21 replies to this topic

[Bret Hicks]

I requested this before in a thread on what people would love to see in Accordance 10, but in light of several requests recently and to make it easy to track, I am putting it here again. Thanks for all you all do for us to help us study the Word!


If I could wish for one major improvement in Accordance 10 it would be to really beef up the export options and features. I had posted this a while back, and think it is a MAJOR need. I have to believe that most of us using Accordance want to get information out of Accordance and into a word processor and a presentation program. As it stands, the export feature is a major weak link. It lets you get basic information out, but the formatting options (or really lack thereof) are a major shortcoming - especially in light of how often I export text. Here are the options I had requested earlier:


1. The ability to save multiple different citation formats for different types of copying. For example, I copy from Accordance into Keynote for Sunday sermon presentations. In these, I am typically using a large font (42 point or greater) and want the reference citation below the text. However, I am also preparing notes for various handouts, and in these I typically use a 12 point font and place the reference before the text. It would be nice to have the ability to have several of these citation formats saved. Then I could just choose the one that I want for my present purposes.

2. The ability to have the verse numbers superscripted in the export. As it stands now, I have to manually superscript them if I want it to look like virtually every print Bible I have ever seen, and this is a waste of time.

3. The ability to designate a font to be used in export. I should be able to have it export in Times New Roman if that is the font in the document in which I am inserting text from Accordance, yet not have to change my font in Accordance to Times New Roman. (And I know I can use Command-Alt-Shift-V to get the font desired, but then I would lose superscripted verse numbers, which I want even more....)

4. The ability to select a color for the font (again different from the one in Accordance) would be nice. All of my fonts in Accordance tend to be dark (usually black), but in Keynote a dark background with a white font works better. It would be nice if Accordance could do that step for me.

5. If I do not have the book reference copied, Accordance inserts a couple of blank spaces before the verse begins. When I am pasting into Keynote, these have to be removed. It would be nice to tell Accordance to not insert these spaces.

The lack of these features do not prevent me from using the export. However, they do mean that I have to repeatedly do simple steps that could be done for me by Accordance.


I would really LOVE to see this incorporated into Accordance 10.


In Christ,


Bret

• Quote
• MultiQuote
• Edit

[RichardHendricks]

+1

[Randy Cue]

+1 (or is it +2?)

Soli Deo Gloria,
Randy

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

+1, especially #s 1 and 4. I use colors for text in Accordance, but usually want to be able to paste in black.

[Randy Cue]

Now that version 10 is out, is this subject going to be addressed any time soon?

Soli Deo Gloria,
Randy

[Ken Simpson]

Hi,
I do these relatively regularly in my preaching as well and find it works very well.

I am happy with the way Accordance exports the text, specially with export as citation - this works perfectly for my Keynotes, no matter what colour (sorry English spelling I use).

My Keynotes are already set up the way I want them to be, I use a preaching template with a shaded background and 48 point white text. I copy the text as a citation in Acordance (Edit menu->Copy as->Citation or CTRL-CMD-C) and then "Paste and Match Style". It doesn't transfer Accordance colours - (it only does that if you do a straight copy and paste rather than using one of the subsets of the copy command).

Similarly in my handouts, I "Copy and Match Style" in Pages, or "Copy as Unformatted text" in Word. Then I just apply my style to the text.

The only issue is if I am quoting a large block of text and what to subdivide into verses with references within the text. Using this method I can't imagine how that would be done. I am not suggesting that a more nuanced copying might not be useful, I am just suggesting how I do it in my weekly workflow.

Edited by Ken Simpson, 27 August 2012 - 07:54 PM.

[Bret Hicks]

Ken,

I do the same process you describe. But that leaves you with all of the verses not superscripted - a MAJOR flaw and hassle to have to fix every time I copy text into Keynote. And if you do the paste and match style you will never be able to have verses superscripted. Thus, to get the text the way you want it, the settings must be in Accordance, and they need to allow us to create and several multiple different citation formats. So, sorry, but we are doing exactly the same thing, and I still think it is a major shortfall in Accordance, and one of the areas that other Bible programs clearly outstrip Accordance.

In Christ,

Bret

[Ken Simpson]

OK. Thanks Bret. I don't find the lack of verse superscription to be an issue, in fact mostly I prefer it. I find that unless I am quoting a large block of text it is basically superfluous, and I don't often quote large blocks of text.

