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This User Guide will introduce you to the features of PocketBible. If you're in a hurry try the QuickStart Guide. Then, when you have time, you can browse the help more thoroughly.
PocketBible is easy to use but this ease hides a lot of power. You'll benefit greatly from reading through this book after you've had a chance to use the program for a while.
If you have questions while using PocketBible you can open this User Guide at any time. On the iPhone or iPod touch, select the Menu button, then Help. On the iPad, select the question-mark Help button on the toolbar, or Help from the menu.
Laridian PocketBible Software and Documentation Copyright © 2011 by Craig Rairdin and Jeff Wheeler. All Rights Reserved. Distributed under license by Laridian, Inc.
“Laridian” and “PocketBible” are registered trademarks of Laridian, Inc. Other marks are the property of their respective owners.
This User Guide discusses the features of PocketBible version 2.x.x. (For simplicity, we'll just refer to it as “version 2”.) If you do not yet use version 2 or following, we recommend that you update to version 2. (It's free!)
Updating Prior to 2.0.0
If you are using a version of PocketBible prior to version 2, such as version 1.4.7, then neither iTunes nor the App Store will notify you of an available update to version 2. You need to replace the version of the program you have with version 2, which is called simply, “PocketBible“ at the App Store. So if you have any of these products:
You need to replace it with PocketBible version 2, which is called “PocketBible” on the App Store. Before you delete your current version of PocketBible, follow these steps:
Updating Following 2.0.0
iTunes and the App Store will inform you of updates to PocketBible and help you update to the most recent version. Your personal data (notes, bookmarks, highlights, etc.), installed books, and any applied upgrades will be retained.
Version 2 of PocketBible includes all of the features of PocketBible FREE, plus the ability to buy books from the Apple App Store in addition to directly from Laridian.
Further, PocketBible also includes some advanced features that can be purchased for a modest upgrade fee. This User Guide discusses both the basic features (which are really anything but “basic”) of the free version as well as the advanced features that can be purchased. Advanced features are identified as “(Advanced Feature)” when encountered in this User Guide.
To learn more about and purchase the upgrade, select Menu | Buy/Apply Upgrade.
If you have purchased the upgrade directly from Laridian, or have previously purchased the upgrade through the Apple App Store, select Menu | Buy/Apply Upgrade to apply your upgrade to PocketBible on this device.
It doesn't take very long to read through this help file, but we know that you may be in a hurry to get started as soon as possible. So here is the short version.
The iPhone and iPad versions of PocketBible are similar and are both documented here. Differences should be obvious from the context. PocketBible runs identically on the iPhone and iPod touch. The iPad, with its larger screen, has a slightly different user interface. Throughout this document, instructions specifically for the iPad are highlighted in light blue.
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Key iPad user interface differences:
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Registration
Important Note: If you have previously purchased directly from Laridian, or previously registered a product with Laridian, then you already have a Laridian Customer Account. In order to gain access to your previously purchased products on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, it is important that you use your existing Laridian Customer Account when you register. Do not Create New Account if you already have a customer account. Only create a a new account if you have never purchased or registered directly with Laridian before.
Some features discussed in this User Guide may not be available until you have registered. If you are unable to find a menu item discussed herein, verify that you have registered PocketBible.
Getting Around:
Opening Books; Switching Between Books
Installing Bibles and Books:
Note: when you login to your Laridian Customer Account, you may also be prompted to enter your Apple ID. This step enables PocketBible to assure that any purchases you have made in the Apple App Store are properly reflected in your account.
Splitting the Screen
Splitting the Screen (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
On the iPhone and iPod touch, PocketBible allows the screen to be split into two panes. On the iPad, and when the advanced features have been purchased and applied on the iPhone / iPod touch, up to five panes may be opened.
Additional shortcuts are provided to select the number of panes. (You can adjust other display-oriented settings at the same time.)
