How about an option to superscript verse numbers?

[ErikJon]

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I am not sure whether this option is already available somewhere, or whether I have mentioned it before. I apologize if it has already been addressed.

The idea is to enable TheWord to copy and paste long passages of Scripture with individual verses present as superscripted numbers, before each verse within the paragraph-formatted passage. This has been the traditional way of displaying long paragraphs for many years, in publications, as it allows the reader to quickly identify which part of the passage is which. It also makes it easier for a preacher who has printed out all his notes, to find his way through a passage of text while preaching, and to identify quickly for the listeners which part he is referring to, at any given moment. Of course, he could choose to print each verse individually, but it defeats the purpose of having a paragraph, which is to separate main ideas within a long text.

Although the point is easy to understand, I will offer a simple illustration.

Supposing I use the "copy verses" dialog box to copy John 3:1-13, for example, in paragraph format, with the option of displaying individual verse numbers before each verse, so that, when reading the passage, I can quickly identify which verse is which.

When I paste the passage, it looks like this (notice the verse numbers):

1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. 3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 9Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 10Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? 11Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 12If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 13And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (Jn 3.1-13)

Of course, all the text is there, but with the giant-sized verse numbers, it is a little harder to read. Moreover, from a typographical point of view, it looks rather ugly. I could go through and manually select each verse number in my word processor, and choose "superscript," but when writing 100 pages of teaching material, as I often do, this becomes a very tedious process. Moreover, I know of know word processor that offers the option of finding and replacing Bible-verse-numbers automatically throughout a document, with superscripted counterparts.

About twenty years ago I was using QuickVerse, which came with some sort of macro for that purpose, but I have never been able to do it with any other program.

It is just an idea, but it would be nice to have a "placeholder" that defined any verse number as a superscripted version of that number. I am sure that it would only work within a formatting-sensitive context (not when copying as plain text), but it would certainly be useful.
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[JG]

Put ^%v as a placeholder before each verse. Then you can easily search and replace.

[ErikJon]

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Thank you, Jon. It sounds like a decent work-around, in the meantime.

But I'm afraid that I don't understand. If I use that placeholder, I get the following when I paste (whether pasting within TheWord or whether without):

¹ There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: ²The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. ³Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ⁴Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? ⁵Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. ⁸The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. ⁹Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? ¹⁰Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? ¹¹Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. ¹²If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? ¹³And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (Jn 3.1-13)

If I do a search-and-replace using "^%v" as my key word, neither the editor in TW nor my word processor returns any results.

Did I misunderstand you?
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[JG]

You mentioned using an external word-processor.

Of course, all the text is there, but with the giant-sized verse numbers, it is a little harder to read. Moreover, from a typographical point of view, it looks rather ugly. I could go through and manually select each verse number in my word processor, and choose "superscript," but when writing 100 pages of teaching material, as I often do, this becomes a very tedious process. Moreover, I know of know word processor that offers the option of finding and replacing Bible-verse-numbers automatically throughout a document, with superscripted counterparts.

I thought you would not need more than the suggestion I gave so that you could record a simple macro (to search and replace) in Word or Open Office that would give you exactly what you needed for the position of the verse numbers.

The other way is to copy directly from the Bible view and you should get closer to what you need I would have thought.

[ErikJon]

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Oh, I see. I was supposed to paste that expression into OpenOffice and make a macro with it? I'll try it.
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[ErikJon]

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Oh boy. I've just discovered a good way to get my superscript numbers automatically:
1. Copy any quantity of verses to a new "verse list."
2. Select all those verses from "verse list."
3. Copy them into memory.
4. Paste them where desired (or drag them to a bookview window.)

Of course, the only drawback is that the user cannot format his Bible reference automatically in this way; if he wants it at the end of the verse and in parentheses, he is out of luck; the only option is at the beginning of the verse (and in a different color). He also gets the translation name at the end, whether he likes it or not.

This brings up a good point: if TW can transfer that nice formatting in the way described, it seems that it ought to be able to do it even better from the "copy verses" dialog box, so that he can tailor his reference formatting as desired.

I'm not complaining, but just making an observation.
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[JG]

Thanks for the suggestion.