However, it's always helpful to hear what different users want, and what their "frustration moments" are with Accordance. I'm not a developer, but I know that they read nearly everything that's happening on the forums.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Edited by Ken Simpson, 27 August 2012 - 08:06 PM.

[Bret Hicks]

I agree Ken. Each user tends to want different things, and I think it is great that the forums are here so we can share how we do things, what we would like to see, etc. And I know the developers at Accordance do read and answer on the blogs. So, here hoping this request will get attention and get moved to the top of the future new features list Hope you have a great day (or night by now probably....)


In Christ,


Bret

[Randy Cue]

Hope these issues are addressed in the next update .

Soli Deo Gloria,
Randy

[Randy Cue]

Still looking for these issues to be addressed.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Randy

[Helen Brown]

They will be, but we have so many planned improvements. Our developers do their best to prioritize them, but we cannot keep all the people happy all of the time.

[Randy Cue]

Thank you for your reply, Helen. Understand your priorities are different than mine, and I hope I did not sound whinny or pushy.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Randy

[Helen Brown]

No, we appreciate the feedback and it reminds us of what we need to do, eventually.

[Randy Cue]

Just wondered if there has been any progress here or if some sort of timetable has been set. Thanks for all of the hard work that all at Accordance are doing.

 

Soli Deo Gloria,

Randy

[jwoyak]

1. I also think the citation features could be improved.  A few suggestions:
   1. The option is available to scale the font size to whatever size you want (almost always 12pt for me), but the quotation marks that the program automatically adds (with the "copy as citation" feature) will be the size of your default text in Accordance (18pt for me).  Thus, whenever I "copy [a verse] as citation" from Accordance, I have to resize the quotation marks.  It's really helpful that they're added, but it would be way more helpful if the quotation marks were added in the same font size as the scaled text that is exported (e.g., 12 pt).  
   2. If there were an option available to export in a certain font that would be helpful.  For instance, all my seminary papers are in Times New Roman or Helvetica (or a similar sans serif font).  When citing verses from Accordance, the text always pastes in Lucida Grande (and I have no idea why).  
   3. The "copy as citation" feature also pastes the text with an odd tab scheme that I often have to reformat.  This is more nit-picking now, but I'm not sure why it does that (I see it's usefulness when copying and pasting poetry), but if there were preferences that governed it (and whether or not to use it at all), that would be helpful.
   4. Perhaps there could be an option to paste a citation with the same formatting as the document into which you are pasting it.  I have no idea how to do that, but I know that other programs can perform that function.  ESVBible.org does this when you copy from the ESV website on their text.  In fact, I often copy from their website if I'm citing the ESV because there's no "clean up" I have to do to the text.  If Accordance could have this feature, my first 3 suggestions would be superfuous!  

Edited by jwoyak, 11 February 2013 - 05:28 PM.

[Ken Simpson]

Hi jwoyak,

most wordprocessing programs have a "copy and match formatting" or "copy as plain text" option - Word, Mellel, Nisus Writer Pro, Bean. Libreoffice 4, to name just a few - that mean the formatting is the same when it comes into your document. It also normalises the size of your citation markers if that's a problem. I don't use the scale to size option, I just *always* use the "paste as unformatted text" option (or the analogue in whatever program I am using.

 

THis also means I don't need a special font in formatting because it just pastes in to whatever the formatting is that I have currently active.

 

I also turn off "retain formatting as poetry". It just annoys me.

[Tom]

I wanted to add my voice to this request. I, too, do a lot of exporting into Keynote and other applications. Bret has laid out my requests and wishes quite clearly. I am sure others would appreciate these improved exporting options as well. It does seem like flexible exporting should be thought of as a pretty fundamental element to the program.

 

Tom

Edited by Tom, 12 February 2013 - 09:21 AM.

[Rick Bennett]

Addressing these issues (or at least some) is slated for 10.2 (and future dot revs of 10.2.x). 

[Randy Cue]

Addressing these issues (or at least some) is slated for 10.2 (and future dot revs of 10.2.x). 

Rick,

Thanks for your information. It is the news that I have been waiting for !

 

Soli Deo Gloria,

Randy