Automatic indexing and reformulation of ancient dictionaries

We discuss automatic indexing and reformulation of ancient dictionaries. The objective is to make easy the access to ancient printed documents from XVI to XIX century for a diversified public (historians, scientists, librarians, etc.). Since the facsimile mode is insufficient, the aim is to look further for the use of the indexing based on the formal structure representative of some contents in order to optimize their exploration. Starting from a first indexing experiment operated on more recent documents, the TLF ("Tresor de la Langue Francaise": Treasure of the French Language) in the ATILF laboratory (Nancy, France), we extended the indexing technique to automatic reformulation and reedition of ancient dictionaries. However, we limited our investigations to a very specific collections of the ATILF laboratory, the "Trevoux" dictionary.