New Feature: Sermon Editor
Comments
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If you export your sermon to Proclaim and have a church group affiliated with your presentation group, you'll also get a church bulletin automatically created with the contents of your sermon! This will include anything marked with the handout style. Check out the bulletins tab on your church's Faithlife group to see what it looks like (make sure to hit Preview).
Here's a test sermon I created:
https://faithlife.com/example-community-church/bulletins/19689
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Eli Evans said:
Changing the style of all the slides at once is a planned feature for an upcoming release.
Until then, if you change the first slide when you first open a sermon, it should use that slide as the new default for the rest of the sermon:
- Click the slide next to the sermon title.
- Choose "Edit".
- The Media tool will open. Choose 16:9 aspect ratio.
- Click the "Update sermon" button in the Media toolbar.
- This is now the default style for slides in your sermon.
Also, if you use Proclaim, this is very easy to change after you export.
[Y] Awesome!! You guys are the best! I'm super stoked about this Sermon Editor feature! This is going to save me so much time and enable me to serve my congregations more thoroughly. Keep up the good work!
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How do I create a document in the Sermon Editor? Pretty sure I'm done updating.
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Samuel Leiro said:
How do I create a document in the Sermon Editor? Pretty sure I'm done updating.
Open Document Menu -> New -> Sermon
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Fredc said:
There was a discussion about font controls during the beta period. Several requests were made to add the ability to control font size, type, etc. Bob indicated they were hesitant to add full control, but planned to provide several different options for larger or headings, text, etc.
It's too bad they were hesitant to add full control. I realize it might be a huge undertaking. But every pastor has their own preferred style of formatting that works for their unique needs. One size definitely does not fit all. The ability to create the manuscript, handout, and screen presentation in one step is a fantastic idea - so much better than creating 3 separate documents. But if I have to export what I produce in the Sermon Editor into other programs so that I can format them, I may as well just produce them in those programs anyway.
Another helpful addition would be spell checking. Since the presentation and handout are created for public consumption, I end up having to export to Word anyway just to make sure that my lousy typing doesn't result in distractions for the congregation while I'm preaching. Sometimes a simple typo can be what prevents someone from hearing a key point in a sermon.
The Notes function offers font controls and spell checking, so it must be doable. I'm hoping it will be seen as a worthwhile enhancement to make to a tool that has a whole lot of potential but is being limited by the lack of user control.
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Editing the font size, colors, format etc is a must if this feature is to be useful. Otherwise might as well stick with editing in Word or Pages.
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Randy Radke said:
Another helpful addition would be spell checking.
Spellcheck was also discussed during the beta period. FL said this would be added in a future release.
Randy Radke said:The Notes function offers font controls and spell checking, so it must be doable.
FL will have to speak to this issue. I don't have the knowledge to argue for or against it. As a user I am for it.
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Eli Evans said:
Until then, if you change the first slide when you first open a sermon, it should use that slide as the new default for the rest of the sermon:
- Click the slide next to the sermon title.
- Choose "Edit".
- The Media tool will open. Choose 16:9 aspect ratio.
- Click the "Update sermon" button in the Media toolbar.
- This is now the default style for slides in your sermon.
Eli, will there be an option to have a default aspect ratio for ALL sermon slides?
Thanks!
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Eli Evans said:
Changing the style of all the slides at once is a planned feature for an upcoming release.
Aspect ratio is part of the style, so yes.
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First of all, let me say that this tool is worth the upgrade alone. It is awesome, I love how the sermon is integrated into Logos.
I copied a recent sermon into it and I am working on tweaking the format. Not to be difficult, but is there a general idea when we will be able to send it to our iPad?
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Eli Evans said:
Changing the style of all the slides at once is a planned feature for an upcoming release.
Until then, if you change the first slide when you first open a sermon, it should use that slide as the new default for the rest of the sermon:
- Click the slide next to the sermon title.
- Choose "Edit".
- The Media tool will open. Choose 16:9 aspect ratio.
- Click the "Update sermon" button in the Media toolbar.
- This is now the default style for slides in your sermon.
Also, if you use Proclaim, this is very easy to change after you export.
This doesn't work for me when I want to change the image for every slide in a sermon.
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John Duffy said:
This doesn't work for me when I want to change the image for every slide in a sermon.
Because...
