Challenges using XXB for a hymnbook

Question

Besides the revision of the Luvale Bible, we are wanting to revise a hymnbook. I had the text of the existing hymnbook in Word, so using search & replace, put standard format markers in the text such as \c for each new hymn, \v for each number of a verse, \m for each newline, \q for the chorus, etc. This was what I gathered should be done from reading the topic ‘How to create extra “extra” books.’ I then imported all that into XXB, in order to be able to share it via Paratext with all the translators on our team, for revision, and comments. I had hoped to be able to give permission to edit by chapter.

The challenge is that all the \c markers and chapter numbers were removed by PT8. Even when you put them in manually, they disappear within seconds. The verse numbers remain, but no chapter numbers. As a result, the program does not know where to put a note, and sends it to every occurrence of \v 1, if the note I make is in verse 1 of any hymn. There is also no way to assign work to one translator. It is also difficult to find your way around in the hymnbook.

I have tried putting the hymnbook file in various books that we are not using, such as 1 Maccabeas, but it would only accept a limited number of chapters. The only way to not lose the hymn number seems to be putting it in \s, but that does not seem to satisfy the program’s need of chapters and verses.

The second problem is that editing the large hymnbook file that is now in XXB is extremely slow. PT seems to slow to a crawl, and any edits take a number of seconds to be seen.

What advice would you give for us in order to use Paratext for the revision of the hymnbook?

Thanks for your help.

anon308016, Luvale Bible Revision project, Zambia, Africa

Answer 1

Are you viewing XXB by chapter? If so that might be the problem. Got to View in the Menu and uncheck “By Chapter”. Then see if you can add in \c markers with their appropriate numbers. When viewed by chapter Paratext 8 seems to get confused and just removes the extra \c markers rather then make new chapters.

  Once you have the chapters you need you can go back to viewing by chapter and Paratext will be fine.

Comments

Thanks very much. It seems to be working great now. I wish the solution to every problem were so simple. I have all 425 chapters, and things seem to be all in order, with notes sticking to where they should be. Many thanks. anon308016