how can I best create a topical concordance?

Kristin · 2025-04-13T14:24:26+00:00

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I have a topical concordance which I would like to create in Logos. So to be clear, my topics are things like "love," "peace," etc. It is not linked to any Bible version or any Hebrew or Greek word.

I think the best way to do this is through the "Sermon Builder" and have the topics as headings? Is this correct? I think so, but since I have several of these things to do, I would appreciate any thoughts anyone has.

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GregW

I think I’d be more inclined to do it as a Personal Book, tagging each topic as a Headword. That way, you’re more likely to get it appearing in searches . I’m pretty sure there is a Headword tag you can use in PBB.

Kristin

Hi @GregW,

Thank you for the idea. I don't use PBs because the html code they require has not worked out for my specific needs, but I appreciate the idea.

Also, another question based on what you wrote, this topical concordance I have is something I am actively working on. With the PB, however, it not only requires html, but once I upload it, it is not able to be edited without making changes externally and re-uploading it. Is this correct?

Rick Brannan

Hi @Kristin .

I'm a little confused about your mention of HTML because personal books in Logos are built from MSWord documents.

Here is some introductory documentation: https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015926452-How-do-I-add-and-manage-personal-books

Have I missed something about your use case?

Kristin

Hi @Kristin .
I'm a little confused about your mention of HTML because personal books in Logos are built from MSWord documents.
Here is some introductory documentationhttps://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015926452-How-do-I-add-and-manage-personal-books

Hi @Rick Brannan,

Thank you very much for the link. That was helpful for me to know. While it was informative, after watching the video I feel pretty confident that I will never attempt a PB again. I can see it as a remarkable feature for people who are trying to publish books, but in the video the lady described how the contents of the PB will be searchable when I do searches in "books," which is not in alignment with my specific needs. However, the specific sentence which caused me to conclude that I will never try them again is when she said "once you upload a book you cannot edit OR DELETE that version of the book." The idea that I could make my unfinished work permanent on the system (and likely public??) is just not a risk I would ever take again. In Accordance the word "upload" just means uploading it to my personal Accordance, but it is not on a server outside of my hard drive and there is no risk of accidentally making it public. To be honest, it has taken me months to even look at notes or anything since I was worried about the same situation, but I see now that my notes are private unless I actively share them. And likewise, the sermon I made from the sermon builder is not public (PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM MISTAKEN), and so I have been able to create lectures there. So assuming it is not public (since I haven't shared it), it has worked well for certain applications. But as far as I know, my sermon isn't going to show up in the middle of my research when I am looking in the books section of search.

Have I missed something about your use case?

Perhaps I should clarify this as there is a lot of history. To begin, I am a professor who teaches theology, and because of where several of my students are located (and also in part because of my personality), I can get kind of hypervigilant about privacy.

Second, I have also been working on a bible translation the past 6 years or something like that. It is a genuine translation (as in, not a version), and it is a work in progress. So there is no scenario I would want it public in any fashion in its partial state, and maybe, perhaps, when I am finished I would, perhaps, but not before that.

In Accordance my translation is in a plain text TextEdit file. There is no html litter in it or anything. I am able to keep working on my text, and every few days upload it to Accordance (which never leaves my computer). Being in plain text, it is searchable by verse or word and scrolls in parallel with a published Bible. I can then be reading the NA28, for example, and as I do, check my own translation in parallel. If I notice my translation says something wrong, I go to my txt and edit it, and then re-upload it after several changes have been made.

I am now at the point where I am really trying to use Accordance and Logos each for their unique strengths, but when I first started using Logos, the first thing I did is try to replicate my work in Logos. So I went to create a "user bible" (which is what Accordance calls my plain text translation), and in the process I discovered that it was a complicated process in Logos. In case it is helpful, there are two threads which are relevant.

First, in July of 2024 I wrote that now famous (or infamous) "a question from an Accordance User" post, and if you look at the original thing I posted, you can see I was trying to mimic what I am doing in Accordance. However, by the time you get to the second page of it, I start realizing that the PBs are not inherently private like the user bibles, and I frankly almost started panicking. I can't figure out how to link comments, but if you go to the second page and search for the words "Let's make sure" you will see the relevant comments about this concern.

However, by Jan of this year I decided to try again claiming that I was "really desperate" about needing a "user bible" and decided to try it again despite the concerns, so I tried again and discovered that it was just simply too complicated. In case it helps, that is found on this two page thread.

So, in summary, my entire experience with PBs have been both complicated and extremely stressful, so I am now at the point of thinking I should just leave them alone, and use other things, like the notes or sermon builder, to which I don't have a visceral reaction.

MJ. Smith

A sermon can be made public by the user; a personal book cannot be. A personal book exists primarily as a word processing file - the PB accessible in Logos is the snapshot of that word processing file at the time you last compiled it. I understood your previous concern to be primarily that you cannot directly update a personal book, you need to update the word document and recompile. There is a trick in which you build a PB consisting primarily of input fields which you can update directly that puts the contents of the book into Notes. That is what I would do for myself but not necessarily recommend for others.

