Biblesoft Authoring System™ (Release 2.1)

for use with PC Study Bible™ 3.1 (or higher)

and Microsoft® Word 97 or Word 2000

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Overview

Install

Determining the Reference Work “Type”

Naming Your Reference Work

Adding Content

Working with Images

Creating “Links”

Formatting

Compiling

Editing and Maintaining Your Reference Work(s)

Distributing Your Reference Work

Uninstall

Final Thoughts

Appendix 1: Summary of Release 2 Changes

Appendix 2: Tips & Tricks

Introduction

The Biblesoft Authoring System™ is a set of Word macros—preresented as a collection of buttons on several toolbars—that enable you to easily create and maintain your own reference works that will participate fully as part of your PC Study Bible reference library.

This document contains instructions for using the Biblesoft Authoring System™. It also contains the macros, buttons, and toolbars that constitute the authoring system. These macros, buttons, and toolbars become part of your Word setup when you double-click on the Install button (located in the Install section, below).

Throughout this document you will see section names formatted as blue, underlined text. These are “hypertext” links within this document. Single-clicking on any one of these links will instantly take you to that point in the document. For your convenience, a Table of Contents, listing all of the sections of this document (in order), appears at the very beginning of the document. In addition, a link to the Table of Contents appears at the end of every section. [Note: Once you have clicked on a link, its color will change to purple—indicating that the link has been used at least once. Don’t worry though: the link is still “hot” and clicking on it subsequent times will still take you to the same location in the document.]

The following symbols are used throughout this document as visual aids:

indicates a single left-click on the mouse

indicates a double left-click on the mouse

indicates a single right-click on the mouse

indicates a helpful tip or shortcut

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Overview

The following diagram illustrates the process of creating a reference work using the Biblesoft Authoring System™:

Diagram 1. The Authoring “Cycle”

Tag

For each reference work that you wish to create (or maintain) you will have a separate Word document. This is called your source document. You will use the various buttons on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbars to “tag” your reference work. These “tags” will capture and store information about how you want your reference materials to appear when viewed in PC Study Bible™—formatting, organization, linking opportunities, and so forth.

As you tag your source document, the Biblesoft Authoring System™ will cause it to appear much as it will appear when viewed in PC Study Bible™. (This if often called a “WYSIWYG” effect.—an acronym for What You See Is What You Get.)

The following sections contain detailed instructions for tagging your reference works: Determining the Reference Work “Type”, Adding Content, Creating “Links”, and Formatting.

Compile

Your source document must be converted into a form that can be seamlessly integrated into your PC Study Bible™ reference library. The Biblesoft Authoring System™ compiler—which is installed along with PC Study Bible™—performs this task. The compiler reads your source document, along with the various tags that indicate how you want your reference work to appear, and produces a PC Study Bible™ reference work. It even moves that reference work into your PC Study Bible™ reference works subdirectory!

A Compile button, located on the second Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbar, is used to start the compile process.

It is important to note that your source document is left intact throughout, and following, the compile process. The compiler creates a reference work from your source document—but it does not alter or remove your source document. This will enable you to continually make changes to your source document in order to update your reference work, as described below.

The Compiling section contains additional, detailed information about the compile process.

View

Once your reference work has been compiled you will want to view it in PC Study Bible™. The most obvious reason for viewing your reference work is because that’s why you created it: to be part of your PC Study Bible™ reference library. The second reason is to review the results of your tagging, and to note any desired changes.

One of the most exciting aspects of the technology behind the Biblesoft Authoring System™ and PC Study Bible™ version 3 is that newly available reference works automatically participate in your reference library the next time you start PC Study Bible™. No install process. No configuration steps. No hassles! PC Study Bible™ “recognizes” the new reference work, adds it onto the appropriate menus, supports it via the search function, and incorporates it fully into the cross-reference and SmartReference™ functions!

You probably noticed the arrow in Diagram 1 that goes from the View box back up to the Tag box. This represents the potential to “iterate” through, or “repeat”, the authoring process. Any time that you want to add, remove, or change content in your reference work you will return to your Word source document—which contains all of the content and all of the “tagging” information that you have previously entered—make any desired changes, re-compile, and then re-view.

