Availability for use of Paratext

[Simon Lindén]

Hi!

This may be the wrong place to ask but I'm not sure where to turn.

I've registered on paratext.org to use Paratext and Publishing Assistant as I'm doing the typesetting and layout of a Swedish Bible translation. I registered two months ago but still haven't heard anything from them. The homepage says that the Bible agency that I work for must establish a formal licensing arrangement with UBS to be able to use this software. I don't suppose our agency has done that and maybe that's the reason why I'm not getting any feedback to my registration. But what does that kind of agreement consist of and how is it established? Is there a fee involved or some other kind of commitment? If this software is as good as it seems then it will save me many hours of work so I really hope I can get our agency to do whatever is necessary to make Paratext available to us.

/Simon Lindén

[Peter von Kaehne]

Can't answer on Paratext, but have you looked at Bibledit? No licensing required, does the same job. Depending on whom you ask - better or worse than paratext, so essentially in the same league.

Peter
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 8 Feb 2013 00:25:51 -0800 (PST)
> Von: "Simon Lindén" <simon.l...@gmail.com>
> An: openscr...@googlegroups.com
> Betreff: Availability for use of Paratext

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[Simon Lindén]

Hi! I have looked at Bibleedit as well but it seemed to me that Paratext would fit me better for two reasons.

1. The Bible agancy who I'm doing this for have specifically requested an XML-version of the translation for them to distribute to other publishers. Bibleedit doesn't provide this as far as I'm able to tell. Of course I could make a script that changes the files to XML but I'd prefer a simpler solution if it's available.

2. Paratext seems to come with a InDesign plug-in which would make going from text to composition a simple job. I assume that this process will be more tedious if I use Bibleedit.

Please let me know if I'm wrong. Are these things more managable in Bibleedit than I have assumed? At any rate I'll take a closer look at it.

/Simon

[Peter von Kaehne]

Bibledit can export to OSIS xml which is a very good XML format specific for Bibles.

There are a number of ways of getting from a Bibletext in Bibledit to a printed book. In all situations you will need to tweak a little here or there. As you would in indesign.

Peter
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 8 Feb 2013 03:34:18 -0800 (PST)

> Von: "Simon Lindén" <simon.l...@gmail.com>
> An: openscr...@googlegroups.com

> Betreff: Re: Availability for use of Paratext

> Hi! I have looked at Bibleedit as well but it seemed to me that Paratext
> would fit me better for two reasons.
> 1. The Bible agancy who I'm doing this for have specifically requested an
> XML-version of the translation for them to distribute to other publishers.
> Bibleedit doesn't provide this as far as I'm able to tell. Of course I
> could make a script that changes the files to XML but I'd prefer a simpler
> solution if it's available.
> 2. Paratext seems to come with a InDesign plug-in which would make going
> from text to composition a simple job. I assume that this process will be
> more tedious if I use Bibleedit.
>
> Please let me know if I'm wrong. Are these things more managable in
> Bibleedit than I have assumed? At any rate I'll take a closer look at it.
>
> /Simon
>
> On Friday, February 8, 2013 12:03:59 PM UTC+1, Peter von Kaehne wrote:
> >
> > Can't answer on Paratext, but have you looked at Bibledit? No licensing
> > required, does the same job. Depending on whom you ask - better or worse
> > than paratext, so essentially in the same league.
> >
> > Peter
> > -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> > > Datum: Fri, 8 Feb 2013 00:25:51 -0800 (PST)

> > > Von: "Simon Lindén" <simon.l...@gmail.com <javascript:>>
> > > An: openscr...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>

> > > email to openscripture...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>.

> > > To post to this group, send email to

> openscr...@googlegroups.com<javascript:>.

[Teus Benschop]

We had the same problem: Wanted to typeset a Bible, asked permission to use Publishing Assistant, but since our translation was not known to the local Bible Society of that country, we did not receive permission. We ended up using Bibledit-Web to export the USFM to OpenOffice, and from there it was easy to put it into InDesign. A demo of Bibledit-Web is runs at http://bibleconsultants.dyndns.org/bibledit-web-demo/. Teus Benschop.

[Kahunapule Michael Johnson]

Hello, Simon.

