[sword-devel] Print Bible Features

[David's Mailing-list and Spam Receiver]

On Monday 19 May 2003 04:42 pm, Jimmie Houchin wrote:
> What features which are available in Print Bibles does Sword lack?
>
> If someone were wanting to take of the Bible texts in Sword and publish
> (print) a Bible what does Sword not have. (Copyright permitting.)

Well, I don't really think it would be a wise idea to print sword modules. 
Even if we could replicate every single feature that print bibles have, the 
resulting quality would not be as good as a professionally typset and printed 
bible.


> Subject Headers

These are supported. But the module must have them. Currenly the ISV is the 
only one I know that has thse.

> Read-along References

Could you explain what you mean by this?

> Center Column References

This doesn't make sense in bible software since, the software may or may not 
display the text in columns (most software doesn't). And personally, I prefer 
crossrefrences to be in the margin of the Bible rather than a center column. 
That way pages break the text, which imo is more natural. And you might also 
want to check out the Treasury of Scripture Knolwedge, it's basically a very 
thick book of cross references.

> Concordance

Well, this also doesn't make as much sense in a software environment since you 
can do searches and find all occurances of each word and generate a 
concordance if you like. Searches are also more powerful since you can search 
for more than just single words. Also, concordances in the back of printed 
bibles are usually incomplete.

> Harmonies of the Gospels

This would be a chart, which I would imagine you could do as either a list or 
table in a general book module.

> Dictionary (of some Bible terms)

Already available as lexicon modules. We have several dictionaries avaiable, 
but as with concordances, most dictionaries are incomplete due to size and 
printing cost restrictions.

> Book information (at begin of each book)

This also doesn't make sense in bible software. I would say that this is much 
more suited to the environments that it already exits in, commentaries and 
probably a few lexicons.

> Messianic Prophecies, ... fulfilled

While we don't have any modules exclusive to this, I think that such would 
probably be better suited to either a general book, or to a commentary.

> Many of the names in the text have pronunciation helps.
>     (I'm phrasing that poorly.) ie: Is'ra-el
>      (where do they get those anyway?)

This is probably supported in some form or another, but the module would have 
to contain this sort of information. I would, however, like to see some 
discussion on possibly adding a pronounciation tag or attribute to the OSIS 
standard that sword will be supporting in the upcoming release.

> anything else I'm missing... :)
> ...

> I know Sword has many modules and texts but not necessarily what people
> are used to from their print versions.

This is because doing things the way they're done in print bibles doesn't 
really make sense in electronic formats. The Sword project isn't a 
replacement for print bibles by any means. I still use many print bibles and 
refrences in addition to the sword project. (And some are even duplicated)

>  From my research the ASV has a preface which is not in the Sword module.
> It is available on the web.
> It, the ASV, also by default from the authoring committee contained much
> of the above items. Its copyright has passed.
> Are those items available electronically?
> Am I missing them in the Sword project? ie: I don't know where they are?
> If not available.
> Does anybody else in the community see value in these items?
> I know with software version of the Bible we can do much more than what
> is in the print version. But some of those items we lack completely, yes?
> I would like us to be able to reverse the process we have advantaged.
> ie: Instead of going from print to electronic, going electronic to
> print. Am I alone?

For resources already available in print, I think that this would be 
re-inventing the wheel, however if this is your itch you are more than 
welcome to scratch it. If we got a hold of some resources that were only 
available in electronic form and someone wanted to print them then I don't 
see why not, but unless you have something a bit more extensive than a home 
printer, printing a bible yourself won't give you the quality that 
professionally printed bibles have. Plus unless you've got a printer with 
lots of toner or ink and many reams of paper just lying around, you're going 
to end up spending more on ink/toner and paper than it would probably cost to 
buy a bible at the store or online.

> If I were willing/able to scan an ASV, etc. in order to harvest some of
> the above items, a few questions.
>
> Would it have to come from an out of print, out of copyright (ie: older)
> print copy in order to be legal? Or would I be able to harvest the
> identical (if it truly is) material from a more recent printing of the
> public domain material?

Well, only those items covered by the original copyright would be useable to 
us. If a publisher republishes the ASV, for instance and adds his own 
concordance then he will have the rights to that concordance if it is 
orignal.

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