There is no limit to the number of times that you can repeat this cycle. If the reference work that you are creating is taken from a public domain source (e.g., the writings of Josephus) then you will stop the authoring cycle as soon as all of the content has been entered and you are satisfied with how it appears in PC Study Bible™. On the other hand, if you are creating a reference work that is original to you (e.g., a personal commentary, a collection of Bible-related anecdotes or sermon illustrations, a collection of topical articles, or whatever) it could be a lifelong project!

Be sure to see the Editing and Maintaining Your Reference Work(s) section for information that is especially helpful when you are making changes to an existing source document!

Distribute (?)

If your reference work is original to you, or if you have taken the time to “recapture” a classic reference work that is in the public domain (i.e., it is no longer protected by copyright), then you have the opportunity to distribute your reference work to others.

Any other user of PC Study Bible™ (version 3 or higher) can place a copy of your reference work in their refworks subdirectory and have it become part of their reference library!

Biblesoft has announced a web site—tentatively called BASE: The Biblesoft Authoring System™ Exchange—for the purpose of exchanging public domain reference works for use in the PC Study Bible™ reference library. Keep an eye on the Biblesoft web site (www.biblesoft.com) for updated information on this exciting opportunity for authors and Bible students alike!

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Install

NOTE: If you opened this document in Word 2000 with the Macro Security setting at High, the Install macro (which is attached to the Install button below) will not work properly. For the Install macro to work properly, set the Macro Security setting to Medium, close this document, reopen this document, then select “Enable” from the macro prompt dialog box that will appear. Thank you.

Double-click ( ) on the following button to install the complete set of Biblesoft Authoring System™ tools for Microsoft Word 97 or 2000:

The install process copies the macros, buttons, and toolbar definitions contained in this template document to your Word Normal template.

Note to users of the Biblesoft Authoring System™, release 1: The release 2 installation process will detect and remove old Biblesoft Authoring System™ components. There is no need to manually delete the old toolbars, macros, buttons, and so forth. However, the BAS styles that were used in release 1 are attached at the document level (rather than the Normal template) and will not be removed during the release 2 install. These styles are no longer used by the Biblesoft Authoring System™ and can be deleted (on a document-by-document basis) in one of two ways: either delete each of the styles that begin with “BAS” via the Tools | Macro | Macros | Organizer | Styles tab or block the entire contents of your existing document, copy and paste them into a new document (the styles will not be carried forward), then Save As the original document name. (Be sure to close the original document before you attempt the Save As action.)

You can uninstall the Biblesoft Authoring System™ at any time by selecting the Uninstall option on the Biblesoft menu that is added to the main menu in Word during the install process. Refer to the Uninstall section for complete details.

Two toolbars (named Biblesoft Authoring System 1 and Biblesoft Authoring System 2) will be added to your Word configuration. You can hide these toolbars (when not using them) by clicking on the Biblesoft menu item (located on the main tool bar in Word), then selecting the Hide/Display BAS Toolbars option. Repeat the same steps when you want to display the toolbars again.

The Biblesoft Authoring System™ buttons are broken up into two separate toolbars simply because a single toolbar would exceed the width of a 640x480 display. If your display is set to 800x600 or higher you may find it useful to place the toolbars side-by-side on a single line. To do this, simply click on the far-left portion of the second toolbar, drag it until its “outline” appears to the immediate right of the first toolbar, then release.

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Determining the Reference Work “Type”

The Biblesoft Authoring System™ currently supports three different types of reference works that you can author: D/E, Com, and GB. (Note: The “type” of reference work you are creating will determine whether you add content using the D/E, Com, or GB button on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbar.)

Each of these types is described below, followed by a “decision tree” to assist you in choosing the right type for your reference work.

D/E

“D/E” stands for Dictionary/Encyclopedia. These are reference works that are organized alphabetically by topic. Some examples you are probably already familiar with include Nelson’s Bible Dictionary, Fausset’s Bible Dictionary, and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

One of the direct benefits of a D/E type reference work is that PC Study Bible™ provides instant access to all other articles for the same topic (via the Next Reference/Previous Reference functions). For example, your article on the subject of Healing would provide instant access to similar articles in Nelson’s Bible Dictionary, the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, and the New Unger’s Bible Dictionary–provided that those reference works were part of your PC Study Bible™ library).