Yes, these things are much more manageable in Bibledit than you have assumed. Your need for XML versions and publishing paths will not be hindered at all by working in Bibledit. They would, however, be very much hindered by the restrictive licensing of Paratext. I strongly recommend starting with Bibledit now, and if you should get permission to use Paratext in the future, it is a trivial matter to import your work into Paratext.

Bibledit can directly export a dialect of OSIS as well as quality USFM. The USFM can be imported into Haiola and exported in USFX and OSIS XML formats now, and probably USX XML format, later. The USFM can also be imported into Paratext and exported as USX, if need be, now, by sending the files to someone (like me) with Paratext.

The InDesign Controller you speak of is nice, but it is not the only publishing path. The main thing is to first get the translation into good shape in USFM format in Bibledit, then publishing should be fairly easy.

In the mean time, if you ask your Bible agency to work with UBS on getting access to Paratext, you might have it by the time you need access to it.

The beautiful thing about an open standard like USFM is that it gives you some choices when it comes to selecting tools.

You asked a question in the Open Scriptures group so it should be no big surprise that we advocate open source tools, right? :-)

[Simon Lindén]

Hi!

I've been busy with other thing so it's taken me some time to look into this. Installing Bibleedit on my Mac proved quite difficult and when I finally got it running it crashed on me and won't open. But I've looked at the BibleEdit-web demo to see what it does and I'm wondering if the gtk version is identical to the web version, and if this is the behaviour I'd see if I could get the installation to work?

I would have expected more of a GUI and the option to view the USFM content as formatted text while working with it. That would make it easier to get the translators to work with it, since they want to focus on the text. I was also expecting some means of importing formatted text and converting it to USFM but I can find no such functions either. Any suggestions on how to transform text to USFM? It is formatted with paragraph- and character-styles whose names roughly correspond to the USFM markup. The long route I'm looking at now is to export the text as XML and use XSLT and scripts to transform that XML to flawless USFX and from there to USFM via Haiola - but maybe there are easier ways?

/Simon

[Teus Benschop]

Hi,

The -Web version is completely different from the -Gtk version.

The -Gtk version has an option to import raw text. See https://sites.google.com/site/bibledit/gtk/reference/menu/file/import-assistant. It would steamroll your text into a basic format of USFM. It would do the bulk of the work for you.

But if the -Gtk version does not run on the Mac, then would a virtual machine running Linux help you?

Teus.

[Kahunapule Michael Johnson]

Hello, Simon.

Bibledit has not been tested and used directly on Mac OSX, much. The way I use it on my MacBook is to run an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine. (VMWare and Parallels both work well for that. Choose one.)

Importing to USFM from other formats is more of an art than a science, since there are almost as many other formats in use as there are translations to import.

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[Simon Lindén]

Thanks. I haven't tried Ubuntu on mac but I do have Windows on bootcamp - so if the windows version of bibleedit gtk is good then maybe it's easier for me to use that one instead? Otherwise I'll look into installing a virtual machine with Linux.

/Simon

[Teus Benschop]

The Windows version is good. It's used by Bibles International for their translators. Their volunteers ported it to Windows.

[morten...@gmail.com]

Hi! Is it possible to open paratext-files in bibleedit?

Morten

[Kahunapule Michael Johnson]

Yes, the USFM files from Paratext can be imported to Bibledit and vice versa. Pick whichever program works best for you at the moment. If you can get a license to Paratext, great! If not, Bibledit is a good choice, too.
Paratext can export Bible translation projects into an XML format called USX. Bibledit can export USFM, which Haiola can convert to XML formats USFX and OSIS.

Michael

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[morten...@gmail.com]

Great! I'm new to this, and I'm not sure if got the USFM-files. It says "PTX" at the end of the file. I assume this is a standard for paratext. Is this the same as USFM in some way?

What I want to do is to look through different drafts for a translation. I do not have access to paratext, but I have the files which are created in paratext.

[Kahunapule Michael Johnson]

Yes, the .PTX files are most likely USFM files. USFM files are a simple text format that uses \ as an escape to mark tags, like \c for chapter, \v for verse, etc. See http://ubs-icap.org/chm/usfm/2.4/index.html for documentation of the format.

