Convert BGL to HTML

A Babylon glossary must be converted when its entries need to be published as a browser-readable web page instead of opened in dictionary software. HTML also makes the extracted text easier to edit, host, archive, and search with browser tools.

What the BGL format is

In this context, .bgl means a Babylon Glossary file: a compiled binary dictionary containing headwords, translations, definitions, and, depending on the glossary, formatting, examples, pronunciation data, links, images, or audio. Babylon dictionary software and Babylon Glossary Builder created and used these files.

BGL is a proprietary dictionary container, not a web document. A browser cannot interpret it directly, and renaming .bgl to .html changes only the filename, not the data format. Some BGL files may also be protected or use structures that older extraction tools cannot fully read.

What the HTML format is

HTML is a text markup language that describes the structure of browser-rendered documents. A glossary can use <dl>, <dt>, and <dd> for headwords and definitions, with CSS for presentation and JavaScript for client-side search.

Unlike BGL, an HTML file can be opened without Babylon software, edited in a text editor, hosted on a web server, or archived as plain text. Browser display does not automatically provide Babylon's pronunciation, indexing, translation, or dictionary search functions; those features must be exported or rebuilt separately.

How to convert BGL to HTML

Use PyGlossary first. It is an actively maintained open-source dictionary conversion utility that supports Babylon BGL input and can write several text and web-oriented dictionary formats. Check its current format list before converting a particular glossary, because support for embedded media and proprietary markup varies by version.

1. Make a backup of the original .bgl file and install PyGlossary from its official project source. Avoid downloading unidentified conversion executables advertised as BabylonToHtml; many older utilities are unsupported and may not handle newer or protected glossaries safely.
2. Run the conversion from a terminal, allowing PyGlossary to detect the formats where supported: pyglossary glossary.bgl glossary.html. If the installed version requires explicit formats, select Babylon BGL as the input and HTML as the output in its command-line options or graphical interface.
3. Open the resulting glossary.html in several browsers. Check accented characters, non-Latin scripts, right-to-left text, duplicate headwords, examples, links, pronunciation symbols, and any images or audio.
4. Set the document encoding to UTF-8 and add the correct language metadata if the converter did not do so. For a dictionary page, use semantic elements such as <dl> rather than placing every entry in an unstructured block of text.

If PyGlossary cannot read the file, use a BGL-compatible Babylon reader or an extraction utility to export plain text, tab-delimited text, or CSV. Choose File → Export or the equivalent command, preserve Unicode, and select UTF-8 when available. Identify the headword and definition columns before generating HTML.

For a two-column UTF-8 TSV export named terms.tsv, this minimal Python script creates a valid static glossary:

import csv
import html

entries = []
with open("terms.tsv", encoding="utf-8", newline="") as source:
    for row in csv.reader(source, delimiter="\t"):
        if len(row) >= 2 and row[0].strip():
            word = html.escape(row[0].strip())
            definition = html.escape(row[1].strip()).replace("\n", "<br>")
            entries.append(f"<dt>{word}</dt><dd>{definition}</dd>")

page = """<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Glossary</title>
</head>
<body><main><h1>Glossary</h1><dl>""" + "".join(entries) + """</dl></main></body>
</html>"""

with open("glossary.html", "w", encoding="utf-8", newline="") as output:
    output.write(page)

Save it as tsv_to_html.py and run python tsv_to_html.py. For CSV input, replace delimiter="\t" with delimiter=","; change row[0] and row[1] if the exported columns differ.

Online conversion options

Reputable general services such as Zamzar and CloudConvert should not be assumed to support Babylon BGL input; verify that BGL is listed as an accepted source format before uploading. An online CSV-to-HTML service can process an already exported table, but it will not decode BGL data or preserve Babylon-specific features.

Do not upload licensed, private, or copyrighted glossaries to an online service without permission. Local extraction with PyGlossary or a trusted BGL reader avoids that disclosure and gives more control over encoding and field mapping.

Quality and compatibility limitations

Plain headwords and definitions usually survive extraction, but formatting, pronunciation symbols, right-to-left layout, embedded images, audio, hyperlinks, examples, duplicate entries, and internal references may be lost or converted incorrectly. Review the output against the original dictionary, especially for Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, transliterated text, and entries containing HTML-like markup.

Escape exported text before inserting it into HTML. Otherwise a definition containing <, >, or quotes can corrupt the page, while untrusted definitions containing markup can create a cross-site scripting risk when the file is hosted. A generated HTML file is a static representation; add CSS, a search index, or JavaScript separately if the published glossary needs filtering or full-text search.