How often do you hold down the option key when using Accordance? Holding down this simple modifier key can open up a host of powerful features you may not have known were available. Yesterday we showed how you can option-click the close icon of any pane, tab, or zone to close all the other panes, tabs, or zones. Today I want to show how you can option-click any verse to “bookmark” it.
Let’s say I want to put together a list of every verse that mentions James the brother of Jesus. I can do a search for the word “James,” but that also turns up references to James the son of Alphaeus and James the son of Zebedee. I need an easy way to sift through the results and isolate the verses I’m after. The simplest way to do this is to option-click each verse which speaks of James the brother of Jesus. Doing so will put a blue bookmark icon in the right margin of the text pane.
Once I’ve bookmarked the verses I’m interested in, it’s easy to place all those verses in a separate Reference List that I can save and use in a variety of ways. Simply choose New Reference List Tab from the Add Marked Verses To submenu of the Selection menu. A new Reference List tab will open containing only those verses I marked.
Now for the pièce de resistance. If I want to copy that list of verses into a word processing document, I need only select all the verses in the Reference List window and choose Reference from the Copy As submenu of the Edit menu. Accordance will then copy a nicely formatted string of references to the clipboard. Like this: Matt 13:55; 27:56; Mark 6:3; 15:40; 16:1; Luke 24:10; Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:9, 12; James 1:1; Jude 1:1.
Marking verses is an easy way to sift through your search results to get the exact set of verses you’re looking for. All it takes is an option-click.