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

Okay. How do it presume to import it into Bibeledit? I've installed Bibleedit on a windows machine.

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[Kahunapule Michael Johnson]

Documentation for Bibledit is at https://sites.google.com/site/bibledit/. Use the File/Import menu item to import USFM files into a new project.

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

Thank you. Is it possible to have more than one version of a book open at the same time in Bibleedit? I'm trying to jump between different versions of the same book, for example Proverbs. If I try to import Proverbs, though another version, Bibleedit just tells that the import-file has "book Proverbs, but this one is already in the project"

[Teus Benschop]

See https://sites.google.com/site/bibledit/gtk/tutorials/project for more information. It's possible to open several projects at the same time.

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Morten Klepp Beckmann <morten...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you. Is it possible to have more than one version of a book open at the same time in Bibleedit? 

​{...}​

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

I'm having some problems in opening the files in their original directory.Any thoughts to why this occur? The import failes and says: "unknown book in file..." I have to copy them to a new directory, and then it seems to work.This will trouble me a great deal if I'm supposed to share the files with others in a common directory. 

--

[Teus Benschop]

This may occur since Bibledit scans the import folder for all files in that folder plus the sub folders. Since Paratext has many non-USFM files, Bibledit-Gtk tries to import them also, and then sees they are not USFM files, and then skips them with the error message you describe. It is supposed however to import the real USFM files fine. Does it do that?

On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 1:52 PM, Morten Klepp Beckmann <morten...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm having some problems in opening the files in their original directory.Any thoughts to why this occur? The import failes and says: "unknown book in file..." I have to copy them to a new directory, and then it seems to work.

​ [...]​

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

No, it doesn't import the USFM files when they are located in the original directory. I have to copy them over to a new directory to be able to import them properly. Is there a way to avoid this?

Thanks for the answer.

--

[Teus Benschop]

I tried to reproduce the problem you describe by putting a lot of files in a folder, along with some USFM files, but failed to produce the error message. It just works fine this side. Therefore I cannot now answer your question as to how to avoid it. Does Paratext have some books with an \id XXX tag that Bibledit does not recognize?

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

There are no books with an \id XXX tag. The file formats are PTX and SFM. I convert them to USFM, and try to import it into Bibleedit.

[Teus Benschop]

Do you manually select the individual files to import, or do you select a folder andimport anything in that folder?

BTW, even if the files end on .PTX or .SFM, Bibledit would import them.

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

I select them manually.  I import via file-import in the menu.

When I try to import PTX- og SFM-files, Bibleedit tells me "the following files are not in the right unicode format and therefore not fit for import". Therefore, I convert the files to USFM via a program called GoBibleCreator USFM Preprocessor.

[Morten Klepp Beckmann]

Forgot to answer your first question: I select them individually

[Teus Benschop]

Perhaps Paratext does not save the files in UTF-8 Unicode format, and by converting them, the format is converted also.

If you'd like to share the file that does not import, I am willing to examine it for you.

[cma...@gmail.com]

Simon,

I know I'm late to the party, but have you evaluated SIL International's Fieldwords BTE with the Pathway Plugin? I found that SIL International's Fieldworks Translation Editor and the related publishing plugin Pathway provide a pretty good platform for editing and output into a publishing system. SIL doesn't require any registration, but is windows only 

http://fieldworks.sil.org/download/

http://pathway.sil.org

[Kari Valkama]

Hi all, 

In thinking about future use of FieldWorks BTE, you may want to take into consideration the fact that the Translation Editor part of FieldWorks is end of lifed. The resources are transferred to the development of Paratext. I understand that Paratext will get some of the features of the Translation Editor. 

Yours, 

Kari 

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[Teus Benschop]

We used to be able to freely download and use FieldWorks BT. If this software is going to be no longer available, and some of us are unable to get a license for Paratext, then it's important for them to have an alternative. Teus.

[Kari Valkama]

Hi Teus, 

It will be available as is, but future development will not happen. 

It will not be a problem for the near future, but it will be a problem for the long haul. 

It is open source, so the source code can be changed by other people or organizations. 

Yours,

Kari