're forced to set up both keywords.

You can search synonyms using smart collections. If I had lots of species, I'd do much the same as I do with Italian and other language place names where I have Rome as a keyword, Roma as a synonym, and always search for the English version. Maybe I'd use the Latin names in the case of species. But I'd be consistent, and only have one keyword for tagging and searching.


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## johnrellis (May 31, 2020)

Ad Astra said:


> I ran into this "annoyance" not being able to search for a synonym in the Keyword List panel. When keywording photos this is where you want to search for keywords that may match. As far as I can work out the text filter only works for photos containing keywords.


That's right -- the Keywords field searched by the Library Filter bar and smart collections includes synonyms, so you can use synonyms to search for photos.  But you can't type a synonym into the Keywording panel, nor can you search for keywords using their synonyms in the Keyword List panel.

My Any Tag plugin, which is designed for fast keywording from controlled vocabularies using your keyboard, does let you use synonyms when keywording, and when you start typing a keyword, it will show matching synonyms as well as keywords:


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## Deleted member 39308 (May 31, 2020)

Thanks John (E) does your Any Tag plugin create extra fields in the Lightroom database or does it just use the existing keyword fields?

I rely heavily on John (B)'s search and replace plugin and a geotagging plugin so maybe a keywording plugin will ease the pain of Lightroom's Keywording implementation.


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## johnrellis (May 31, 2020)

Ad Astra said:


> does your Any Tag plugin create extra fields in the Lightroom database or does it just use the existing keyword fields?



It uses the existing keyword fields in the catalog.


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## wcstarks (Mar 14, 2021)

Ad Astra said:


> I ran into this "annoyance" not being able to search for a synonym in the Keyword List panel. When keywording photos this is where you want to search for keywords that may match. As far as I can work out the text filter only works for photos containing keywords.
> 
> My example. I just created a large plant keyword list but I have issues searching it. E.g.
> 
> Japanese Larch keyword (what we call it in Europe) has Karamatsu (what they would call it in Japan) as synonym but you can never find Karamatsu by searching the Keyword list panel. So do you need to create an entry for Karamatsu with Japanese Larch as a Synonym as well?


You might consider an alternative approach to handling the various languages in your classification by using nested keywords. for example, create a "main" keyword in the preferred language.  Then nest other spellings of that "main" spelling within the "main" spelling keyword, just as you might do for nested localities.
Karamatsu
        Larch
        [spelling 2]
        [spelling 3]
        . . . 
Then all spellings are related and are searchable in the keyword panel.  In the synonym field for each name, you can enter the language of that spelling.  Nesting keywords is a very powerful and flexible feature.  I use it not only for associating localities, but also to organize photos by families. For example,  is this abbreviated nested familial list:
Carl Gustaf Walgren
    Alfred Carl Waldron
        Alice Ethel Waldron
            Clarence E McKeen
            Herman Harald McKeen
                {Spouse}
                {Brownie}
                Cathy McKeen
                Don McKeen
                Helen Louise Batchelder
                    {Spouse}
                Patty McKeen
        Bennie David Waldron
            Daniel Waldron
            Olivia Waldron
            Phyllis Stewart
                {Spouse}
        . . .
       Clara Eliza Ames
            {Spouse #1}
            Marvin Linnie Hire
                {Spouse #2}
        . . .
    Anna Maria Johansdotter
        {Spouse}
        . . .

When I search in the Filter panel with "Hierarchy" selected, I can search for Carl Gustaf Walgren and get all photos for all of his descendants.  This, however, has some limitations, such as it can only effectively map a single ancestral branch.  In my photos, I follow two main branches.  I have devised a method in the keywords to deal with this issue within the same keyword list, which is beyond the scope of this topic.


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