A D/E type reference work would be appropriate if you were collecting sermon illustrations or if you wanted to maintain your own topical studies.

Com

“Com” stands for Commentary. These are reference works that are organized in book-chapter-verse order (corresponding to the order and organization of the Bible). Examples of commentary-type reference works include Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament, and Seiss’ Apocalypse.

Note that a commentary does not necessarily cover the entire scope of the Bible. Keil and Delitzsch is confined to the Old Testament, while Seiss is specific to the book of Revelation.

Furthermore, a commentary reference work can contain information at three different “levels”: commentary specific to an entire book, to an entire chapter, and to a single verse (or a range of consecutive verses). Book commentary might address the author, audience, historic time period, major themes, and overall organization of the book. Chapter commentary might summarize the major theme(s) within that chapter, as well as its context. Verse commentary—the most familiar form of commentary—focuses on the possible interpretations of a specific verse or range of verses.

As with a D/E type, PC Study Bible™ makes all of the commentary for a specific portion of scripture available through the Next Reference/Previous Reference functions. So, Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke are just a click or two away from your commentary on Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)!

A Com type of reference work is ideal whenever you are recording scripture-based studies: whether they cover a range of books (e.g., the five books of the Law), books by a single author (e.g., the books attributed to Paul), a single book, or even an in-depth study of a single chapter (e.g., 1 Corinthians 13).

GB

“GB” stands for General Book. These are reference works that are organized by chapter and/or section. The Fundamentals of Christianity is an excellent example of a GB type.

Probably the most important thing to understand about a GB type is that the order of your source document and the order of your resulting reference work will be identical. When viewed in PC Study Bible™, a D/E type reference work will always appear in alphabetical order—whether or not it is kept in that order in your source document. Likewise, a Com type reference work will always appear in book-chapter-verse order, regardless of its order in your source document. But the order that you create within your GB source document will be exactly the order of that reference work when viewed in PC Study Bible™.

(It is important to note that any reference work could be implemented as a GB type. For example, Nelson’s Bible Dictionary could be authored as a GB type. However, it would not provide the Next Reference/Previous Reference access to other articles for the same topic, nor would its alphabetical order be automatically preserved.)

This means that the GB type of reference work will be the ideal choice whenever you need to preserve a specific order (other than alphabetical by topic or book-chapter-verse), or when neither of the other two types is appropriate.

How to Decide?

The following “decision tree” is designed to help you determine which reference work type is the right type for your reference work. Since you will probably create multiple reference works, it may be helpful to return to this decision tree at the start of each one!

Will this reference work address a portion of scripture—in the same order (book-chapter-verse) as the Bible?

Yes (

You will be creating a Com type.

No

(

Will this reference work contain a collection of articles where it would be OK (or even preferable) if they were ordered alphabetically?

Yes (

You will be creating a D/E type.

No

(

You will be creating a GB type.

Diagram 2. Reference Work “Type” Decision Tree

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Naming Your Reference Work

Every reference work must be named. You specify the name of your reference work (as well as the author’s name and copyright notice, if appropriate) using the Header button on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbars.

If you attempt to Compile a reference work that has not yet been named, the compile process will “catch” this error and give you an opportunity to specify the Header information before continuing. Remember, your reference work cannot be successfully compiled until it has been named!

If you are beginning a new reference work, your first step will be to open a new document in Word. If you are making changes to an existing source document you will begin by opening that document in Word.

Click on the Header button (located on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbars) to name, or rename, your reference work. The Header dialog will appear, as shown in Diagram 2, below.

Diagram 3. Header Dialog Box

Notice the asterisk (*) in front of the Full Name and Short Name fields. This is to call your attention to the fact that both of these pieces of information must be specified. In fact, the OK button will not be enabled until you have specified a value for each of them. Use the Cancel button if you need to exit the Header dialog without specifying either of these values, or if you want to exit without making any changes.