Show Panes in Tabs (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
To show panes in tabs, instead of in tiles:
View the Context Menu
View the Context Menu (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
Bibles:
Managing User-Created Data (Notes, Highlights, Bookmarks, and Reading Progress)
Searching:
Devotionals (“daily reading” books):
Miscellaneous:
We think PocketBible is very intuitive but we've found that it helps to understand some of the concepts that we as the creators of the program may take for granted. This section will explain those concepts. It's not our intent to explain how to do everything mentioned here, but rather to define terminology and explain the range of operations that can be done. To find out how to do some of the operations described here, refer to the rest of this User Guide.
The PocketBible screen generally has a title bar at the top indicating which book is active and telling you your location in that book. Below that is the text of the book, and below that is the toolbar which contains buttons that let you quickly perform the most common PocketBible operations. On the iPad there is also a Toolbox located with the toolbar. The Toolbox contains five tool panels, each selectable with a tab, that allow you to view highlights, bookmarks, notes, and search results.
You can divide the screen into multiple panes. Each pane has its own title bar and its own list of open books. The active pane is “brighter” than the other pane(s) to indicate that it is the one on which searches and other operations will be performed. To activate a different pane, just tap it.
We'll use the word book to refer to Bibles, reference books, devotionals — any kind of book you can read in PocketBible. We may also use the word “book” to refer to a book of the Bible, but that will always be obvious by context.
PocketBible assigns an abbreviation to every book to make it easier to refer to. Some of these, like “KJV” and “NIV” are obvious to most readers. Others, like “NNIBD” and “ME” are less familiar and take some getting used to. However, you'll quickly come to know the abbreviations of your favorite Bibles and reference books and their use will become natural.
When you open a book in PocketBible, it is opened into the active pane. Books you previously opened in that pane are still there; they're just hidden by the most recently opened book (the active book). Operations like searching, bookmarking, and highlighting apply to the active book.
When we say reference or Bible reference we mean the book, chapter and verse that identifies a particular Bible verse, like “John 3:16”.
When we say search or find we're referring to searching the text of a book for a word or phrase, not searching for a particular Bible verse by its reference. We'll say go to to refer to going to a particular verse by entering its reference. When we say lookup or look up we're referring to looking up a word in a dictionary, not looking up a verse in the Bible.
When you perform a search, your entire library (all of your installed books) is searched. On the iPhone, you can only see the results for the current book. On the iPad, the Toolbox shows how many times the particular word or phrase occurs in each book in your library. When you select a book from the library list you will be shown the results for that particular book.
Navigating can refer to viewing pages of text in the vicinity of the current text by turning pages, or going to the previous or next chapter, or going to an entirely different verse.
Most navigation takes place using touches and gestures. Where you touch and how you gesture determines your intent. We divide each book pane into nine tap zones. Each has a different action depending on the type of book you have open. Tapping in a zone causes its action to take place, which might be going to the next chapter in a Bible, going to the previous page, or going to the next reading in a daily devotional book.
Because the screen is often full of links to Bible verses, Strong's numbers, footnotes, or other information, tapping in a tap zone may activate a link instead of causing the tap zone action to happen. To avoid this, there are also gestures for each of the tap zones. Simply swipe your finger from the tap zone you want to activate toward the center of the pane. So a diagonal swipe from upper right to lower left causes the tap zone in the upper right corner of the screen to be activated while avoiding activating any links. Note that taps and swipes must be performed in the active pane to have any effect.
The toolbar is the row of buttons at the bottom of the screen. The buttons on the toolbar provide quick shortcuts to the operations that you would normally have to access through the menu, which is itself activated by the Menu button on the toolbar.
The contents of the toolbar may change depending on orientation. On the iPhone, there are more buttons available in landscape mode. On the iPad the toolbar is always located on the edge nearest the iPad Home button but its contents may change when you rotate the iPad.
The system status bar is the familiar iPhone bar that displays signal strength, network activity, and the current time. On the iPhone you can turn the status bar off to get more room for text. On the iPad it is always visible (per Apple's recommendations).
