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Ordpar is one dictionary that can be read in different ways. Its settings decide what an article shows: which languages, how many examples, how much a small article holds, and more. A change applies at once and is kept in this browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

Presets. At the top of Settings, three buttons set all the article settings at once: Default, Concise and For learners. A preset is a starting point, not a mode: change any setting afterwards and your change stays. The page shows which preset your settings match, if any. Default puts the article settings back as Ordpar starts. A preset changes only the settings under Article; your style, search and offline settings stay as they are.

Shorter articles: Concise. For when you only need the meaning. Each definition shows only its English, and each sense and set phrase shows its first two examples, with a line such as "Show 12 more examples" to open the rest. Small articles leave out some subsenses and compound lists. An article not yet translated still shows its Norwegian. The settings behind it: Definitions, Examples under each sense and set phrase, and, under Small articles, How much of the article it shows.

Practising your Norwegian: For learners. For reading the Norwegian first and checking yourself. An eye beside the headword hides the English of every example in the article, or shows it again; while it is hidden, "Show English" under an example reveals that one. In each definition the Norwegian is in the full text colour and the English is faded, and short formula lines, such as "used as an adverb:", show in Norwegian and English. The settings behind it: An eye button for the examples' English, Emphasis, when both languages show, and Short formula lines. If you would rather every article open with the examples' English hidden, set Examples to "Norwegian, with the English hidden until revealed".

Norwegian only. For reading the articles as Bokmålsordboka has them, with Ordpar's search, favourites and other features. Show the articles in Norwegian only hides every article's English, with nothing to click to reveal it, and puts the labels inside the article in Norwegian: its headings and buttons, its word class and its inflection tables. It sits over your other settings, which apply again as they were when you switch it off. The Norwegian is Bokmålsordboka's article as it was in the copy Ordpar works from, with our corrections, so a change made at ordbokene.no since then may not be here yet. Ordpar's own added examples stay, marked "+". With English equivalents hidden, there is no English beside the words in the search suggestions, lists, Recent, History and Favourites either, nor when the pointer rests on a linked word, and the "Search English words" switch goes, so the search and Random word are Norwegian; you choose whether the lists show each word's first Norwegian definition or nothing, and the same for the linked words. A button in the header switches Norwegian only on or off on every page, and this device remembers it; you can turn the button off in Settings.

Labels in Norwegian. Labels inside an article, under Style, puts an article's headings and buttons in Norwegian, such as "Opphav" for "Etymology" and "Kopier lenke" for "Copy link", with its word class and the words of its inflection tables. With "Norwegian only" on, they are all in Norwegian whatever this setting says. The rest of the site stays in English.

Spoken words. The speaker icon after a headword, a definition line, an example or a form in an inflection table reads it aloud; press it again to stop. Speed of the spoken words, under Article, plays the recordings as recorded or at 90%, and at 90% the voice keeps its pitch. The icons need an internet connection, also with the offline copy.

The words are read by Ida, Amazon Polly's synthetic Norwegian Bokmål voice, at 90% of her usual speed, for clarity. Where she misreads a word, the reading is corrected with a pronunciation from NB Uttale (Språkbanken) or by ear, and the listening goes on. Example sentences are read without their parentheses and explanations.

A few more. Inflection tables: "Always shown" puts a word's forms on the page without a click, handy while you learn them. What a click on a linked word opens: a small article on the page, or the full article. Article layout: "Closer to ordbokene.no", if that is the layout you know.

Pronunciation

Written in ordinary Norwegian spelling, not phonetic symbols. When a word is not stressed on its first syllable, a mark after the stressed syllable shows where the stress falls, and which of Norwegian's two word melodies it has: ˊ for tone 1, ˋ for tone 2. The two tones can tell apart words that are otherwise said alike, such as bønder, 'farmers' (tone 1), and bønner, 'beans' (tone 2). How they sound depends on the dialect: in Eastern Norwegian, as in Oslo, tone 1 starts low on the stressed syllable and rises, while tone 2 falls on the stressed syllable before it rises. A hyphen means only part of the word is spelt out.