Rick Brannan

I freely admit I don't know all the ins and outs of Personal Books, but I'm pretty sure you can build the book for your own local use without uploading it to a server. And you can update the local documents you use to build your personal book and then re-build the book. It updates/replaces, it does not make a separate copy.

I think uploading only uploads the built book, not sources. And I'll freely admit I don't know why I'd do that (except maybe to share on other computers I may log in to and run Logos?) since PBs aren't supported on mobile or web versions.

If you want one to play around with, I created a PB of the Preliminary and Interim Report for the Hebrew Old Testament which is openly licensed by the United Bible Societies. Some basic information is on github, where the word docs are downloadable.

I think the only thing you'd really need to turn your text file into a PB Bible would be to get the magic [[Bible:Gen 1:1]] style codes at the beginning of each line and then copy/paste into a word doc to build in Logos. I'm happy to help with that offline if you'd like; I realize 'macros' and 'scripts' are not areas some people are comfortable in, but that's the world I live in. Contact is firstname at firstnamelastname dot com.

Donovan R. Palmer

I personally do not like the friction in a PB book of having to recompile the book every time you make an edit.

Perhaps not too dissimilar to Kristin, I am using Logos notes to keep a running set of notes on Greek words that I find of interest. It is not ideal, but I am avoiding building a personal book.

I am hopeful that at some point there will be a fresh look at note making and keeping.

Kristin

I think the only thing you'd really need to turn your text file into a PB Bible would be to get the magic [[Bible:Gen 1:1]] style codes at the beginning of each line and then copy/paste into a word doc to build in Logos.

Hi @Rick Brannan, thank you for the comment, and for your email. I appreciate it. I think "the only thing" I need to do really summarizes the two sides of this, as on one hand I agree the html needed is pretty simple, but on the other hand, it would completely litter my translation, making it impossible to import to Accordance ever again, which is not practical for a few reasons. Thank you again for your email.

I personally do not like the friction in a PB book of having to recompile the book every time you make an edit.

Hi @Donovan R. Palmer,

I of course agree. :)

Perhaps not too dissimilar to Kristin, I am using Logos notes to keep a running set of notes on Greek words that I find of interest. It is not ideal, but I am avoiding building a personal book.

Actually, my notes are more class lecture related (which is why I moved some of them to the sermon builder, which I love. It was so simple to create, and so organized, I really love it. :) Anyway, regarding what you are describing, why don't you use a word list? That seems like it would work well for Greek words you want to keep track of.

I am hopeful that at some point there will be a fresh look at note making and keeping.

I really appreciate most things about their notes. I really like how it hyperlinks verses, how simple it is to link extrabiblical books, and how I can use anchors (or apparently just mention a verse??) and it appears both places. A major improvement from needing to copy a note to all the verses it pertains to. :) That said, I think their sorting feature should be far less complicated, and it should be simpler to have all the verses listed by reference. I really can't think of a situation where I would want to search by date. I get that some people might want to do that, but I really don't think I am alone in wanting biblical notes to go in biblical order.

I do have two questions which I am confused about.

First, what is the point of the "anchor"? I had a note in which was anchored to, say, Exodus, but it also had a reference of somewhere in John. I didn't want the Exodus passage to show up in John, so I wen to Exodus and anchored a note to Exodus and MENTIONED John, but I made a point to not anchor John so that the note would not show up in John. Yet it did anyway. So I guess this is a two part question, first, what is the point of an anchor if just referencing the book makes it show up? And second, is there a way to mention John in a note about Exodus without the Exodus note literally showing up in John? Do I need to have different notebooks for each book of the Bible? Or how do I prevent Exodus notes from not showing up all over the place?

Second, the idea of a wide margin bible has been around forever, and I know I am not the only person who wants to read a Bible and have my notes run in parallel with it. How do people in Logos accomplish this? Or do Logos people just not read notes along with their Bible??

GregW

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1366179#Comment_1366179

Just to answer the question you asked me, which Rick has dealt with above, the only tag you’d need to use in a PB would be a Headword tag for each topic. This would allow you to do a Headword search of your PB, which you wouldn’t be able to do in Sermon Builder. I’m afraid I also don’t see there’s much difference between recompiling a PB every so often and re-uploading your User Bible every few days. You can also amend your PB any time you want to by recompiling the updated Word file in the Personal Books tool. I am pretty sure you can actually delete them now, but I’m not a big user of PBs. Even if not you could compile a blank Word doc which would overwrite the previously compiled PB. Have you actually tried compiling and editing a simple Personal Book to see how it works?

To be slightly pedantic, there is no use of HTML in Personal Books. There are some Logos-specific tags but no HTML at all, in case anyone else reading this thinks they can use HTML in them. HTML is a specific markup language, and is not available to us for use in Personal Books.