The title bar is at the top of each pane. The title bar displays the abbreviation we use to refer to the active book (such as NIV for the New International Version of the Bible) and an indication of your position in the book (the verse reference for Bibles and a subject heading for other books). If you have more than one book open in a given pane, tap the title bar to select a different book to see in that pane. The title bar can be disabled in Settings to make more room for text.
The current position, as displayed on the title bar for a given book, is always the position of the topmost line in the pane. For Bibles, if a line contains two or more verses, the verse containing the last word on the first displayed line is considered the current position of that Bible.
The Toolbox is a centralized location for all kinds of lists. There are five tool panels in the Toolbox, each accessible from a tab bar at one end of the Toolbox. Most tools have a library list containing a list of all your installed books and the number of items (bookmarks, highlights, search results, etc.) it found in each, and a results list containing the list of bookmarked, highlighted, or “found” passages in the selected book. The exception is the Note tool which shows the note for the verse or section of a book you select and gives you the ability to edit that note. You can create a new note by simply editing an empty note.
PocketBible can automatically synchronize your Bibles and commentaries to the active Bible. As you move around in the Bible with synchronization mode turned on, all your other open Bibles and commentaries (including those that aren't visible on the screen) will move to the current verse in the active Bible. Remember the current verse is the one on the top line of the screen, so while you may be reading a verse in the middle of the screen, thinking that is the “current” verse, the other commentaries and Bibles will be synchronized to the verse on the top line of the pane.
We also use the word synchronize to refer to the activity of intelligently merging your notes, highlights, bookmarks, and devotional reading progress between instances of PocketBible (or other Laridian Bible software) running on other devices. Whether we're referring to synchronizing your Bibles and commentaries to each other or referring to synchronizing user-created data with our server will be obvious from the context.
Many PocketBible functions are activated through the Context menu. To display the Context menu, tap-and-hold on the screen. To perform the tap-and-hold action, press your finger in one place in the active pane and hold it there until the Context menu appears. If you've purchased the advanced features, then a menu bar will appear instead of the Context menu. Select Menu on the menu bar to see the Context menu.
When the Context menu appears, it picks up the location of your touch and uses that to determine what verse you are pointing at (if a Bible is active) and what word you are pointing at.
If you've purchased the advanced features, you are able to select a range of text as small as a word and as large as several pages. The Context menu refers to this as the selection or the selected text. You can perform many of the same operations on the selected text as you can on a verse or passage. Select Selection Actions from the menu bar to perform actions on the selected text.
One use of the Context menu is to copy verses and passages to the pasteboard for pasting into other applications or into your PocketBible notes. (If you are a Windows user you're more accustomed to the term clipboard. We try to use the Apple terminology, which is pasteboard.)
When you select a Bible link in a book all of your Bibles (including those that are not open) will be asked to go to that verse. If link highlighting is turned on, the verse or verses you linked to will be highlighted in a special highlight color. This highlight is temporary. It will go away when you link to another Bible verse. It is not listed in your list of all highlighted verses. This feature can be disabled if desired.
When linking to a Bible verse, PocketBible makes sure that at least one of the currently open Bibles displays the verse. If the active Bible does not contain the verse, the preferred Bible is opened. If the preferred Bible does not contain the verse, then another installed Bible is chosen and is opened.
Bookmarks mark places in the text to which you may want to return. Bookmarks on Bible verses are shared between all Bibles. You can't set a bookmark on John 3:16 in the KJV and have it not operate in the NIV as well. Bookmarks can be placed in categories you define so that you can organize your work. A bookmark can be placed in several categories, or it can be placed in no category. When you delete a bookmark from a category, the bookmark is not deleted from any other categories it belongs to. When you delete an entire category, you're only deleting the category, not the bookmarks in it. Those bookmarks will show up as being uncategorized. If a bookmark that is moved in this manner is the same as another bookmark, then one of them is deleted so there is only one bookmark on any particular passage in the category at any one time.
