---
title: "Managing terms"
canonical: "https://support.soutron.net/space/HG/3277265/Managing%20terms"
format: markdown
---
This section describes the process of adding new terms and editing existing ones.

**Adding new terms** - the main way that the thesaurus gets populated is during the [cataloguing of records](https://soutron.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HG/pages/3276977), but there may be occasions when you need to add them directly into the thesaurus

**Editing terms** - there are a number of reasons why you might need to edit terms:

- correcting spelling mistakes - this is a powerful tool as it also corrects the entries in the records themselves
- merging terms which should be the same - this also corrects the entries in the records themselves
- [building a hierarchy of terms](#Managingterms-Hierarchy)
- [defining preferred / non-preferred terms](#Managingterms-Synonyms) (synonyms and foreign-language translations)


---


> Macro (excerpt)
> 
> **To start, select **<span style="color: #ff0000">**Thesaurus > Thesaurus Search**</span>.
> 
> The following page is displayed:
> 
> ![image](media://6d3d90e7-5b48-42f4-9e76-629f723c7204)
> 
> Select the thesaurus you want to work on, from the drop-down box on the left.
> 
> > ℹ️ You can only search and work with one thesaurus at a time. A thesaurus must have been defined in the [Creating a thesaurus](https://soutron.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HG/pages/3278740) section for it to appear in this list.