Sharing Notes on Personal Books (For a group collab)

Greetings!

Here's the situation:

I have many documents (docx, already formatted for PB importing) that are part of our doctrinal compendium on our Church.

All the doctrine board members own L10 license, so we are good to go!

What do we need? All members are supposed to import these . DOCX files into Logos, and we will write notes on topics of interest while reading the documents.

For example, we are reading one document, and we find within it points related to a) resurrection, b) redemption, c) healing.

For each topic, one will create a note (selecting a word or phrase that will work as an anchor), which needs to be available to all board members, so they can access the observations anywhere by themselves.

Also, one will create related tags for this document so all members will be able to filter once they have the notes imported.

If we had one single member, it would be already settled, of course, but, having five members it brings the need I am describing here

By what I know so far, if we have the same .docx and we would be able to make Logos relate the anchor to its proper Personal Book on each member's PC, it is done! However, I understand LPBBs number/name will vary, so the link is broken.

Any idea/insight/suggestion will be most welcome!

Find more posts tagged with

Desktop App

Comments

Justin Gatlin

I don't think that Logos personal books can do this and I am struggling to think of another way to do what you are wanting in the software. You could create a shared notebook and just title them by section, and leave out the anchors?

Aside from automating Scripture references, it seems like just sharing a Word document with OneDrive or Google Docs would be much easier and accomplish the same things. Although, if this is a major ongoing project, I think I would create a wiki and install reftagger. I am teaching a doctrine class now and having them build a wiki off my class notes as their main project, using wiki.js. If you are comfortable with AWS, it is possible to run it under their free tier. If you aren't techie, it is about $6 a month to run one with DigitalOcean. You can make it public to read and require authorization to edit, or make it completely private.

Jack Hairston

If you create a Faithlife group and sign up your friends as members of the group, then attach DOCX files. Only they can read the documents.

Thiago Samico

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248266#Comment_1248266

I don't think that Logos personal books can do this and I am struggling to think of another way to do what you are wanting in the software. You could create a shared notebook and just title them by section, and leave out the anchors?

Yes, but the documents are books, written by the founder of our Ministry, more than 100 of them! The idea with the anchors is exactly point the topics to the books, so we would be directed to the paragraph/line and, if needed keep on reading from there.

Aside from automating Scripture references, it seems like just sharing a Word document with OneDrive or Google Docs would be much easier and accomplish the same things. Although, if this is a major ongoing project, I think I would create a wiki and install reftagger. I am teaching a doctrine class now and having them build a wiki off my class notes as their main project, using wiki.js. If you are comfortable with AWS, it is possible to run it under their free tier. If you aren't techie, it is about $6 a month to run one with DigitalOcean. You can make it public to read and require authorization to edit, or make it completely private.

I'll check about it! But as I can see this is out of Logos isn't it? Thank you Justin!

If you create a Faithlife group and sign up your friends as members of the group, then attach DOCX files. Only they can read the documents.

Hey Jack, thank you! I found your project and even yesterday I was digging it to understand how to join and use it. Thanks! However, will this sharing of the DOCX files enable the other guys to anchor the same PBs and doing so, will everybody be using the same database in terms of LBSPBB?

Justin Gatlin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248317#Comment_1248317

Right, unfortunately, I don't think Logos is going to be able to do what you want and is unlikely to ever be able to. They have basically dropped all development on personal books. Older plans for uploading and sharing personal books led to copyright concerns.

If the documents are not secret, maybe you could convince Logos to publish them as their untagged faithlife ebooks?

Wolfgang Schneider

If we had one single member, it would be already settled, of course, but, having five members it brings the need I am describing here

By what I know so far, if we have the same .docx and we would be able to make Logos relate the anchor to its proper Personal Book on each member's PC, it is done! However, I understand LPBBs number/name will vary, so the link is broken.

The problem is indeed that the PBs when compiled on PCs under different Logos/Faithlife accounts, they will not be the same resource, i.e. - as you mentioned - they are different resources with individually different identifiers/filenames.

Now, a year ago, when I added a different PC from the original PC where I had compiled PBs, I was able to transfer these files without recompiling them to the new PC and access them there because Logos was running under the same Faithlife account as on the previous computer. In other words, these PBs were accessible, just as other Logos resources, because their identifier and filename was recognized because they were being used by the same Logos user account as before.

