Paragraph indentation for user-imported Bible text

[jcpsmith]

I am working on preparing portions of my own Bible translation for importing into Accordance, but have run across an obstacle in paragraph formatting. I would like, if possible, to have the option to indent lines and/or paragraphs, either within a single verse, or across several verses.

 

Is it possible to include indented paragraphs for user-imported Bible text? If so how can this be coded in the .txt file?

 

Thanks!

 

John

[Steven S]

Hi @jcpsmith. If by "indenting paragraphs," you mean indenting the first line, then, yes, this is possible by placing a horizontal tab character (U+0009) between the pilcrow (¶) beginning the paragraph and the first word. For example, here's the paragraph of John 1:1-2 from a user Bible that has the first line indented:

 

John 1:1 ¶     In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 He was with God in the beginning.

 

For clarity, here's the same paragraph with whitespace visible ("·" represents a space; "␉" represents a horizontal tab):

 

John·1:1·¶·␉In·the·beginning·was·the·Word,·and·the·Word·was·with·God,·and·the·Word·was·God.
John·1:2·He·was·with·God·in·the·beginning.

 

One challenge you may face is that your text editor might be configured to replace a horizontal tab with a fixed number of spaces, so you'll need to ensure you configure it appropriately.

 

However, if by "indenting paragraphs," you mean something like the case where the entire paragraph is indented (e.g., Gen. 1:11-13 in the NIV 2011), or the case of a hanging indent (e.g., Gen. 1:1-2 in the NIV 2011), then I'm pretty sure that isn't possible. In my own user Bibles, I've employed workarounds for such cases to provide some sort of formatting clue (e.g., indenting the first line with two tabs in the case where the entire paragraph should be indented), but it's not entirely satisfying. 

[jcpsmith]

Thank you Steven! I appreciate you taking the time to reply.