Guide to good symbol content

To help you find and use the most appropriate symbol for the word or concept you are illustrating, all Widgit software gives you the option of ‘retexting’ a symbol. Retexting is a way of customising a Widgit Symbol by replacing the text underneath the symbol with new text.

For example, when writing about a dog called ‘Sam’, the symbol for the name of a man beginning with S (the automatically generated symbol for the word ‘Sam’) is not appropriate; the most appropriate symbol would be the symbol for ‘dog’. In order to use this symbol instead, the word ‘dog’ would need to be typed rather than ‘Sam’, and then the text beneath the symbol for ‘dog’ retexted to ‘Sam’.

Another reason for retexting is when it would be best to combine two or more words in a sentence under a single symbol.

For most symbol readers, this sentence may be hard to understand:

By removing the abstract symbols above 'to' and 'the' and retexting those words by combining them with the text beneath the symbol for the concept they are most closely related to, the meaning of the sentence becomes much more obvious.

When writing for symbol readers, it is important to only include what is necessary to make content as simple as possible.

If space is restricted in your document, you may also wish to retext some of your symbolised words in order for them to take up less space. Don't forget that it is important that a symbolised sentence is no longer than one line in order for it to be as easy as possible for the reader to understand. If you are having difficulty in fitting your symbolised sentence onto one line, retexting can offer a solution.