This short guide indicates the steps necessary to carry out a basic search in the Term Portal:

Enter your query (this can be a word, expression, abbreviation, etc.) in the Search window.

Press the Search icon. The search result will display a list of matching terms on the left of the screen (with an indication of the language of the term, the subject it has been assigned to and the collection to which it belongs).

From the Search result, click on single entries, which will then be shown on a separate window. You can get a multilingual view or select one language only from the top language tabs.

Once you have read the information of one entry, you can close it and click directly on a new entry in order to view it.

Under “Options” there are four possible search criteria:

Match all words:

Tick the option 'Match all words' when you would like the results to show ALL the words placed in the search window.

Match any word:

Tick the option 'Match any word' when you would like the results to show ANY of the words placed in the search window.

Exact Match:

Tick the option 'Exact match' in order to look for the word or expression exactly as you have entered it. This option is useful in order to limit the amount of results from a search.

It should, however, be reminded that this option may sometimes limit too much the results obtained.

Entire phrase:

Tick the option 'Entire phrase' if you wish to look for a chain of words, including prepositions and articles.

Additional information

The Search results can be furtherly filtered using criteria such as “Subject”,“Collection”, etc.

If your search criteria produced too many results, you can restrict the search, choosing from the “Options” beside the search toolbar, applying one of the above filters or reducing the number of collections you are searching into (i.e. deselect the list of collections presented by default and reselect less items).

By default all the collections are selected, but you can deselect all of them and select only one or two (for example, only FAOTERM and FAO Structure) by clicking on the button located on top of the list of collections.

Once selected, an option stays for the next search. If you do not require this function, remember to revert to the default option, i.e. “Match all words”.

You can increase the number of records displayed on the page (10 records per page is the default value, but you can choose to display as many as 100 records per page).

If they are not needed, you can collapse some of the options by pressing the < icons you see on the page.

If you need further assistance on the functioning of the system or a specific terminology research, please contact the Language Support Group at the following e-mail account: [email protected].

In addition to the options and features described above, it is also possible to:

Share a record:

If you wish to share the contents of an entry with other colleagues or send comments on a specific record to the site administrators, click on the “Share” icon at the bottom of the record page.

Save/print a record:

Pressing the page icon at the top or bottom of the record page, you can create a pdf of the current entry and save or print it, as most appropriate.

Send feedback:

In order to send feedback on a specific entry, click on the orange Feedback icon at the bottom of the record page, fill in the required information and send it. The module will be received by the Administrators of the Term Portal.

Expand the window:

If you wish to expand the record you are viewing in order to see it with a full screen view, click on the icon at the very top right.

Separate window:

You can open a separate window containing the record you are currently viewing, if you wish to keep it for the sake of comparison with other records or any another use.

Send proposals:

You can send proposals to the system Administrators for the addition of new terms. You only have to click on the "New Term" button at the bottom of the page and fill in the required information.