The Author Name and Copyright are not required.

The values that you enter for the Full Name and Short Name are used in various menus and window titles when your reference work is viewed in PC Study Bible™. The value that you enter in the Copyright field will appear at the end of any content that is copied from your reference work. In other words, if you were to distribute your reference work to others and they were to copy a portion of your reference work, PC Study Bible™ would automatically append your copyright notice to that copied content!

The Header dialog will automatically create a copyright notice for you. Simply enter the Author Name, then press the Tab key (to move to the Copyright field). A standard copyright notice, incorporating the author name that you just entered, will appear. Feel free to edit this notice as necessary.

If you ever need to “recreate” the standard copyright notice, simply Tab to the Copyright field, delete the current contents, Shift+Tab back to the Author Name field, then press the Tab key.

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Adding Content

Every reference work contains “content”. Most of the content that you will be creating and maintaining will be in the form of text. In addition, with this release of the Biblesoft Authoring System™ you can now “spice up” your text content with images. See Working with Images for a complete discussion on this exciting addition to the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolkit!

Every reference work organizes its content by sections, and each of these sections is named. For example, content in a D/E type is organized by articles. Each article has an article name, followed by the article itself. Likewise, a GB type is organized by sections—each of which has a section name and the text and/or images for that section.

The steps to follow when adding content to your reference work are essentially the same for all three reference work types:

Click the button that corresponds to your reference work type—D/E, GB, or Com

Fill in the dialog box that appears in order to “name” the section that will follow.

Enter the content for that section.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you add content to your reference work(s):

Every section name is followed by the content that will appear when you view that section in PC Study Bible, and every portion of content must be preceded by a section name (i.e., an article name in a D/E, the book-chapter-verse in a Com, or the section title in a GB). If you were to “diagram” a reference work, it would look like this—
{section name}
{content}
{section name}
{content}
.
.
.

The section name in a D/E or Com type will provide cross-reference capabilities to other reference works that contain content under the same section name.

Bible references, topic references, and Strong’s number references within your content will provide SmartReference™ capabilities to other reference works that contain content under a section name matching the reference. (See Creating “Links” for more information.)

The “section name” is sometimes referred to as a “key”.

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Working with Images

One of the newest features of the Biblesoft Authoring System™ is the ability to place bitmap images in your reference work. This is accomplished using the Image button (located on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbar).

Note: Due to formatting issues within Word, the actual image will not appear in your source document. However, a “placeholder” will appear, indicating both the name and the placement of the selected image.

To place an image in your reference work, begin by moving to the place in the source document where you want the image to appear.

As a rule, it is better to place an image on a line by itself, rather than intermixed with text. This prevents the image from “disrupting” the flow of the text. For example, the inclusion of the following bitmap image in this paragraph of text ( ) causes the line that it is on to appear “taller” than the lines before and after it—“disrupting” the flow of the text. The exception to this rule is the first line of any paragraph, since text is aligned with the bottom of an image.

Once you have moved to the place where you want the image to appear, click on the Image button. The Image Dialog box will appear, as shown below.

Diagram 4. Image Dialog Box

Notice that there are two ways to select the desired image. First, you can use the drop down list to select any image that has already been used elsewhere in your source document. Second, you can use the Browse button to locate any bitmap image anywhere on your computer system.

Naturally, the drop down image list will be empty and disabled until one or more images have been placed in your source document using the Browse function.

After you have made your selection a “textual placeholder” will be inserted at the location where the selected image will appear (after you have compiled your reference work). If you had selected the image named ‘Carved Stone’, as seen in Diagram 4 above, the textual placeholder would look like this:

<REM:Carved Stone will appear here.>

The name of the image appears in the placeholder to remind you which image was selected.

Note: As with all of the Biblesoft Authoring System™ “tags”, you must use the Untag function to properly remove an Image tag. In the case of an Image tag, information is stored immediately prior to the placeholder (formatted as hidden), as well as in the Header of your source document (which is also formatted as hidden).

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Creating “Links”

PC Study Bible supports both cross-reference and SmartReference™ access to and from your reference work(s). These “links” will make your reference work(s) an integral part of your PC Study Bible library! Before we explore how to create and maintain those “links”, let’s spend just a moment discussing what they actually are.

