Requirements for the text to create modules

Index modules | Wanted modules | Needed software


One can find the Bible on the Internet in many different formats. Some of them are good to be used for MyBible modules creation while others are not good at all.

Encoding

We use encoding - UTF-8 without BOM. This encoding is used on most of websites on the Internet. It correctly displays all languages.

Microsoft Windows uses the encoding ANSI, it is more convenient for each language have their own encoding.
For Russia, this is Windows-1251.
For the Western European languages - Windows-1252, and so on

If you downloaded the file to a different encoding, you can convert it in Notepad++. If a group of files, you can convert all of them via ANSI2Uni. If you downloaded the file to a different encoding, you can convert it in Notepad ++. If a group of files, you can convert all of them via ANSI2Uni.

A text prepared for conversion into a MyBible module looks like this:

10,1,1,"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
10,1,2,"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
10,1,3,"And God said, ""Let there be light,"" and there was light."
10,1,4,"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness."
...

That is, one verse (or one article) per a text line, with coordinates (book number, chapter number, verse number).

A module source being suggested to the MyBible team shall be in a format allowing a conversion to the above format.

Good for creating modules:

  • Text files (not .DOC, but .TXT or .CSV).
  • Sometimes a .DOC may be good. But Microsoft Word has a really flexible format, so each concrete .DOC needs to be evaluated separately.
  • In most cases a file of .mybible or .SQLite3 type is very good.
  • .XML files are well structured, so usually they are a very good source for us.

Not good for creating modules:

  • Most .PDF files - they often contain just images of scans (impossible to convert); even if they contain a text, it is usually difficult to convert/format.
  • All .DJVU - these contain low-resolution scan images while we need a text.
  • Modules for paid programs - we do not crack somebody else's locked/encrypted modules.
  • Online Bibles. To take a text from a website is a titanic work - nobody has such an extra time.