When you set a bookmark in a book other than the Bible, it is actually placed at the start of the table of contents entry for the section of text you're reading. So don't be surprised when you return to a bookmark in a reference book and you find it is a few paragraphs earlier than what you remember setting it at.
You can highlight a verse in one of several colors. You can only highlight entire verses, and all your Bibles are affected. If you highlight Genesis 1:1 in the NIV, then Genesis 1:1 in all your Bibles will be highlighted.
You can add notes to a verse from the Context menu. Your notes can be simple plain-text comments or they can use HTML tags to add attributes like bold, italic, and underlining to the text. If you attach a note to a verse, all of your Bibles will show that note on that verse. So a note on John 3:16 in the KJV will also appear on John 3:16 in the NIV.
On the iPad you can search your notes using all the same search features (words, phrases, and combinations of words and phrases using Boolean operations like AND and OR).
Notes are always associated with a Bible verse or with a table of contents section in a non-Bible book. You can't create unassociated notes.
Devotional books or daily reading books are books that are organized by date. PocketBible treats these books in a special way. These books have an article or daily reading associated with each day of the year (assuming the book has enough articles for a full year — some are published monthly or quarterly and could have fewer readings).
Devotionals have a start date, which is the date PocketBible associates with the first reading in the book. By default, this date is January 1 of the current year. If a book contains less than a full year's worth of readings, however, this date could be some arbitrary date in the middle of the year.
You can change the start date for a book. Note that some devotionals actually contain dates in the text, and others will recognize holidays or seasons of the year in the text of the reading. This may be confusing if you start reading the book in the middle of the year, but it gives you lots of flexibility for reading any devotional book over any period of time.
You track your progress through a daily reading book by marking each reading as read when you read it. PocketBible will tell you how you're doing at reading through each devotional, assuming you read the articles in order. It will indicate whether or not a reading has been read by changing the color of the title bar for that reading to green for readings you have already read.
Note that we say a daily reading is “read” (as in “already read”) or “unread” (that is, it hasn't been read). We use color codes — green and red — in several context to indicate whether a reading is complete (green) or needs to be read (red). You can remember this by thinking about red as an attention-grabbing color for something you need to deal with and fix. That is, when a reading for the day is highlighted in red, you need to read it to make the red warning go away.
The preferred devotional is a daily reading book you select to be used in certain contexts where quick access to your favorite devotional is needed. For example, if you are reading a Bible or any other non-devotional book and select the Today button, PocketBible will take you to today's reading in your preferred devotional.
Some Bibles contain Strong's numbers. These numbers identify the Hebrew or Greek word from which the English word in the Bible was translated. Viewing of these numbers can be turned on and off. Since only some Bibles and reference books contain Strong's numbers, you may not see any visible change when you change this option.
Dictionaries support the look up function. When you ask the program to look up the definition of a word, you can specify which of your dictionaries you prefer to use by picking a preferred dictionary. If PocketBible cannot find a related article in your preferred dictionary, then other open dictionaries will be checked. Finally, if none of your open dictionaries contain the desired article, then PocketBible may open a dictionary that is installed but not yet open.
PocketBible includes all of the features of PocketBible FREE, plus the ability to make purchases through the Apple App Store. What kinds of things can be purchased? Additional Bibles and reference books, plus available program upgrades can be purchased. (You can also purchase directly from Laridian at our website, where the prices average about 15% to 20% lower than the same item purchased with In-App Purchase.) When you purchase from the Apple App Store, your purchases are billed through your Apple account.
PocketBible includes a set of Advanced Features that can be purchased for a nominal upgrade fee. While PocketBible is a very advanced and capable Bible study tool even without these features, these additional features may further enhance your studies. Learn more about the advanced features by selecting Menu | Buy/Apply Upgrade.
