Can non-Arabic numbers be used for verse numbers?

Question

When a new PT project or book is created, verse numbers are automatically provided as arabic numerals (1,2,3,4,5…) in whatever versification the user chooses. I’ve had a request to be able to use numerals in another writing system for verse numbers. Is this possible? Thanks. Dennis

Answer 1

They will work in the sense that you’ll be able to see them and publish them. They will not work in the sense that Paratext will recognize them as verse numbers in any way.

Comments

anon291708:

They will work in the sense that you’ll be able to see them and publish them.

I’m wondering what else a team would want? If the final publication looks right, that’s the main thing.

Or, @anon835853, was your main aim to have PT more contextualised, to have, for an Arabic-alphabet project say, Sanskrit numerals not only in the project text itself, but also in the chapter and verse dropdown lists? And this would be because some countries use Arabic numerals very little, so they are not very acceptable to people?

---

This was a user request, which I understood to be for publication, and not for contextualizing the PT user interface.

Thanks for answers. I have what I need now.

---

anon835853:

I understood to be for publication

So we were on a rabbit trail !

Answer 2

You can use \vp and \cp for publishing verse numbers and publishing chapter numbers if you want non arabic.

Comments

Another option is to skip the extra markup (\vp and \cp) and just convert to your favorite writing system numerals on publication. Haiola supports this conversion into numerals in several scripts, including Arabic, Ge’ez, and Roman. Other publishing paths have similar options.

---

Sure that’s an option, but, unless we determine that a decision should be made at the time of publication, I always prefer it if I can do something during translation to set things to the way we want them.

Answer 3

Paratext does not support script (non-arabic) numbers for verse or chapter numbers. Changing this would be a huge undertaking.

Comments

@anon291708 But they will work in a \vp field, presumably?