The master copy of EDICT is in the pub/nihongo directory of ftp.cc.monash.edu.au. There are other copies around, but they may not be as up-to-date. The easy way to check if the version you have is the latest is from the size/date.
KANJI [KANA] /english_1/english_2/.../
or
KANA /english_1/.../
(NB: Only the KANJI and KANA are in EUC; all the other characters, including spaces, must be ASCII.)
The English translations are deliberately brief, as the application of the dictionary is expected to be primarily on-line look-ups, etc.
The EDICT file is not intended to have its entries in any particular order In fact it almost always is in order as a bye-product of the update method I use, however there is no guarantee of this. (The order is almost always JIS + alphabetical, starting with the headword.)
(a) the basic EDICT distributed with MOKE 2.0. This was compiled by MOKE's author, Mark Edwards, with assistance from Spencer Green. Mark has very kindly released this material to the EDICT project. A number of corrections were made to the MOKE original, e.g. spelling mistakes, minor mistranslations, etc. It also had a lot of duplications, which have been removed. It contained about 1900 unique entries. Mark Edwards has also kindly given permission for the vocabulary files developed for KG (Kanji Guess) to be added to EDICT.
(b) additions by Jim Breen. I laboriously keyed in a ~2000 entry dictionary used in my first year nihongo course at Swinburne Institute of Technology years ago (I was given permission by the authors to do this). I then worked through other vocabulary lists trying to make sure major entries were not omitted. The English-to-kana entries in the SKK files were added also. This task is continuing, although it has slowed down, and I suspect I will run out of energy eventually. Apart from that, I have made a large number of additions during normal reading of Japanese text and fj.* news using JREADER and XJDIC.
(c) additions by others. Many people have contributed entries and corrections to EDICT. I am forever on the lookout for sources of material, provided it is genuinely available for use in the Project. I am grateful to Theresa Martin who an early supplier a lot of useful material, plus very perceptive corrections. Hidekazu Tozaki has also been a great help with tidying up a lot of awry entries, and helping me identify obscure kanji compounds. Kurt Stueber has been an assiduous keyer of many useful entries.A large group of contributions came from Sony, where Rik Smoody had put together a large online dictionary. Another batch came from the Japanese-German JDDICT file in similar format that Helmut Goldenstein keyed (with permission) from the Langenscheidt edited by Hadamitzky. Harold Rowe was great help with much of the translation. During 1994, Dr Yo Tomita, then at the University of Leeds, conducted a massive proof-reading of the entire file, for which I am most grateful. Jeffrey Friedl at Omron in Kyoto has also been a most helpful contributor and error-detector. During 1995, I have been keeping an eye on the "honyaku" mailing list, wherein Japanese-English translators discuss thorny issues. From this I have derived many new entries, and many updates to existing entries. To the many honyakujin, my thanks.
At this stage EDICT is of a comparable size to a good commercial dictionary, which typically has 20,000+ non-name entries with examples, etc. It is certainly bigger than some of the smaller printed dictionaries, and when used in conjunction with a search-and-display program like JDIC or XJDIC it provides a highly effective on-line dictionary service.