a question from an Accordance User
I am not sure if I am posting in the right spot, so please forgive me if this is not correct. I am a current Accordance user and have been for a long time. I have recently been giving serious consideration to moving to Logos, but so far I have been prevented because of Logos' seemingly complete lack of a functional "user bible," which is a critical aspect of my work. A friend of mine suggested I express my concern on the Logos forum to see if I am missing anything.
In order to clarify this concern, let me provide a brief explanation of the user bible in Accordance:
It is able to be written in plain text, which works beautifully for me on a Mac. I use the native Text Edit, and can write "Gen 1:1 In...." and then I am able to import it into Accordance. Doing so I simply say it is a Bible, ask it to follow the verse layout of the published Bible I choose (the default is KJV, but I can change it if I want). Then after I press enter my Bible shows up as a functional searchable Bible which is able to scroll in parallel with any other biblical text. It is simple, clean, and since there isn't any HTML junk, I am still able to use my text for other purposes, which is critical.
This is such an obvious need for an academic that I frankly assumed that Logos had the same thing when I was considering it. However, after downloading the free version of Logos to play around with it (before making any major financial decisions), I started to realized that no, Logos does NOT have anything close to this.
I spoke with a friend who uses both programs, and he told me that the closest thing Logos has is this so-called Personal Book, and that Logos does not distinguish whether it is a Bible or not. Thus, if I want my text to function like a Bible and scroll in parallel with another biblical text, before each word I need to write [[@Bible the verse reference, then ]] before EVERY verse. So.... I need to do this 3,102 times.
That is absurd. I frankly don't have the time for that, and even if I did, it would completely ruin my text making it usable for ONLY uploading to Logos, which is obviously not acceptable.
I have other issues with the PB also, such as it needing to be in a docx format (I am on a Mac and use plain text). Also, if I try uploading it to just be a random PB and don't bother with it being able to scroll in parallel, even searching for random references as if they are words brings false results. If I type "Gen 1:1" it brings me to Gen 1:1, but if I then type "Luke 1" it brings Mark 13:29 to the top of the page. From Gen 1:1, if I type "Rom. 1" it brings Acts 25:26. I can likewise scroll down until I get to Romans and it will be highlighted as searched for. Typing "Rev. 1" brings up 1John 5:15. If I scroll to Rev 1, it is likewise highlighted, and if I type "Rom. 1" it brings me to Rom 6:18.
None of this makes any sense. The only thing I can think is that converting my TextEdit txt file on Mac to a docx format messed something up, but if that was the issue it seems like Logos wouldn't be auto hyperlinking all my verses, but it does. So I would say so far Logos has been pretty frustrating.
So I need to keep using Accordance because of it's beautifully simplistic user bible, but after the suggestion of my friend, I decided to post here just in case I am missing something.
Thank you,
Kristin