A cross-reference is a link that goes from any reference or embedded reference to any reference work with a matching reference. A SmartReference™, on the other hand, goes the “opposite direction”—from a reference in a reference work to embedded references for the same reference. It is important to note that both cross-reference and SmartReference™ links always match two references of the same type. In other words: topic-type references (e.g., “Jerusalem”, “sacrifice”) connect to other topic-type references; Bible-type references (e.g., “John 10:10”) connect to other Bible-type references; Strong’s-type references (e.g., “OT:7225”, “NT:746”) connect to other Strong’s-type references.

This means that you create “links” in two ways as you are authoring. First, the section title in D/E- and Com-type reference works doubles as a “from” and “to” link for cross-references (i.e., cross-reference from this information to like information, and cross-reference from like information to this information). Second, embedded references provide points that you can cross-reference from and SmartReference™ to.

Note: The section headings in a GB-type reference work do not support cross-reference capabilities. For example, a section titled “Jerusalem” in a GB-type reference work would not have cross-reference access to D/E articles, maps, or photos. You can, however, create cross-reference and SmartReference™ opportunities within a GB-type reference work by placing embedded references within it.

The Biblesoft Authoring System™ supports three types of embedded references: Bible reference, topic reference, and Strong’s number reference. You can tag an existing portion of text in your source document as any one of these three embedded reference types. Simply click-and-drag to highlight the desired link text, then click Bible (for an embedded Bible reference), Topic (for an embedded topic reference, or Strongs (for an embedded Strongs reference).

Caution: Deleting embedded references could leave hidden, partial tagging information that will place your source document in an uncompilable state. To remove an embedded reference, single-click anywhere in the embedded reference, the click the Untag button (located on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbar). To remove a portion of text containing multiple embedded references, repeat this process for each embedded reference, then delete that portion of text.

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Formatting

Formatting is the ability to control the appearance of your reference work. Release 2 of the Biblesoft Authoring System™ adds several new capabilities which are important to note.

First, the Biblesoft Authoring System™ now uses Word’s built-in formatting capabilities to support bold, italic, and underline. In other words, you will use Word to apply those formats to any desired text. The Compile macro will automatically replace the Word formatting for bold, italic, and underline with the corresponding Biblesoft Authoring System™ tags in the version of your source document that is being compiled. (Note: Your source document will remain in Word format.)

Second, the Paragraph format capability has been successfully implemented. (It was originally scheduled for release 1 of the Biblesoft Authoring System™, but wasn’t yet “ready for prime time.”)

Caution: Any formatting that you apply in Word—other than bold, italic, underline, and the Biblesoft Authoring System™ paragraph and text styles—will be “lost” whenever you do an Autotag, and will not be carried over to PC Study Bible when you compile the source document.

Applying a text or paragraph style is a three step process: 1) select the desired style; 2) select the text to which the style will be applied; and 3) apply the style.

The active style is indicated following the Paragraph: and Text: buttons (located on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbar). To select a different style, click on the button (to the immediate right of the active style). This will display a dropdown list of all available styles of that type (paragraph or text). Single-click on any item in the list to make that the active style.

Click-and-drag the portion of text to be formatted. Note that the paragraph tag is inclusive and forgiving: it will format every paragraph from the beginning of your selection to the end of your selection, even if your selection doesn’t begin or end precisely on the paragraph “boundary.”

To apply the style (and here’s where there was a lot of confusion in release 1 of the Biblesoft Authoring System™) click on the Paragraph: button to apply the active paragraph style, or click on the Text: button to apply the active text style.

Note that you can apply the same style multiple times. So long as the active style is the desired style, all you have to do is click-and-drag the portion of text to be formatted, then click on the Paragraph: or Text: button to apply the active style.

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Compiling

Your source document provides a way for you to gather reference material (either by typing, cut-and-paste, or a combination of both) and indicate how you want it to appear and behave when viewed in PC Study Bible (tagging). However, that source document is not viewable in PC Study Bible.