There is no need to upload a PB to the Logos servers unless you want to use it on another machine, so it doesn’t leave your computer unless you want it to.

NB.Mick

Off-topic:

To be slightly pedantic, there is no use of HTML in Personal Books. There are some Logos-specific tags but no HTML at all, in case anyone else reading this thinks they can use HTML in them. HTML is a specific markup language, and is not available to us for use in Personal Books.

If I remember correct, the PB functionality in Libronix (Logos 3) may have used HTML - I can't verify because when I satrted using Logos about 15 years ago and became interested in building PBs, it was no longer possible to buy a PB compiler license for Libronix.

On-topic: You are absolutely right in what you say about building a PB for this kind of task - and also about PBs in the cloud.

Kristin

Just to answer the question you asked me, which Rick has dealt with above, the only tag you’d need to use in a PB would be a Headword tag for each topic. This would allow you to do a Headword search of your PB, which you wouldn’t be able to do in Sermon Builder.

Hi @GregW,

Thank you for clarifying this distinction. Given what you wrote, I opened a sermon and just did a word find, and interestingly, it did find hits of the contents and subheadings, but it did not find the hits of the headings.

Since I am not sure if I am explaining this well, I can attach a screenshot. Also, is there a way to get rid of these slide pictures to the left? I can see how extremely helpful they would be in a lot of situations, but I don't need them for my specific use.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-04-14 um 12.31.00.png

I’m afraid I also don’t see there’s much difference between recompiling a PB every so often and re-uploading your User Bible every few days. You can also amend your PB any time you want to by recompiling the updated Word file in the Personal Books tool. I am pretty sure you can actually delete them now, but I’m not a big user of PBs. Even if not you could compile a blank Word doc which would overwrite the previously compiled PB.

I think you are correct that there isn't a huge distinction between uploading a PB and a User Bible. The main issue is really the tags the PB requires, since it would require me to either never upload it to Accordance again (which is not practical for a few reasons) or maintain two separate bibles, one clean copy for Accordance, and one tagged copy for Logos. However, a few years ago I actually did try maintaining two separate User Bibles, and I found it to be impractical and risky for a few reasons.

(On a side note, I admit I am sort of mixing apples and oranges here, as there are really two conversations gong on. First, whether the PB would work better for my topical concordance than a sermon, and second, comparing the PB to the User Bible. Regarding the User Bible replacement, I don't think it would work because of the tags, and regarding the concordance, I think that the sermon would work better since the sermon is designed to be easily created and edited, while the PB isn't intended for that.)

Have you actually tried compiling and editing a simple Personal Book to see how it works?

Ya, I have. To see the stress it has caused, see the second page and search for the words "Let's make sure" and also this other thread to see how it went.

To be slightly pedantic, there is no use of HTML in Personal Books. There are some Logos-specific tags but no HTML at all, in case anyone else reading this thinks they can use HTML in them. HTML is a specific markup language, and is not available to us for use in Personal Books.

Thank you for clarifying this distinction. I am not familiar with computer language and I call anything which is not plain text html. :) I even found the plain text bible in Accordance sort of confusing and needed Fabian to help me set it up.

There is no need to upload a PB to the Logos servers unless you want to use it on another machine, so it doesn’t leave your computer unless you want it to.

That is important, and I am grateful to hear this. I have finally deleted that "Test" PB from months ago, and I feel much better now that it is gone.

If I remember correct, the PB functionality in Libronix (Logos 3) may have used HTML - I can't verify because when I satrted using Logos about 15 years ago and became interested in building PBs, it was no longer possible to buy a PB compiler license for Libronix.
On-topic: You are absolutely right in what you say about building a PB for this kind of task - and also about PBs in the cloud.

Hi @NB.Mick,

Thank you for explaining this, and given what you wrote, I should probably clarify something. As mentioned above, in my mind everything is either "plain text" or "html" and the User Bible is plain text and the PB is html, but that is not true on a few levels. First, as @GregW explained above, Logos does not currently support html.

Further, and this is starting to get into an area which I don't understand, but I think you can use html in Accordance's User Bible. I personally create my translation in a plain text text edit file, since that has just worked for me. However, Fabian had also helped me set up a User Bible in BBEdit and showed me how to make text bold and color it. I then bolded various words, and put other words in color, and once I uploaded it, my User Bible in fact did display the bold and color. So I think he was having me do html? But after experimenting with it, I wound up ultimately going back to the plain text option without any formatting.

That said, for both the TextEdit file in plain text, and and BBEdit file with html, I did not need to create any tags or anything. I just simply wrote the references, so Gen. 1:1 and that is it, and it scrolls in parallel with the ESV, it is searchable by verse reference or by word, and since there is no tags in it, I can just easily copy sections of my text and paste it wherever, and the text is clean.