We are pleased to announce that the Paratext 9 final release is now available on the Paratext download page. Paratext 9 will help translators work more efficiently through improved menus and window layouts, and by providing easier access to reference materials through Enhanced Resources. The Paratext 9 beta has been available since mid-June, and has been used in active translation projects and translator’s workshops, where it has been well-received.

Why switch to Paratext 9?

Paratext 9 is the current released version, which will be continuously improved. Some people upgrade simply because they like to use the latest and greatest software, others prefer to wait. You should try Paratext 9 now if you: …  read more

Applying a Project Plan to an existing project is one of the biggest frustrations for teams that are starting to use the Project Plan to manage assignments and keep track of their progress.  You may have a dozen books that are already consultant checked and some that have already been printed.  Yet, when you or your administrator applies a new plan to your project, you find that you are unable to mark tasks as done for work that is already completed.  The Stages Table provides a simple grid (below) that is supposed to make this easy, but as you will soon see, it doesn’t work as expected. …  read more

We are pleased to announce that Paratext 9 is now available as a beta version. Paratext 9 will help translators work more efficiently, creating better layouts, and providing easier access to reference materials through Enhanced Resources. It has already gone through a lot of testing and users have been very happy with it. You may encounter some minor problems that we aren’t aware of yet, so there will continue to be some minor changes over the next couple months as we work towards the official release. However, we are confident that it is stable enough for everyday use. …  read more

Introduction

Have you ever discovered quoted text in a footnote, but can’t find that text in the verse? This happens when the verse text is updated and the footnote is no longer relevant.   Have you ever struggled to verify the references cited in a footnote, or had trouble keeping book abbreviations consistent?  This article will show you how to make your footnotes in a way that Paratext can help you check them for problems like these.

Quoted Text in a Footnote

Any time you quote words from the translated text in your footnote, you should mark them with the quoted text marker “fq”.  This will let Paratext know that the word or phrase is a quotation and the quoted text check will alert you when the verse and footnote no longer match. During the life of a project, it is very common to change the renderings of biblical terms of modify the spellings, causing footnotes to be out of date.  Running the Basic Checks on your project will ensure that the quoted text always matches what is in the verse.

How to Mark Text with fq Marker

There are two main ways to apply the quoted text marker.  The first is insert the footnote while the word or phrase you wish to comment on is highlighted.  This method copies the text from the verse, and pastes it into the footnote with the appropriate fq markers.  The second is to manually insert the markers and type the text into the footnote. We will show the first method below:

Insert Footnote after Highlighting Text

Right-click on the selection and choose Insert Footnote:

Paratext creates the footnote inserting the reference, the fq marker and the word or phrase from the text.

Type what you want to say about the text. If the footnote will include an alternative to the text as it appears in the verse, use the Quoted Text Alternative marker fqa.  Because fqa  text is different, Paratext will not compare it with the verse text.

When you use fq markers for footnote text, Paratext will ensure that the quoted text matches what is in the verse and will alert you if they are out of sync.

 …  read more