The Compile button is used to make a duplicate of your source document—leaving your source document intact for future updates and modifications—and to create a copy of your reference work that is viewable in PC Study Bible.

Your source document is “ready” to be compiled once it has the Header information and at least one section. There is no harm in compiling and viewing your reference work periodically prior to its “completion.” In fact, there are several compelling reasons to do so. First, early review of your reference work will enable you to make corrections in your tagging process (perhaps you are applying too much formatting, or not enough, or too many embedded references, or not enough). Going back and applying these corrections could be far more time-consuming than recognizing the problem early on and “doing it right” the first time through. Second, your reference work may well be a “living document”—in other words, a reference work that will continue to grow and change throughout your entire life! Hence, it will never be “done.”

The Compile process will automatically place the resulting reference work in your PC Study Bible REFWORKS subdirectory—so that the next time you start PC Study Bible your reference work will be part of your library. (Remember, your reference work will be listed under its respective category type—D/E, Com, or GB.)

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Editing and Maintaining Your Reference Work(s)

There are two important things to remember with regard to editing and maintaining your reference work(s).

First, your source document is left intact after each Compile process, so that you can return to it again and again to add content, remove content, make changes, adjust the formatting, and so forth. Authoring with the Biblesoft Authoring System™ is intended to be an iterative process—for as long as you want to improve and change your reference work.

Second, never delete a portion of content that has been tagged (i.e., that is visually distinguished as having been tagged). Deleting tagged content could leave hidden, partial tagging information that will place your source document in an uncompilable state. To remove an existing tag, single-click anywhere in the tagged content, the click the Untag button (located on the Biblesoft Authoring System™ toolbar). Repeat this process for each portion of tagged item in the undesired portion of content, then delete that portion of text.

Since bold, italic, and underline formatting are now being handled through Word (and therefore do not have Biblesoft Authoring System™ tags associated with them in your source document) you can change and delete those portions of text without using Untag.

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Distributing Your Reference Work

If your reference work is entirely your creation (in other words, it does not contain copyrighted material from other sources), then it is yours to distribute as you wish. You could give it away, or even sell it if you so desired.

Your reference work consists of two files. Each of these files will be found in the PC Study Bible REFWORKS subdirectory following the Compile process. The first name of these files will be identical to the name of your source document. One of these files will have a .JSR extension, while the other will have a .JIX extension. For example, if your source document was named Study of Romans.DOC, then your reference work would be made up of Study of Romans.JSR and Study of Romans.JIX.

One of the marvelous things about PC Study Bible version 3 and the Biblesoft Authoring System™ is that new reference works can be added to (or removed from) your library just by adding their respective files into your PC Study Bible REFWORKS subdirectory (or removing them from there). So, to give somebody a copy of your reference work, simply give them both the .JSR and .JIX files, and have them place those in their PC Study Bible REFWORKS subdirectory. The next time they start PC Study Bible , your reference work will be part of their study library!

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Uninstall

A new feature—uninstall—has been added with release 2 of the Biblesoft Authoring System™, enabling you to quickly and completely remove all of the components of the Biblesoft Authoring System™ (toolbars, buttons, and macros) from your Word configuration.

To uninstall the Biblesoft Authoring System™, select the Biblesoft menu (located on the main menu in Word), then select the Uninstall BAS option. You will be prompted to confirm (or cancel) this action. Select Yes to uninstall, or No to cancel.

You can always reinstall the Biblesoft Authoring System™ by opening this document and following the instructions in the Install section.

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Final Thoughts

Even though this is release 2, the Biblesoft Authoring System™ is still a relatively new concept. We welcome your thoughts, questions, and suggestions as to how we can improve it. In fact, many of the improvements found in release 2 were suggested or requested by people like you who are using the Biblesoft Authoring System™! We also welcome your stories about what you have done with (or plan to do with) this awesome tool.

Please visit our web site (www.biblesoft.com) regularly for hints and tips on authoring using the Biblesoft Authoring System™—and be sure to share with us the ideas, hints, and tips that you come up with!

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Appendix 1: Summary of Release 2 Changes

For those of you who are familiar with release 1 of the Biblesoft Authoring System, the following summary of new features, corrections, and enhancements may be helpful.