Eli Evans said:Changing the style of all the slides at once is a planned feature for an upcoming release.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
TCBlack said:John Duffy said:
This doesn't work for me when I want to change the image for every slide in a sermon.
Because...
Eli Evans said:Changing the style of all the slides at once is a planned feature for an upcoming release.
Hi TCBlack, there are two ways to change all the slides, one is to wait until a new planned feature appears, as you point out. The other way which Eli expands on is to change the very first sermon slide - it is this which doesn't work as he has described. At least, it doesn't work for me when changing the slide image using his steps.
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John,
I think that means you have to change it before you type anything at all. Not after the fact.Eli Evans said:if you change the first slide when you first open a sermon
IOW this won't currently change anything but the first slide once some have been generated.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
Can someone give me directions or point me to a place to see how I would send an exported sermon to sermon cloud then view/preach from there?
I exported to pdf and the font is huge!
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TCBlack said:
John,
I think that means you have to change it before you type anything at all. Not after the fact.Eli Evans said:if you change the first slide when you first open a sermon
IOW this won't currently change anything but the first slide once some have been generated.
Yeah, I tried that on a brand new document, after it didn't work on one I had started writing.
I'll just wait until that and some other cool features are added. These would hopefully include; sermon date and location (which you have noted elsewhere), font colour and size and even saving a set of styles for headings (I use the same set of different colours for different heading styles), uploading my own image(s), more complete citation with author and page number instead of just the title of a resource (I normally like to be able to name the author by name when I quote them during a sermon, and give the page number to anyone who asks), ability to delete part of verse in a verse slide since I often want to show and quote only part of a Bible verse. But I'm really looking forward to seeing this document type develop, as I think it has great potential to enhance sermon delivery by increasing the visual presentation content with less preparation time. Really excited about this, but I have to wait for the moment before switching over from Word.
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TCBlack said:
IOW this won't currently change anything but the first slide once some have been generated.
Correct. In the currently shipping version, selecting a slide style applies that style from this point in time forward in in the document, not retroactively to any already added slides. So: For best results, choose your style first, then start typing.
(The feature to adjust retroactively is what we're planning to add in a future version as soon as we can.)
Hope that helps.
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Eli Evans said:TCBlack said:
IOW this won't currently change anything but the first slide once some have been generated.
Correct. In the currently shipping version, selecting a slide style applies that style from this point in time forward in in the document, not retroactively to any already added slides. So: For best results, choose your style first, then start typing.
(The feature to adjust retroactively is what we're planning to add in a future version as soon as we can.)
Hope that helps.
Hi Eli, my point is that it doesn't apply the new style at all to anything other than the selected slide. If I add new slides after modifying a slide image, the same default black background persists on all slides. This occurs if I edit and update the title slide or any slide in the sermon. But as I wrote just now in another post, after trying it out just a little, there are a number of features I would need to see added before switching over to sermon editor completely. But again, I'm really enthusiastic about this tool, because it has great potential but is not quite there yet for me to use.
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The prompt is a great thing. But that doesn't allow colored text. I a color for headings, a color for Bible text, a color for language focus, a color for illustrations, and a color for transitions. When I look away from my manuscript, it makes it easy to find where I was. It also makes it easy to not use parts of the the manuscript if time is an issue... say someone shares a long testimony before they sing or someone makes long announcements. It would be nice to be able to create "templates" for the sermon editor like we have for copy bible verses. I know it is asking for something that has been discussed over and over... I know that Logos is not going to incorporate a fully featured "L7 Word Processor" into the product. Mobile support of the doc type (Yes, I just piled on.), space between paragraphs and a little color control would be nice. And one other thing. If I drag and drop a Bible verse or paste a Bible verse... I would not like the publisher's citation in my manuscript. I am ok with it doing that to other resources. It is kind of annoying with the Bible verses. I tend to use a lot of those and the word count gets high from publisher credits.
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John Duffy said:
Hi Eli, my point is that it doesn't apply the new style at all to anything other than the selected slide.
Ah. Then you may be experiencing a bug that I think we have fixed internally that hasn't shipped out yet. (If I try to explain it in detail, I'm afraid I'll get it wrong [:)]).
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Eli Evans said:John Duffy said:
Hi Eli, my point is that it doesn't apply the new style at all to anything other than the selected slide.