Now, it seems that the solution to your problem could be that the Logos users in your group would need to have one Logos "multi-user" account. I wonder if Logos/Faithlife offers such. I seem to remember years back reading about licenses for seminaries, churches, etc. where perhaps such multi-user packages (priced with different levels for different numbers of users) were talked about. A call to a Faithlife representative, customer service would likely be a step to find out.

As Justin mentioned, I don't think there will be further developments in regards to the PBB tool to provide the functionality you have in mind.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248341#Comment_1248341

Now, it seems that the solution to your problem could be that the Logos users in your group would need to have one Logos "multi-user" account. I wonder if Logos/Faithlife offers such.

No.

The problem is indeed that the PBs when compiled on PCs under different Logos/Faithlife accounts, they will not be the same resource, i.e. - as you mentioned - they are different resources with individually different identifiers/filenames.

Here is the only solution I can come up with... but it would be a lot of work.

Find a way to share the Word doc. Do whatever needs to be done by whomever.
Have ONE person on ONE computer compile the book.
Share the compiled file
Have each person use the "scan" command to import the book.
If any changes need to be made, the process would need to be repeated.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248361#Comment_1248361

4. Have each person use the "scan" command to import the book.

Most probably they won't be able to see it - unless they share a Logos ID as Wolfgang suggested - since (my understanding) the PBs are licensed only to the creator. Really shareable PBs were once thought about (up to the point of a sharing platform and even a kind of self-publishing content) but the idea was scrapped by Faithlife.

Possibly if the 100 books are booklets with limited amount of text, maybe even commentary on the bible or other available texts, they could be shared as a notebook rather than a PB. Notes (as well as Community Notes - those work probably better for a collaborative project) are shareable among a group. But maybe a sharepoint server or using google docs is really the better alternative here.

Wolfgang Schneider

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248361#Comment_1248361

Here is the only solution I can come up with... but it would be a lot of work.

Find a way to share the Word doc. Do whatever needs to be done by whomever.

Have ONE person on ONE computer compile the book.

Share the compiled file

Have each person use the "scan" command to import the book.

If any changes need to be made, the process would need to be repeated.

This is essentially the process I am thinking of ... BUT I doubt that step 4 will work, if you are doing a scan from a user account other than the one under which the PB was compiled.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248370#Comment_1248370

It is my understanding that the scan command does work in this type of situation. Of course, you would want to experiment first before exerting too much effort revising the .docx file.

Wolfgang Schneider

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248374#Comment_1248374

JT,

my mail is "editor AT bibelcenter.de" ... I have a private question, would you send me a mail please?

Cheers,
Wolfgang

Thiago Samico

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248365#Comment_1248365

Possibly if the 100 books are booklets with limited amount of text, maybe even commentary on the bible or other available texts, they could be shared as a notebook rather than a PB. Notes (as well as Community Notes - those work probably better for a collaborative project) are shareable among a group. But maybe a sharepoint server or using google docs is really the better alternative here.

No, some are booklets (minor themes), but there are some full books with more than 100 pages.

Well, I was indeed afraid of these hindrances...

I'll try to experiment with the group and let you know here; any suggestion or hint would be welcome!

If it doesn't work, I'll have DOCX converted into markdown and use Obsidian for the project. Still, it is a shame that a rocket science software like Logos doesn't provide a group interaction alternative over a DOCX file in a collaborative way through its UI.

Thanks!

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248370#Comment_1248370

Here is the only solution I can come up with... but it would be a lot of work.

Find a way to share the Word doc. Do whatever needs to be done by whomever.

Have ONE person on ONE computer compile the book.

Share the compiled file

Have each person use the "scan" command to import the book.

If any changes need to be made, the process would need to be repeated.

This is essentially the process I am thinking of ... BUT I doubt that step 4 will work, if you are doing a scan from a user account other than the one under which the PB was compiled.

Part of Personal Book compilation is creating resource information & personal license that is needed for "scan" to find licensed resource.

FYI: my "scan" command found a compiled pbb resource, but could not identify it (since that pbb had not been compiled for my demo user).

Keep Smiling [:)]

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1248466#Comment_1248466

Part of Personal Book compilation is creating resource information & personal license that is needed for "scan" to find licensed resource.

FYI: my "scan" command found a compiled pbb resource, but could not identify it (since that pbb had not been compiled for my demo user).

So it does NOT work, right? Thanks for clarifying. [Y]

So here is my new recommendation:

The word document will have to be shared among the users and updated as necessary with each person compiling it themselves.