Interlinearizer not working in XX books

Question

tl;dr I can’t get the interlinearizer to work for beyond verse 0 of the XX books.

I’m working on translating a Bible storybook into a minority language that has a Bible translation ongoing. I am creating a Bible Module to facilitate that process. It contains a good amount of summary material an only some Scripture texts ported from the translation. (This is my first clue that maybe I’m using the wrong tool for this job.)
The publication process will not need the Bible module export features as there is already a template for laying it out nicely with InDesign. (Maybe that is the second clue that I’m using the wrong tool.)
I want to make a written back translation of this material for checking purposes and Paratext’s interlinear seems like the best way to do this (since I don’t know how to use Flex’s cooresponding tool).
To make this not-too-laggy I’ve divided my storybook text into verses. The interlinearizer won’t let me work on any verses except verse 0. (To mix metaphors, I think this is strike three and I might need to just resort to drafting this in MS Word.)
I would really like this translation to be drafted in PT so we can benefit from the spelling dictionary we are developing in the Scripture translation into the same language.
Do you have any ideas for this problem of the interlinearizer only opening to verse 0?
TIA

Answer 1

Hi
I had the same problem. I used a XX book for Bible stories and did a back translation with the interlinearizer in Paratext 8. But then in Paratext 9, I couldn’t use it any longer.
I was then told the developer assumed that no verse numbers are needed in these Bible Module books and they disable the possibility to change to another verse number in the interlinearizer.

What you could do is to create a back translation project based on your main project and with the same verse numbers. You can then type your word by word back translation to this project. This is less convenient than using the interlinearizer but would be a way to still use the spelling dictionary and other checking options Paratext is offering.

Comments

Thank you very much for your input.
I’ve already put the text into a deuterocanonical book and it looks like that will work for my purposes.

Answer 2

No, the interlinearizer does not work well with the xx books. Another option would be to place your text in a book you are not using (like one of the Deuterocanonical books) and then do the work from there. You might need to review the versification to make it work correctly.