Ah. Then you may be experiencing a bug that I think we have fixed internally that hasn't shipped out yet. (If I try to explain it in detail, I'm afraid I'll get it wrong
).I look forward to the fix Eli.
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I have been having problems with the citations being displayed in the body of the sermon, rather than as a footnote or end note.It also does not keep the citations in order or update the citation order when I change the sequence of the items within my sermon. Logos does proper citation placement, when it exports to a MS Word document. I am not sure why it does not do this within its own ecosystem?
I love this concept and would love to use it,but is needs a better word processing functionality.
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The Sermon Editor certainly has a lot of potential. I do not usually use PowerPoint, handouts, and full manuscripts, but I do like how the Sermon Editor streamlines and integrates all of these elements, which would make me even more likely to integrate occasional maps and images into a bible study.
In order to use the Sermon Editor, however, I'd need to have the formatting tools to easily segment, indent, and rather simply outline Greek and Hebrew text, whether by sentences, clauses, prosodic units, or other smaller or larger units (poetic or otherwise) (cf. the Lexham Discourse Bible and Propositional Outlines). I tend to preach and teach more extemporaneously with my notes (in OneNote) framed around the original language text, usually with an accompanying English Bible translation. I'd likely use the Sermon Editor, however, if there were more (even very basic) options for formatting and editing English and original language texts, whether in tandem or independently. It doesn't seem quite up to the task yet, and I don't know if it's in the plans, but I'll at least tinker around with it some more.
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Feature Request:
Give us a 'Visual Filter' for the differing components in a Sermon Document. This way we could turn on or off things such as Prompts, Questions, or Handouts. This would keep what I want to see on Screen - for instance I would like to use/export the Text View to speak from, but 'Prompts' are not shown while in All View things such as Questions or Handouts are not needed to speak from. Having a 'Visual Filter' would give the flexibility to use the document for any purpose.
Feature Request:
Add style to all types of text when exporting. For instance, prompts could be in a 'prompt' style, questions in a 'question' style, etc. This way when a sermon is exported to Word those styles could be edited to quickly format the document as wished
I'm liking the direction this is headed - thanks for the work!
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Mike Tourangeau said:
Can someone give me directions or point me to a place to see how I would send an exported sermon to sermon cloud then view/preach from there?
Click the Export button on the Sermon Editor, then choose SoundFaith as the destination. See my comments earlier in this thread about some limitations with this approach: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/129241/840089.aspx#840089
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Randy Radke said:
It's too bad they were hesitant to add full control.
It's not out of the question... here's my concern: experience (and observation) shows that when people are given 'structured' editors (driven by style sheets, with limited formatting options) they are annoyed, but generally use the structure.
When you give people unstructured free-formatting editors, they hack everything up with their own conventions -- which is a win for human freedom and creative expression (yay!) but a loss for automatic processing.
For example, if people can control fonts and size, they often skip things like choose H1, H2, or H3 and just make headings bigger, or bold, or in a different font (or all three). And then the software has a harder time detecting that that was a header, which is important when you want to write features that preserve headings across Questions and Handouts, or cause them to automatically generate slides, etc.
Or people turn text red. Then change their mind and instead of turning it back to 'default' they set it to black, or something close to black. Then we need to render the sermon in a Proclaim notes field (or remote app), where the UI is reversed, and now it's black text on a black background.
Obviously these are more our problem than yours. [:D] But we want to do cool things 'automagically', and styled text enables that.
We can just open up more styling... but how about opening it up in a style-sheet compatible way? For example, what if there are six font color choices, but internally they are 'Accent Color 1' through 'Accent Color 6'. They'd almost always be the same colors, but that wouldn't be a promise -- in another rendering context they might be different, though still all six unique, not-the-base-text colors.
And is it important that you can specify 72 pt text? Or can it be 'Big, Bigger, Biggest', etc?
(This is what well formed HTML is usually like... though of course people hate that too, which is why HTML now supports every possible style -- but that hand-styled text can be harder to work with programatically.)
Is there a short list of character level styles most people could agree to? (Just as we H1, H2, H3, Prompt, and Title are universal paragraph styles.)
What do you call out a word or phase for? How do you mark things up beyond bold and italic WITHIN a paragraph, and how do you mark up paragraphs themselves? All caps? Bigger? Centered? 2-3 colors or 15 colors? Do the colors have semantic meaning -- does red always need to be red, or is it just to stand out?