Summary of Changes

New Features:

Autotag. This utility will attempt to identify and tag all Bible references in your source document. The Autotag utility will only recognize and tag explicit Bible references; in other words, Bible references in the form of book chapter:verse. You will still need to manually tag references in the form of chapter:verse and verse.

Biblesoft sub-menu. A Biblesoft sub-menu has been added to the main menu bar in Word. It provides access to two new functions—toggle toolbars and uninstall, as documented below. [Note: Interactive training tutorials are currently being developed for the Biblesoft Authoring System, release 2. As soon as they are available a new menu option will be added to provide direct access to those tutorials.]

Image. This tag enables you to select and place an image in your reference work. Please note that the actual image will not be displayed in your source document. However, a textual placeholder will appear and will indicate the name of the selected image. The placeholder is replaced by the actual image during the compile process.

Paragraph. This button enables you to apply a paragraph style to the currently selected paragraph(s). There has been much confusion about the use of both the paragraph and text styles. Here is how they are meant to work. 1) Select the desired style (paragraph or text) by clicking on the down arrow (history list icon) to the immediate right of the current style selection. 2) Select the desired style from the dropdown list. NOTE: Selection of the desired style does NOT apply the style. 3) Select the desired range to which you want to apply the style. 4) Click on the Paragraph: or Text: button (to the immediate left of the current style selection) to apply the selected style. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as often as desired to apply the currently selected style.

Toggle toolbars. This menu item (listed under the new Biblesoft sub-menu) allows you to quickly hide or display the two toolbars that constitute the Biblesoft Authoring System.

Uninstall. This menu item (listed under the new Biblesoft sub-menu) will remove all components of the Biblesoft Authoring System from Word—toolbars, macros, and styles.

Corrections:

“Cancelling” residue. A number of macros in release 1 left “residue” in your source document if you cancelled the action part way through—partial tags, extra spaces, extra paragraph marks, and so forth. We believe that this has been fully resolved in release 2.

“Non-font” handling. The first release of the Biblesoft Authoring System would often alter the font size of a portion of text (at least as it appeared in Word) while you were performing an unrelated action (e.g., tagging an embedded reference or formatting a single word). Release 2 should no longer do this.

Space handling. The first release of the Biblesoft Authoring System would often insert an extra space or remove a need space during various tagging operations. These problems have been corrected. Furthermore, the various tagging functions should now properly “advance” the cursor—to the next space or to the next line—so that you can tag existing content or tag as you create content. (Note: Release 1 was not designed to tag as you created content, and created enormous problems when used in that manner.)

Enhancements:

Com. The Book, Chapter, and Verse tags have been incorporated into a single function that properly handles all three, and matches the PC Study Bible interface. The commentary dialog box has been “taught” to “remember” the last reference that you used during a tagging session, and to use that as the “default” setting. (Note: This feature should prove helpful whenever you are creating a commentary-type reference work in book-chapter-verse order.) In addition, extensive documentation has been built into the Com dialog box, to assist you in using it.

Compile. The compile function checks for the presence of a valid header and at least one valid key prior to attempting to compile—since both of these must be present to create a valid reference work.

D/E, GB, and Com. These buttons have been renamed (from Article, Section, and Book, Chapter, and Verse) to match the PC Study Bible interface.

Text. The Bold, Italic, and Underline text styles have been “removed.” Use the corresponding Word functions to format your document as desired. The Compile process will automatically preserve those forms of formatting (as well as blank lines and tab characters).

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Appendix 2: Tips & Tricks

The Biblesoft Authoring System™ buttons are broken up into two separate toolbars simply because a single toolbar would exceed the width of a 640x480 display. If your display is set to 800x600 or higher you may find it useful to place the toolbars side-by-side on a single line. To do this, simply click on the far-left portion of the second toolbar, drag it until its “outline” appears to the immediate right of the first toolbar, then release.

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Rev. 09/21/00	Biblesoft Authoring System™ Toolkit	Page 1 of 14

Biblesoft Authoring System

David A. Tarbell

2000-09-06

Biblesoft