Editing Bible Modules for Right-to-Left Scripts

Question

The language project I’m involved with has a right-to-left script. I’m working with various church planting organizations that need discipleship material that’s based on inductive Bible study approaches. I tried editing Bible modules within Paratext, and found it to be an exercise in frustration. Entering the verse references is quite the challenge. This is what it looks like for Genesis 1:1-13.
\ref GEN 1‏:1‏-31
Keep in mind that you are typing in English, but the cursor for the verse number is jumping all over the place.
Then, I tried editing the module file in Notepad, and entered the verse references in the conventional way for a left-to-right script. Daniel 6:1-28 comes out as
\ref DAN 6:1-28
This is much easier. When I open the module file in Paratext, it pulls all the references regardless of how funky the chapter and verse numbers look in the text file. That’s good news.

One other thing to keep in mind, for Scripture verse references that span more than one chapter, the Bible module only uses the standard dash (no em-dash). So, for Joshua 5 through chapter 7:
\ref JOS 5:1-7:26
Verse numbers need to be included. Significantly, the Bible module does not follow the chapter and verse format that is specified in the Project’s Scripture Reference settings.
I trust recounting my journey in frustration lessens yours.

Answer 1

anon650332:

Significantly, the Bible module does not follow the chapter and verse format that is specified in the Project’s Scripture Reference settings.

Can you explain why this is significant? The text specified in \ref is not ever printed in the output and it’s easier to parse if it’s in a consistent format between projects (i.e. modules can be shared with other projects).

anon650332:

I wish Paratext had a better way to handle the language direction issue.

Please use Help > Report a problem to report this issue to us. There aren’t very many users that have RTL languages and fewer still that also use Bible Modules. You might be the first.

Comments

When I originally tried typing in references, I did so according to the way we set up the Scripture reference properties. As a standard procedure for both UBS and SIL, an em dash is used when the references span more than one chapter (45:1—45:28). If you type in references that way for \ref, it won’t work. You have to have standard hyphen (45:1-45:28). I wouldn’t say this is an error to report, but is part of the learning process for how to work with modules.

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I’ve also worked with Bible Modules in a RTL (Arabic-like) language.

The problem you’re showing \ref GEN 1‏:1‏-31 looks much like what I also see. I think this isn’t completely a problem with PT, but is simply an artifact of switching back and forth between RTL and LTR languages. In particular, the Unicode Bidi algorithm does things with : and - which don’t make sense to me (one of the two reverses the visual order in RTL languages, the other doesn’t), but people smarter than me maintain that it really does work–or at least fit the greatest possible number of language expectations.

One thing that I’ve eventually learned to do is simply be able to reinterpret the visual order back into what the actual order is. At times, if that doesn’t work, I delete the reference and retype it in the order I know it should be, ignoring what’s actually displaying on the screen. The Bible Module referencing system needs the underlying unicode characters in the correct order and doesn’t care about what it looks like visually.

One other thing I do is use Notepad++, which has easy key commands (Ctrl-Alt-r and Ctrl-Alt-l) to quickly switch back and forth between RTL and LTR. This allows me to work in LTR order for typing references and things like that, then switch to RTL order for typing the local language, etc.

Answer 2

Editing RTL scripts can be frustrating if you do not do it all the time. I would temporarily change the text direction to LTR when editing the Bible Module.

1. Type Ctrl-L and uncheck Right to Left Script (I think you need Administrator permission to do so.)
2. Edit your Module.
3. Once you are finished re-enable Right to Left Script.

Answer 3

Hi CrazyRocky,
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it. Problem is that your main Scripture display goes bonkers. I generally have more than one window open for the vernacular text. Quote marks, punctuation, and paragraph direction go left-to-right. It’s a mess, really. It also requires setting the direction of the language back again every time you want to see Standard Output, and then back again when you want to edit the references. It’s an open question as to whether these sets of frustrations are less than those of editing the Bible module outside of Paratext and/or the funky typing you have to do if you decide to edit in Paratext without switching language directions all the time. I wish Paratext had a better way to handle the language direction issue.
Update: I found a more suitable way to edit these Bible module text files: Toolbox (a.k.a. Shoebox). I can specify the language, and the direction for each field (standard format marker), and type in the \ref fields in left-to-right direction. I remove the Toolbox header, and it comes into Paratext just fine.