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When I go to documents and select "Sermon" it pulls up the "Sermon Editor" window, but there is no way to enter text. I'm a Now member and upgraded beyond Gold, so I have the data sets. Thoughts?
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I restarted and now it works.
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Bob,
First, I would like to say thank you for this new feature, and thank you to all the developers and other staff who created this. I'm assuming you get some kind of statistics back that provide you with information on how each tool in Logos is being used. I am hoping that this is one of the areas that you see massive use of the tool. I've used it already for two teaching opportunities, and I am planning on using it for the foreseeable future.
Bob Pritchett said:When you give people unstructured free-formatting editors, they hack everything up with their own conventions -- which is a win for human freedom and creative expression (yay!) but a loss for automatic processing.
For example, if people can control fonts and size, they often skip things like choose H1, H2, or H3 and just make headings bigger, or bold, or in a different font (or all three). And then the software has a harder time detecting that that was a header, which is important when you want to write features that preserve headings across Questions and Handouts, or cause them to automatically generate slides, etc.
I agree with your assessment. I've actually appreciated many of the limitations of the tool in this regard. It has forced me to create a document that will be consistent and manageable while also being useful.
With that in mind, I appreciate the direction of the suggestions you made regarding text styling, color options, etc.
The only item that I won't be using at this point until it is changed would be the speaker prompt. I'd prefer to have roughly six different colors to use as prompts. I used color in my previous sermon notes system (i.e. Word doc) to identify things like propositional statements, definitions, transitional statements, illustrations, and the like. I don't really use my notes in my preaching, except as a "security blanket," because I preach mostly from memory, but occasionally I will use those prompts to remember where in my flow of thought I wanted my illustration. Having some access to color is a huge benefit when you are in front of a bunch of people trying to find where that cool illustration was supposed to go. Color allows for quick and easy identification of key areas. Minimal color options would be fine.
On the other hand, I really don't need color at all in my handouts. I really just need it for prompts or for certain parts of the body of the sermon.
One nice addition that I would like to see is a way of marking our illustrations (similar to the add to handout button). If we could mark our illustrations and have them magically added to an illustration datebase, Personal Book, or something, that would be truly amazing. Especially if it could keep track of when and where we used the illustration automatically. That might allow us to go back and see, "Oh, I've used that illustration with these folks three times. I better learn to change this up."
Perhaps the reverse could also be enabled, meaning it would be nice to be able to add things to my illustration database when I find them. I could tag them, etc. Then when I am working on my sermon could click "add illustration" and pull up an illustration browser that lets me widdle my list down to my three illustrations on "forgiveness." Logos could also work on building in all their sermon illustration in the sermon illustration books that you sell into this illustration browser.
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Even here there are workarounds, but I don't need them. I think what we need rather are just a few more items.Bob Pritchett said:When you give people unstructured free-formatting editors, they hack everything up with their own conventions -- which is a win for human freedom and creative expression (yay!) but a loss for automatic processing.
I personally don't' need a great deal of formatting.
- (smallest, smaller, small, normal, big, bigger, and biggest) is fine for me. I'd much rather have numerical font choices from say 8pt to 20pt which should be sufficient for anything that's not a header anyway. But the vague offering would be doable.
- I do need to export/print smaller text though, and right now NOTHING changes that, even setting the scale slider in the menu to smallest does nothing at all - in opposition to every other area of the program where this is how I change font size.
- I love Jonathan's idea above of letting us mark an "Illustration" with a nice button so that it becomes a recorded illustration in the database.(Shoot make it a public or private illustration and add the public ones to a massive logos database of illustrations.
- Colors: Make it so that a predefined pallet shows up on the TEXT tab, but not on the proclaim/powerpoint export (make sure you spell that out).
Basically every sermon I write has at least:
- quotations (got it)
- Heading based hierarchy (got it)
- Illustrations (don't have)
- and a few basic text styles like bold, italic, underline (got it)
But I'm also pretty particular about the font I like to read, and the font sizing (12 pt please).
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 - (smallest, smaller, small, normal, big, bigger, and biggest) is fine for me. I'd much rather have numerical font choices from say 8pt to 20pt which should be sufficient for anything that's not a header anyway. But the vague offering would be doable.