How to get rid of the second copy of PocketBible when I have more than one.
You may have two copies of PocketBible on your device if:
If you are using PocketBible FREE (version 1) and have also purchased a PocketBible collection though the App Store, getting rid of the second copy is easy. First, run the second copy and follow the instructions to register your new PocketBible with Laridian. Make sure you use the same email address and password to register this second copy as you did when you registered the first. Once you've successfully registered, you can delete the second copy. When you subsequently choose Add/Remove Books in your original copy of PocketBible, you'll find the new books from your new collection are in your download account, ready to be downloaded into your original copy of PocketBible.
By following these instructions you avoid either having two copies of the program or having to re-download all your books and synchronize your personal data (notes, highlights, etc.) into the new program.
Note that all copies of PocketBible have the same program name and icon. This makes them difficult to distinguish. To figure out which is which, you can run each one in turn and see what books are installed by tapping the Open button. Or select the Menu button and scroll down to About PocketBible near the bottom. When you select About PocketBible you'll see the name of the particular product to which this copy of PocketBible belongs. The name is below the Build date. If there is no name, then this copy of PocketBible is the “PocketBible FREE” product.
There is no difference in features between the PocketBible programs themselves. The only difference is in what is bundled with the program and what other Bibles and reference books are included when you register.
If you were using PocketBible FREE (version 1) and have installed PocketBible (version 2), then there are some simple steps to take to transfer your personal data and purchases from PocketBible FREE (version 1) to PocketBible (version 2).
See Updating PocketBible, Updating Prior to 2.0.0 for details.
How to use taps and gestures to move through the text
Basic navigation in PocketBible involves screen taps and “swipes”. Imagine each book pane divided into nine zones like a tic-tac-toe grid — three rows containing three columns each. Each zone has an action associated with it. Tapping in a zone causes its action to happen.
The actions associated with each zone vary depending on the type of book you're viewing. For example, Bibles have zones (upper left and right corners) for “previous chapter” and “next chapter”. Devotional books use these zones for “previous day's reading” and “next day's reading”. Other books use them simply for “previous page” and “next page”.
You can see the actions for each zone by tapping in the very center of the pane. A navigation overlay will be displayed showing the actions for the current book. The screen is still active while the overlay is displayed; touch in a zone to activate it.
Because a pane can be full of links to Bible references in a book like Nave's Topical Bible, Strong's Numbers in the King James Version Exhaustive Concordance, or other information, a tap in one of the nine tap zones could cause a link to be activated instead of the desired action taking place. To avoid this, PocketBible recognizes swipe gestures in addition to taps. To activate a tap zone with a swipe action, simply swipe your finger from the desired area of the screen toward the center of the pane. An obvious swipe gesture is from right to left. This activates the “next page” action. A swipe from the upper right corner towards the lower left will activate the upper right tap zone, which, in a Bible, means “next chapter”.
Because you can't very well swipe from the center of the pane toward the center of the pane, to activate the tap zone navigation overlay using a gesture, simply press and hold your finger anywhere on the screen for about a second until the Context menu is displayed. (This gesture is called “tap-and-hold”.) Toward the bottom of that menu is an option called Show Controls. This causes the tap zone overlay to be displayed. If you've configured the title bar or toolbar to be hidden when not in use, they will be displayed as well.
If you tap on the title bar at the top of a pane, you'll be shown a list of all the books that are open in that pane. Selecting a book causes that book to be displayed in the pane. The books appear in this list in the order in which they were opened.
How to view more than one book at a time
You can split the screen into two panes on the iPhone and five panes on the iPad. (Opening up to 5 panes on the iPhone is available as an Advanced Feature.) Each pane can show the same book or a different book. Each pane keeps track of what books are open in that pane.
To change the number of visible panes:
If you want to view two passages in the same Bible, make sure Bible synchronization is turned off in Settings (see Synchronize in Settings) and open the same Bible in two (or more) panes.
