If you have Paratext 7 installed, your data is not being backed up to the Digital Bible Library, and can not be synchronized with more recent versions. It is urgent that you upgrade!
Page Contents
If you are using Paratext 7 or earlier:
- Find your Paratext 7 registration code and upgrade your user registration. If you can’t find your old code you may contact support (See bottom).
- Download and install Paratext. Follow the instructions on the Downloads page.
- After installation: Install your preferred text resources using File > Download/Install Resources.
- Follow the instructions below to migrate your data.
- When finished, you should uninstall Paratext 7.
Paratext 9 does not include the project migration tools. You must first install Paratext 8 and migrate the data into it before moving to Paratext 9.
Preparation
By the Team
The administrator must have an authoritative copy of the data. This means that if you were using Send/Receive in Paratext 7 between team members, every team member must send/receive their data to a flash drive, then the administrator also does send/receive to the flash drive. It is best if this process is repeated a second time, with the administrator again doing send/receive last. This ensures that all of the team’s changes have been integrated into a master copy.
If this is not feasible due to the nature of the team, you probably already have a working process where the administrator is confident in the accuracy of the text. You can proceed with this copy without all of the send/receive activity.
By the Project Administrator
- Do a send/receive so your computer has all the latest changes. Tell everyone not to do any work in Paratext 7.
- In Paratext 8, go to File > Open Project/Resource. Make sure the box at lower left “Show Paratext 7 projects” is checked.
- Select your project.
- v7 means Paratext 8 sees it in the Paratext 7 projects folder.
- Unregistered means it isn’t registered for Paratext 8.
- Click OK.
Paratext will open the migration dialogue box. Now that you are here, there are two main steps to migration, each covered in detail below: Project Registration and Data Migration
Project Registration
- If your project is already registered, skip to Migration below
Click Register Online.
The registry form should appear (picture below of the first section). Paratext 8 will copy the project short name (Paratext project on the form) and the project full name from the Paratext 7 project. The registration form shows which fields are required, by displaying a red asterisk. Later you can change the project full name but you cannot change the project short name.
Description: add more information here if you wish to. There are also fields for more information about the project in the second part of the form.
Language: The language name has to match an entry in the Ethnologue database. Click the “Advanced” box to fill in more information if you need to distinguish the language of your project from the language with that Ethnologue code. The advanced form looks like this, where choices you select under Script, Region or Variant add extra letters and numbers to the identifier.
Scope refers to which books you intend to translate, for example the whole Bible, New Testament, Whole Bible plus Deuterocanon, Portions, etc.
Translation Type: choose First if this is the first translation in this language, choose Revision if it is a revision of a previous translation, choose New if it is a new translation but a previous translation does exist for the language.
Country select the country or countries where this translation is intended to be used.
Rights holder choose from the list the likely rights holder for this translation. If the eventual rights holder is an organization yet to be formed or recognized, choose something from the list and edit the registration later.
More information The second section of the registration form contains several places you can add supplementary information about your project. None of these fields are required.
Visibility
- Standard is the default choice. Information about the project is not available to the public, but only to registered Paratext users within the same organization.
- Test or Training is good for testing projects or projects you only create to use in a training program or workshop.
- Confidential is for situations where entering information about your project online is a security concern. Information is restricted to members of the project and to those who manage the registration data for the organization.
Consent
The last requirement for registration is to indicate that you will comply with the Forum of Bible Agencies International translation guidelines (a link is provided) and that you agree to keep a backup copy of your project in the Digital Bible library. The Digital Bible library will not share your project with anyone without your express permission.
When finished filling out the registration information, click Submit Registration. If the information is complete, the site should tell you that the registration was accepted, and when you go back to Paratext, it should have detected that the project is now registered.
If later you wish to update or change your project registration, in Paratext you can go to Project > Project Properties and Settings and click the Manage registration link at the bottom of the General tab. Or you can go in your web browser to registry.paratext.org, find your project and click “Edit”.
Data Migration
If you are migrating a project that is already registered, the migration dialog should show this:
If Paratext is saying registration is required, click on the Register Online link and follow the steps described above in registration.
The five checkboxes in the Migrate project data section are items you need to check off before the migration can proceed. These are similar to the checkboxes you had to check when you first set up your project for send/receive, and the motivation for them is similar. We want to be sure your team knows about and is planning on migrating, that you have all the latest changes on your computer, and that everyone knows the project should not be edited any more in Paratext 7 after migrating, Check these boxes if you are ready, then click “Migrate now”. “Migrate later” is not an option to schedule the migration for a later time, it is the way to back out of the migration dialog without doing anything if you are not ready to migrate now.
When you click “Migrate now”, Paratext 8 should copy the project to your Paratext 8 folder and do a send/receive. So when the migration is finished, the project should be on the server so team members can send/receive to get a copy of the newly migrated project.
Paratext 8 is able to check if the Paratext 7 project on your computer has new changes since the last send/receive. If it detects this, it gives you a warning.
If you get the warning, click OK which stops the migration process, mark a point in the Project History in Paratext 7, then restart the migration in Paratext 8.
