Bible View Options

The Bible View Options in theWord provide a very feature-rich way to view the text of the Bible. There are many, many options to customize the Bible View to fix your exact taste. The Bible View Options can be accessed in four ways:

Tip: There is a quick set of Bible View Options at the bottom of the View Icons. Pressing the small arrow will display a quick list to quickly toggle certain Bible View Options. Further, each option in that list can be toggled through a one-letter keyboard shortcut (when the Bible View is active). These options will make much more sense at the end of this section.

Tip: Not all Bible View Options will be available for all Bibles. The Bible will only display the options that the module supports.

Within this dialog, the user can customize many display colors and styles for various aspects of the Bible View.

Default Bible text font is the global setting for all Bible texts. The fonts for Bible texts can be changed on an individual level via the Show/Hide Bible Texts dialog.

TIP: The default Bible text font that theWord is setup with is Tahoma. This font is used because it supports many different languages and, in general, has very good support even in older versions of Windows. Yet, it may not look as beautiful as other fonts (like Trebuchet MS or Georgia), or even some modern fonts that Microsoft made for Windows Vista/7 or Microsoft Office (like Segoe UI or Calibri). You may want to experiment on a font that looks good on your PC and is comfortable for your eyes.

Reader's background image: From this button you can select an image to use as the Background of the Bible view. theWord comes with several predefined image backgrounds that can be found in the Backgrounds sub-directory of theWord installation folder. Clicking the Reader's background image button allows you to select the image and how you want it to be displayed.

TIP: theWord ships with several ready-to use Background textures. In order to use them effectively, you will need to combine them with an appropriate background color of your liking!

You may notice that all the textures appear as gray, but in reality they are semi-transparent so you can combine them with any color you want.

Show header and footer is another way to navigate the Bible. When this is selected, a set of links to navigate to next/previous chapters appears at the top and the bottom of the chapters in the Bible View. The keyboard shortcut for this option is Q.

There are a couple of keyboard shortcuts to mention. For the words of the Lord Jesus, it is J. To display Old Testament quotes, press O.

The remaining options are self-explanatory. You can customize them to your liking. Some of these options are dependent on the Bible module's support of them.

Most of the options in this section of the Bible View Options are fairly clear. The options in the top section deal primarily with the navigation of the Bible View, especially with the mouse.

Show user's formatting/highlighting on Bible text refers to the highlighting, underlining, etc. the user may perform on specific verses. This can also be toggled with the U shortcut.

The bottom section of this dialog gives options for the Bible View when the Compare mode is activated (pressing the Compare button/tab on the Bible view).

Show floating header in parallel view toggles the appearance of the Bible's abbreviation at the top of each row/column for easy reference. See Compare View.

The first section toggles whether the text is displayed one-verse-per-line (with wrapping, obviously), or in paragraph mode. This option can also be toggled with the shortcut P.

The second section deals with translator's paragraphs, which are paragraph divisions included in translations. Since all modules don't have paragraph tags included, you can use alternate paragraph divisions that are found in other installed modules, and apply them to the current module. The Alternate Paragraphs list displays all installed modules that contain within them information for paragraph divisions and can be applied to module that don't have.

TIP: if you want to read a Bible text that does not contain within itself information on paragraph divisions, you can "borrow" the divisions of other installed modules that have this information. To do so, you just need to select the If the module does not have paragraphs, then use "Alternate paragraphs" option above, and select a module from the Alternate Paragraphs list.

The third section has options for chapter headings. This, like paragraphs, are tags included in the Bible module. These headings, when displayed, give an outline or summary of sorts of the contents of that section in the Bible. Like, translators paragraphs, if the module does not contain chapter headings of its own, you can use predefined ones from the Alternate headings drop down box. The color of these chapter headings can also be customized.

TIP: theWord can use the chapter headings included in Bible modules, or separate sets of chapter headings (files ending with .hdgs.twm). By default, a set of English chapter headings is included in the program and appears on the Alternate headings list as English headings.

This feature allows you to "borrow" chapter headings and display them even for Bible modules that do not have this information within. Remember, that using this function may result in cases where the language of the chapter headings is different from the language of the Bible text!

TIP: Entries in the Alternate Paragraphs and Alternate headings lists may appear:

- within [square brackets]: in that case, they refer to a set of paragraph/headings that exist in an installed Bible module (the name there is the title of the Bible module they have been taken from).

- without square brackets: in that case, they refer to a set of paragraph/headings that exist in separate files and are independent of any installed Bible module (theWord ships with two predefined paragraph sets and one predefined chapter headings set in English - more may be downloaded and installed separately from the official site).

Strong's numbers are the coding systems for every Hebrew and Greek word in the Bible.

In the first drop-down box, the user can choose which dictionary is used to display the definition for a Strong's number link in the Bible View. Not all Hebrew/Greek dictionaries support this feature. If the feature is supported, the name of that dictionary will display in that selection box. Further, instead of showing a number, the user can make theWord display the actual Hebrew/Greek word or some text of the user's choice. The size of the Strong's number/text relative to the Bible text and the color can also be customized. Strong's numbers can be toggled easily with the S shortcut.

The Show no link, just show... option is useful if you don't want to display any extra text in the Bible text (to avoid clutter) but you just want to display the Strong's number when you hover your mouse over a word. Notice that special support on the module level is required for this option to work.

The second section is similar to the options of the Strong's numbers. The options are nearly the same, except when a Greek morphology code is hovered over, the chosen morphological dictionary will display the entry for that morphology. The shortcut for Greek morphology codes is M.

Morphology codes give grammatical information about Greek and Hebrew words in original language modules (Old and New Testament).

The options are nearly the same, except when a morphology code is hovered over, the chosen morphological dictionary will display the entry for that morphology. The shortcut for Greek morphology codes is M.

