August 1, 2013

Embracing technology as the pastor: Use Bibleworks to export parts of the Bible

Sometimes you want a complete electronic copy of a book of the Bible or even an entire Bible translation.  That way you can manipulate it in a particular way.

The time I notice this need most is at the beginning of the year when I'm planning my devotions for the year.  Each year I read through the Bible by reading from three different parts of the Bible - loosely following M'Cheyne's Bible reading program (I only use three columns though).  I also try a different English translation each year.  So I've found it useful to simply make a PDF for each of the three readings so that I can quickly bring up my Bible readings for the day by opening three files in my PDF reader that then remembers where I was last up to in my reading of the documents.

Also, sometimes you want to print out an entire book of the Bible so that you can highlight it and scribble over it for sermon preparation.

But to get a full copy of a Bible translation is not that easy.  Unless you have software like Bibleworks.

In Bibleworks, you can quickly export to a text document all the parts of a translation you want using their 'Export Database' tool.  Instructions are given here: http://www.bibleworks.com/bw9help/bwh28_Copying.htm

So whether you need a whole book or the whole Bible for you to use in your ministry work, Bibleworks comes in handy.

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