Calculating a Match

Author-it Xtend uses a similarity matrix to make comparisons between text fragments. The results are based on the similarity between fragments, calculated by comparing the number of identical words in each paragraph.

There are two methods of matching used by Author-it Xtend:

Fuzzy matching is more exact so will return less results. Relevance matching is less exact so should return a larger number of suggestions.

• Fuzzy matching: looks at the similarity of the fragments and makes a comparison based on words common to both fragments and the order in which they appear in both fragments. You can also define your own fuzzy match highlighting levels in the Authoring Memory tab.
• Relevance matching: looks at the similarity of the fragments and makes a comparison based on words common to both fragments. Relevance matching does not take into account the order of the words.

Both methods make a comparison based on the unique words in a fragment, ignoring any subsequent instances of a word if they occur in the fragment. For example, in the fragment Install the sound driver after you install the video driver the words install and driver are only counted once.

User options let you set the level of similarity used by Author-it Xtend, controlling the number of text fragments returned as a match. Higher settings return fewer suggested fragments, but they should be a closer match to the text being typed. Lower settings will return a larger number of results, as the suggested fragments will have a lower match ratio.

You can customize the match settings through the Editor or the Author-it main window:

• In the Editor choose Edit > Xtend > Xtend Dialog Box Launcher.
• In the Author-it main window choose the Author-it Button > Author-it Options > Author-it Xtend.