---
title: "Create & Manage Wordlists"
slug: "create-manage-wordlists"
tags: ["Create", "Create Wordlists", "Manage", "Manage Wordlists", "Wordlists"]
updated: 2025-11-11T19:19:49Z
published: 2025-11-11T19:19:49Z
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.revealdata.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Create & Manage Wordlists

## Wordlists - Highlights

![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/3e21d801-ca9f-4c51-93db-9cbd32741f3d/Images/Documentation/wordlists-in-project-admin.png)

Wordlists are lists of words or phrases in quotation marks set out separated by hard returns with highlight colors specified to readily show the presence of these terms within any document in the dataset viewed by a Team member assigned to the wordlist. The purpose of a wordlist is to draw the reviewers’ attention to the appearance of a word or phrase and allow them to quickly navigate a document in the viewer to each occurrence of the word or phrase in its original context.

1. Login to Reveal as an Administrator.
2. Click **Project Admin** in the navigation bar on the left.
3. Project Admin will open in a new window.
4. Select **Wordlists**. The screen will open to the **Highlights** tab.
5. You will see a table of all existing Wordlists; here you may --
  1. **+Add** a new wordlist.
  2. **Edit** an existing wordlist.
  3. **Delete** an existing wordlist.
  4. **Assign Teams** to an existing wordlist.
6. To add a new wordlist:
  1. Click **+Add**.
  2. Enter a name for the wordlist (required).
  3. In the *Words*box, enter the Words (or phrases in quotation marks) to be highlighted for this wordlist. Wildcards may be used with single words for highlighting, but not within phrases. **Caution Please Read:**There are two symbols that are treated as text: the period "." and underscore "_" symbols. These symbols will **NOT** be considered spaces. Instead, they will be treated as a character. Please see examples below: • Example 1: "first.last" will be tokenized as a single term "first.last" • Example 2: "first_last" will be tokenized as a single term "first_last" • Example 3: "first-last" will be tokenized as two separate terms "first" and "last" ![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/3e21d801-ca9f-4c51-93db-9cbd32741f3d/Images/Documentation/add-wordlists.png)

> [!NOTE]
> Note
> 
> Wordlist Terms are separated by being placed on a new line. Multi-word phrases must be placed in quotation marks for highlighting.
  4. Select the *Highlight color* to be used for terms in this wordlist. If using a pale color, don't forget to uncheck *Use white text*.
  5. Click **ADD**.
  6. In the Highlights table, select the new wordlist.
  7. Click **Assign Teams** to select the Team or Teams that will see the highlights for this wordlist during review. ![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/3e21d801-ca9f-4c51-93db-9cbd32741f3d/Images/Documentation/wordlists-assign-teams.png)
7. To edit a wordlist:
  1. Select a wordlist from the table.
  2. Click **Edit**.
  3. Any aspect of the wordlist may be changed or updated here. ![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/3e21d801-ca9f-4c51-93db-9cbd32741f3d/Images/Documentation/wordlists-update-save-button.png)
  4. Click **SAVE**when done.
8. Once assigned, Team members may turn off the display of available wordlist highlights in the Document Review screen where an excessive number of highlighted terms in the Viewer may distract from search terms.

![26 - 04a - Select Wordlists in Document Review](https://5796933.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/5796933/hubfs/DOCUMENTATION/ARTICLE%20SCREENSHOTS/26%20-%2004a%20-%20Select%20Wordlists%20in%20Document%20Review.png?width=1326&quality=high)
9. To give users more control over search matching behavior for highlights in documents and wordlists, a new **Whole Word** option has been added to the **Edit Search** modal.

> [!NOTE]
> Note
> 
> When the **Whole Word** option is enabled, only complete word matches are highlighted. When disabled, highlights include partial word matches (e.g., "cat" matches "catapult").
  1. Navigate to the **Edit Search** modal via the pencil icon in the document explorer.

![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/3e21d801-ca9f-4c51-93db-9cbd32741f3d/Images/Documentation/Wordlists-00(1).png)
  2. Under **Options**, find the new **Whole Word** toggle.

![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/3e21d801-ca9f-4c51-93db-9cbd32741f3d/Images/Documentation/Wordlists-01.png)
  3. By default, the option is **on**, matching whole words only. Turn it **off** to allow partial word matches.

![26 - 04a - Select Wordlists in Document Review](https://5796933.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/5796933/hubfs/DOCUMENTATION/ARTICLE%20SCREENSHOTS/26%20-%2004a%20-%20Select%20Wordlists%20in%20Document%20Review.png?width=1326&quality=high)

  

## Wordlist Highlights Do's and Don’ts

- Each term or phrase should be added to new line.
- Proximity searches are not supported (example: w/2).
- Phrases MUST be in quotes (example: "Phrase in quotes").
- Single terms do not require quotes but they are also supported.
- Ending wildcards are supported for SINGLE terms (example: Conf*); quotes are **not** supported here.
- Wildcards in the middle of terms are supported (example: T*N = Ten, Then, Thorn…).
- Leading wildcards are not supported (example: *thing).
- Wildcards are not supported for phrases (example: "Priv* Conf*").
- Double spacing is not supported (example: "Work<space><space>Product").
- Leading special characters are not supported - special characters treated as spaces (example: "@[enron.com](http://enron.com)").
- Common words are allowed if in quotes (example: "this and that").
- AND and OR operators are not supported (example: blue AND red).
- Periods and underscores are considered and not treated as empty space (example: first.last).

> [!NOTE]
> Note
> 
> While users can add as many terms to Wordlists as desired, there is a 1000 highlight limit per document. For example, a user can have 999 terms hit on a document with one of the terms hitting 3 times. This would equate to 1001 highlighted terms. The first 1000 will be highlighted and all other hits will be ignored.

## Related

- [Manage Default Project Settings](/manage-default-project-settings.md)
- [Manage Fields](/manage-fields.md)
- [Create & Manage Assignments](/create-manage-assignments.md)
- [Manage Redactions](/manage-redactions.md)
- [Create Work Folders](/create-work-folders.md)