British Pharmacopoeia

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How to get access

Access to the BP Online is available to purchasers of the British Pharmacopoeia 2008.

The purchase of one copy of British Pharmacopoeia 2008 provides licensed access to the BP 2008 CD-ROM and Online Web Portal on a named single-user basis. The licence is granted solely to the designated holder of the product within your organisation.

To order your copy of the CD-ROM, or to enable your access to the BP Online, you are required to register your proof of purchase using the link below. You will be asked to provide contact details and proof of purchase using the unique reference which can be found printed on the inside cover of Volume I of the British Pharmacopoeia 2008.

Upon authentication, the CD-ROM will be despatched to you, or your unique username and password confirmed for access to the BP Online.

If you plan to, or already access the British Pharmacopoeia on the web from more than one workstation, you are legally bound to purchase a multi-user licence. To discuss obtaining a multi-user licence, please register your interest using the same link below, or contact The Stationery Office on 0870 600 5522 or email pharmahealth@tso.co.uk .

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British Pharmacopoeia user guide

Web version

The BP 2008 Website is simply laid out and designed to be intuitive and easy to use. Features include:

Contents

Enquiries and technical support

For contact details please visit the contact us page.

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On the left hand side of all pages is an area with the two linked headings Search and Browse. Simply click on the chosen heading to go directly to the required facility.

Hyperlinks are indicated by underlined text and the cursor changes to a hand as it rolls over a link - click to follow the link to that record.

See below for more on

Viewing search results

The results of browsing or searching are displayed on the right of the page.

If your search found more than one record, a summary list will be displayed. If your search only found a single record, this record will be displayed without first showing a summary.

Summary list

The summary list allows you to browse through the records found by your search and to select a record to view.

Records are presented in batches of 100. Use the 'Next 100' and 'Previous 100' links to step through the result. Alternatively, to view all the results as a single list, use the 'Show all' link. (Note though that for large results, this may strain your browser.)

To select an individual record for viewing, click its title.

Full record display

This gives a full description of individual records. You can ask to see the record details of any of the records in the summary list.

If there is more text than will fit on a screen, use the scroll bar to view the rest. To jump immediately to the next highlighted search hit, click on the single right arrow above the record. To jump immediately to the previous highlighted search hit, click on the single left arrow above the record. The double right arrows and double left arrows take you directly to the last and first of the search hits respectively.

Click on the Hit List link to re-display the Summary list.

Use the First, Previous, Next and Last links to take you to the corresponding record in the search result.

A Printer-friendly link is also available. This opens the monograph in a new browser window, excluding website elements and thus excellently suited for printing.

Diagrams and tables shown in monographs can also be clicked to present a larger version of the image.

Monograph colour coding

The following colour coding and symbols are used:

British Pharmacopoeia Monographs
These appear in summary listings on a red background.
European Pharmacopoeia Monographs
These appear in summary listings on a blue background with the European chaplet of stars appearing in yellow on a darker blue background. The same chaplet appears when viewing a European Pharmacopoeia Monograph. This colour coding is used in volumes of the British Pharmacopoeia and in the British Pharmacopoeia (Veterinary).
British Pharmacopoeia (Veterinary) Monographs
These appear in summary listings on a pale green background. The only exception to this are the European Pharmacopoeia Monographs within the Veterinary volume, which are colour coded with a blue background and the European chaplet of stars.
Internationally Harmonised Monographs
These are denoted in all volumes by a blue background with the European chaplet of stars with a yellow triangle inside the chaplet.
British Approved Names
Sections of the British Approved Names volume are available for download from the BP 2008 website in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), and are presented in summary listings on a brown background. Please note that you will need to purchase access to these using the above contact details.

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Printing

To print a page, use your browser's Print facility. Note also that a printer-friendly version of monographs is available for printing. This allows a monograph to be printed at full page width and without the surrounding website elements (header, footer etc).

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Browsing

The hierarchical structure of BP 2008 can be browsed as though you were browsing through the book.

Click on Browse on the left. You will be presented with links to the six volumes:

Clicking on these links will either expand the table of contents to the next available level, or perform a search to present the contents of the selected section on the right of the page. Expanded sections can be collapsed by clicking on them again.

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Searching

Simple searching

A search box is always available in the page header. Type a word or term into this box and click the Search button to search the entirety of the British Pharmacopoeia 2008 and British Approved Names. The search will find articles and monographs that match all the terms you have entered, and is not case sensitive.

Advanced searching

To search a specific volume, use the Advanced Search accessible from a link in the page header, and via the Search link on the left of the page. This presents Text and Title boxes allowing you to search either the whole of the BP 2008 text or only monograph titles.

Checkboxes on the Advanced Search form allow you to further restrict your searches to British, European, or Internationally harmonised monographs, and to specific volumes or areas of BP 2008.

For example, to search a specific volume, enter your terms in the search fields and select the checkbox for the volume you wish to search.

Selecting multiple checkboxes broadens your search to all of the selected volumes or areas. For example, selecting Volume III and Volume IV will search both volumes.

Three wildcard characters can be used to replace parts of terms.

* (asterisk)
The asterisk can be used to replace one or more characters in a search field. For example, you can enter 'beta*' in the Text field to search for all terms beginning 'beta-'.
? (question mark)
The question mark can be used to replace a single character in a search field. For example, you can enter 'nitr?te' to find 'nitrate' and 'nitrite'.
[ ] (square brackets)
Square brackets can be used to specify alternative characters in a search field. For example, 'benzoi[cn]' will find 'benzoic' and 'benzoin'.

Care should be taken when using wildcard characters. Entering 'a*' in the Text search box, for example, could take a considerable time to search.

Searching using Boolean operators

The Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT can be used to combine search terms. These operators can be used in upper case in the Text and Title search boxes.

Boolean AND
Use AND to combine two or more search terms. For example 'sodium AND potassium' will find all records which contain both these strings.
Boolean OR
Use OR to combine two or more search terms. For example, 'fruit OR oil' will find all records containing either 'fruit' or 'oil' or both.
Boolean NOT
You can use the Boolean NOT to combine different words and phrases in a way that narrows the scope of the search. It instructs the search engine to find records that contain one word but not another. You can use NOT in association with AND to form AND NOT. In this case, you can include one term and exclude another.

Searching for terms in proximity to each other

There are several ways of searching for terms that may be next to each other or within a few words:

" " (quotes)
Enclosing a term or phrase in quotes will cause a search for the term or phrase exactly as it appears in the quotes. This is useful if you are looking for a phrase that contains one of the search operators. For example, "clarity and colour" will find the phrase 'clarity and colour' wherever it appears in a particular field.
#n (hash char & integer)
The single hash character followed by an integer (n) will find words which are within n words of each other and in the order you enter them. For example 'ferric #2 solution'.
## (double hash char)
The double hash character is used to link adjacent words, but in any order, such as 'ether ## soluble'.
##n (double hash & int.)
The double hash character followed by an integer (n) will find words that are within n words of each other and in any order. For example, 'irregular ##2 cells' will find records that contain the phrase 'irregular stone cells' or the phrase 'irregular epidermal cells'.

Precedence of search operators

The system has rules for carrying out searches where more than one operator is present. Each operator has a precedence that determines the order in which it is processed. The operators with the highest precedence are processed first. The order of precedence of the operators is:

  1. The specified field
  2. Boolean NOT
  3. Proximity operators (#, ##)
  4. Boolean AND
  5. Boolean OR

You can override the precedence by using round brackets ( ). Any operators in round brackets will be processed first.

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