It is usual for Bible modules that contain morphology tags to be accompanied with specific dictionaries to lookup the morphology codes. The default dictionary that ships with theWord (RMAC) contains standard Morphology codes for the Greek New Testament only.

Like other Bible View Options, the Bible modules support the display for translator's footnotes that occur in some Bibles. According to the options in the first section, these can display in a variety of places in reference to the Bible text. The color of these links can also be customized. The shortcut for toggling footnotes is F.

In the second section, options regarding the displaying of cross-references can be customized. Position and color are again available to change.

Merge original cross-references when displaying inline as links: this option applies to cross-references that appear in a Bible module itself (e.g. not for external cross-references that may be overlayed). When checked, a star (*) will appear in place of the cross-reference(s) instead of the actual verse reference. This is useful for modules that have many cross-references and their display would cause a lot of clutter in the reading area.

Cross-references are bi-directional means that when a user adds a cross reference in one place the target verse will also show the root cross-reference so that the user does not have to cross-reference both verses each time he adds a new cross-reference. The format of the back-references can be customized as well. The symbols "%s" (without quotes) refers to the verse reference.

TIP: Notice that when cross-references are visible, some of these are found within [square brackets] and some are not. The ones in the square brackets are actually back-references (e.g. the verse they appear is actually the "target" verse of a cross-reference that appears in another verse). The square brackets help you differentiate these. You may customize how these appear if you change the Format of back-referencing cross references field. For example, If you enter in that field "(%s)", then the back references will appear within round parenthesis. If you just enter "%s", then nothing special will appear for back-referencing cross references, yet you will not be able to tell them apart. At any time, you can choose to turn the back-references off if you find it confusing.

The cross-reference system in theWord also can display more than one cross-reference set at one time. These sets can be overlayed to appear as one large group of cross-references. The Organize button opens the cross-reference dialog to organize and view the cross-reference sets. The keyboard shortcut for displaying cross-references is X. See the Cross-References topic for more information on this subject.

When commentary links are active, theWord will display links to the user-selected commentaries near the Bible text. The links appear as abbreviations of the commentaries' names. When the user hovers over these links, the entry in the commentary for that verse where the link is found will be displayed in a tool tip. See the example below. The user can customize the way links are displayed, the color of the links, and the commentaries to display. The keyboard shortcut for commentary links is L.

Moving your mouse over a commentary link will display the actual content in a popup window. Clicking on the link will display the commentary in a Book view.

Inline commentaries are different from commentary links in that the entire entry in a commentary for a given verse is displayed with the verse, not just links to show tool tips. The commentary entries can be shown either after or at the right of each verse. See below. There are various options for the display of the commentary text and the resulting table. Any or all of the commentaries can be selected to display with the Bible text. The colors are also customizable.

The quick list option for the inline commentaries is a little different than the other quick list selections. In the quick list, the user can choose whether to display the commentaries' text to the right or under the Bible text. Accordingly, there are three keyboard shortcuts: C to show below each verse, T to show to the right of each verse, and N to turn off inline commentaries.

TIP: An interesting usage of inline commentaries is that they allow you to annotate the Bible text with your own personal notes (a function which also existed in previous version of theWord and was called footnotes). To do so, you just need to select a user commentary to display inline with the Bible text (e.g. the default My Verse Notes commentary that is created by the program upon installation, or any other you can create by yourself from the File->New module menu). Adding notes for a verse in the Book view to your commentary, will display them along with the Bible text as soon as you save them (pressing CTRL+S or just changing to another topic).

theWord recognizes individual words in the Bible View. The word lookup dictionaries option allow the user to instantaneously see the definition of any word in the Bible View as given in any installed dictionary module. When the user mouses over a word, after a given number of milliseconds (the delay can be set in the General options category of the Bible view options dialog), a tooltip will appear with the dictionary entry for that word. See below. By default, only the first dictionary's text will appear, unless If more than one dictionary matches... is selected. In addition, different dictionaries can be used depending on the current Bible module. First, select the Bible module in the For this module... select box, then check the dictionaries you want to use for that module. This can be done for every Bible module. The keyboard shortcut to toggle word lookup dictionaries is D.

The if there is a lemma for the word, use it instead... option allows the lookup to be performed on the lemma of the word, instead of the one being displayed. This is a special option that mostly applies to original language modules (Greek and Hebrew) that contain the roots of the word within.

TIP: How exactly the lookup is performed?

At times you may hover over a word and get hits from topics you wouldn't expect (or vice versa). Please, read the section How word lookups are performed to understand how the actual lookup takes place!

Normally, clicking on a word will cause the current dictionary entry to change (and Book views to get synchronized - read more about View synchronization). The question arises of what happens when you use a module that contains Strong's indices, Morphology information and Lemmas (and you have checked the Show no link, just show in a popup... options in the Strong's numbers and Morphology codes pages). In that case there are 4 different pieces of information that exist "underneath" a word you see in the Bible view. This page allows you to define exactly the behavior of the program when you click on a word in such cases.

Check the options and the order you wish to use when you click on a word. Use the move up and move down button to change the order.

The Perform the lookup on all checked items (don't stop at the first one) option allows you to perform more than one lookups by clicking on a word. This is very useful if you have more than one Book views open, each one with a different module selected. In that case, you can even cause each Book view to get synchronized to each different part of information that is "contained" in the word you clicked on. The View synchronization topic provides further information for this.

Select the delay (1 second = 1000 milliseconds) for the popup to appear when you hover over a non-link word in the Bible view. This applies to:

- strong's code, when the Show no link, just show in a popup... option is checked in the Strong's numbers page

- morphology code, when the Show no link, just show in a popup... option is checked in the Morphology codes page