[sword-devel] Print Bible Features

[Chris Little]

On Mon, 19 May 2003, Jimmie Houchin wrote:

> Subject Headers
Got that.

> Read-along References
> Center Column References
These are the same items I suppose, assuming your meaning of "read-along 
references" is inline cross-refs.  This is essentially a style issue and 
I don't see a benefit to supporting both styles as options in the data.  I 
believe they should be an issue for the front-end to decide, in terms of 
whether notes are inline or margin.

> Concordance
Not possible in Bibles, but, as David stated, search makes it unnecessary.

> Harmonies of the Gospels
In what way?  You can print parallel passage information in a note 
embedded within the section heading, as with the ISV.  Other than that, 
gospel harmonies are not part of Bibles, they're exterior works (e.g the 
Fourfold Gospel, which we do have albeit in a different order from its 
most natural.

> Maps (being discussed)
Got that (meaning images).  Should work fine in Bible texts as well.

> Dictionary (of some Bible terms)
As separate modules.

> Book information (at begin of each book)
aka book introductions: Got that.  (not included in all texts because the
data was either unavailable or the module was produced before import of
introductions was possible.

> Messianic Prophecies, ... fulfilled
As a form of markup, sure, you could mark this.  When it actually becomes
and issue and someone marks a text with this data, we can add support to
the engine very quickly & easily, since it's just presentation markup
issue.

> 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?)
If it's in the text, we can "support" it.  I've only seen these in KJVs.
Where do they get those?  I don't know, but they're pretty much 
meaningless since they just give a vague indication of syllable 
breaks/stress assignment.

(BTW, in OSIS, pronunciation could be indicated with the xlit attribute on 
<w>.  You might add a namespace indicator like "x-pronun:Is'ra-el".  There 
are some more complex to set up but ultimately time-saving procedures that 
might be developed in the future, like tagging each proper noun with topic 
map PSI then cross-referencing against an index correlating PSIs with 
pronunciations.  The OSIS Linguistic Annotation Working Group will also 
probably decide something for phonetic transcription as well, which could 
be used as a way of indicating pronunciation.)

> 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?

Yes, I think you're alone. :)  Honestly, the means I would suggest for 
this process would be to export the data from Sword into OSIS format then 
create an XSLT to convert that into XSL-FO and generate a PDF from that.  
(Or... Todd Tillinghast posted an OSIS to XSL-FO XSLT at 
http://www.contentframeworks.com/Resources_XSLT.html which may be a start 
towards whatever you're aiming to do.)

> 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?

As was stated, expired copyright applies to anything that hasn't been 
changed.  More recent printings will undoubtedly include a recent 
copyright notice that applies to the work as a whole, but not to 
individual parts (e.g. text, maps, concordance, ...) unless they were 
created for that edition.  You might check for notices of copyright in 
those sections, but they may not be indicated, in which case, assume 
recent copyright.

Or just get an old edition and remove all doubt.  I highly recommend 
http://www.abebooks.com/ for finding old books, since most of their 
booksellers are knowledgable and include information about printing date 
and book condition.


--Chris