Imagine a super translator  …able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. What qualities would this person have?  First of all, they would be fluent in both the Biblical source language and in the target language.  That way they would be able to understand the source text perfectly, and would also be able to find the best way to render it in the target language.  Then, they would probably have a perfect memory, so that they would be consistent in their expressions and terminology throughout the text whenever possible. …  read more

Paratext 9 has been out for seven months now, and it is clear from the feedback we received that most people who have upgraded are enjoying it. The upgrade path is extremely smooth since there is no migration process, allowing teams to upgrade their users one at a time as they feel ready. Now, as we patiently wait for everyone to upgrade, Paratext 9 is getting all the improvements that users like you have requested, while Paratext 8 is only in maintenance mode.  Occasionally we discover users who are holding on tightly to Paratext 8, claiming that they’ll only move to Paratext 9 when someone forces them to.  This is certainly not the result we were hoping for! Recently, one user helped us to understand the root of this problem. …  read more

Now that many teams are using project plans, some are reporting having more merge conflicts than usual.  This article is the first in a series that will discuss what causes merge conflicts and how to reduce the number of conflicts a team is having. First, let’s look at what causes merge conflicts.

What Set of Circumstances can Lead to Merge Conflicts?

Understanding what causes merge conflicts is key to preventing them. The Paratext Help describes when merge conflicts occur:

A Send/Receive merge conflict for a project occurs when the project copy being received and the project copy being sent from your computer contain a different change in the same verse. …  read more

In Paratext 9, you can have multiple text collections open at the same time.  Several users have contacted us to say that this is very useful, and they think we should tell people about this feature.

For instance, a translator working in India might want to use one text collection for English translations and a second text collection for translations in Indian languages.  These two text collections can be used at the same time:

Because text collections can be large, it is often helpful to put them in autohide, especially if you have more than one text collection.  To do this, right-click on the blue title bar and select “move to autohide”. …  read more

Paratext has a feature called Paratext Live that lets a group of users edit the same document at the same time, keeping their versions up to date on each computer as they work together.  This can be used, for instance, when a group is discussing a text, allowing several people to edit the text and improve on each other’s changes, evaluating the result together before agreeing on the best translation.  This is similar to the kind of collaborative editing found in editing environments like Google Docs. …  read more