Cross references and Extra Material

Question

I am trying to figure out the best way to hande a particular issue regarding cross references.
We have a translation which has cross references with the format:
\x - \xo 2:6 \xt Read Micah 5:2.\x*
The addition of the word “Read” was helpful to the target audience.

The problem: This format works fine in Paratext, by using the ‘extra material’ option in the scripture reference settings. But the Scripture App for mobile which is being used does not understand the extra material that is defined in the scripture reference setting, so the cross references there do not function properly (they do not link to their references).

So, we would like to know if there is a way of formatting these cross references where the extra matieral “Read” falls outside of the \xt marker. We were able to do this in other languages that used footnotes for references using the following format:
\f + \fr 2:6 \ft Read \xt Micah 5:2.\f*
However, I do not know if there is a usfm marker which we can use within cross references that allows us to have this extra material in the way that \ft does within footnotes.

If anyone can offer some suggestions here, I would appreciate it.

Answer 1

According to:
https://ubsicap.github.io/usfm/notes_basic/xrefs.html
the \xta marker is what you need for this. This is a USFM3.0 marker.

Comments

Thank you anon848905. Looks like that’s what I need. I had been looking at an older USFM document (PDF) that didn’t include this.

Currently this project is using USFM 2.0. If I want to move it to USFM 3.0, is the only important factor the one mentioned in the guide window?
“USFM 2 - if you have Paratext 8.0 (or earlier) or you intend to share this project with a team member who has Paratext 8.0 (or earlier).
USFM 3 - if you have Paratext 9.0 (or later) and you don’t intend to share this project with a team member who has Paratext 8.0 (or earlier).”

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This warning is the primary issue. You might note that USFM3 handles figures a little differently from USFM2.

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I was surprised that Scripture apps did not handle extra material the same as Paratext. Maybe this needs to be a feature request. So anon848905, I am thinking that the Scripture reference check will not check things marked wtih \xta for consistency?

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I would assume that is correct - that \xta is not checked for any kind of consistency with the cross reference.

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@anon044949 I’m curious if the issue with Scripture app builder was that the extra material was not tagged properly with \xta.

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james_post:

I’m curious if the issue with Scripture app builder was that the extra material was not tagged properly with \xta.

It does appear that the original issue with the SAB not handling the extra material found in a cross reference was that it was not properly tagged with \xta

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Yes, we were still using USFM 2, and we were told that the SAB could not properly handle the extra material in our cross references, which was directly within \xt. But we only received that information 2nd hand, without many details about exactly what SAB could handle. In the end, we moved the project to USFM 3 and began using the \xta marker for the extra material. I believe that will work without issue. I’ll have to wait until I hear back from the folks that are handling the setup of our Scripture Apps.