If you want to view a Bible and commentary at the same time, open the Bible and commentary in two panes and make sure Bible synchronization is turned on.
How to view panes in tabs (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
Panes may be shown in tabs, rather than in a tiled format. When shown in tabs, each pane is nearly full-screen in size, as it is when there is only one pane open, but a set of “tabs” is shown at the top of the pane. There is one tab for each pane. Press a tab to quickly view its associated pane. This makes it easy to read a Bible and refer to your other references, stored in other tabs.
Use one of these methods to show your panes in tabs:
PocketBible may automatically switch to showing panes in tabs when the screen real-estate available for showing your books is reduced.
How to find a passage when I know a few words
On the iPad, go to the Find tool in the Toolbox and enter the word or phrase you want to search for in the search bar at the top of that panel and press the Search button on the keyboard. If you want more options, you can follow the instructions below to use the Search form.
On the iPad, your entire library is searched every time you do a new search. The results are displayed in the library list Find tool pane in the Toolbox. Select a book from that list to see the detailed results for that book in the search results list.
To see the results of the same search in another book or Bible when using PocketBible on an iPhone, make that book or Bible active then tap the Find button again. You'll now see the results of the same search as performed on the new active book or Bible.
You can perform very sophisticated searches with PocketBible. See Searching for more information.
How to hide the title and toolbars so I can see more text
The system status bar (iPhone only), title bar, Toolbox (iPad only) and toolbar can all be hidden so that you can use the entire screen for reading.
To disable any or all of these, go to Menu | Settings and scroll to Control Settings.
To show the controls when they are hidden, tap in the center of the screen or tap-and-hold on the screen until the Context menu appears, then select Show Controls. The controls will remain visible for about five seconds or until you touch the screen. Note this doesn't include the Toolbox, which, when hidden, remains hidden unless you re-enable it through the Settings menu or by selecting the Toolbox button on the toolbar.
How to reduce the brightness of the text for reading at night
There are a couple things to do to make your device more enjoyable to read in low-light conditions.
How to view Strong's numbers in translations that include them
While viewing the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance or other Bibles that include Strong's numbers, select Menu | Settings then find Strong's Numbers under Display Settings. When this menu item is selected (checked), the Bible switches into a mode in which each English word is followed by its associated Strong's word number. Tap a word number to see its definition from the Hebrew or Greek dictionary.
You can get the same results by pressing on the word number until the Context menu appears, then selecting Look Up. You can search for all occurrences of this particular word number by selecting Find.
While you have the Context menu open, note that it also provides a way to quickly turn Strong's numbers on and off. This menu option is disabled if the book or Bible you're viewing does not contain Strong's numbers.
You can choose which dictionary is used for looking up definitions of Strong's word numbers by changing Preferred Books in Settings.
How to find everywhere a particular Strong's word number occurs
See Searching for general information on searching.
See Searching with Strong's Numbers for detailed information.
How to go to a specific verse or passage in a book
Open the book or Bible of interest, then:
How to look up a word in a dictionary
If you have a dictionary or a dictionary-style reference book (that is, one that is organized by words) you can quickly look up the entry for a word.
OR
Instead of selecting a word on the screen, you can select Menu | Look Up and enter the word into the Look Up Form.
Go here for more information on using Strong's dictionaries to look up definitions of Greek and Hebrew words.
How to look up the definition of a Strong's word number
Tap a Strong's number link in the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance or any other Bible containing Strong's numbers to automatically display the definition of the word.
More information on working with Strong's numbers.
If you know the Strong's number or the transliterated spelling for the word you're looking for, you can select Menu | Look Up, then enter the word number or the transliterated spelling to find the entry for that word. Remember to put a “G” before Greek word numbers (eg. “G26”) and an “H” before Hebrew word numbers (eg. “H3068”). To enter transliterated spellings, ignore any diacritical marks and just enter the letters in the word. So to find Greek word 26 by its spelling, just enter “agape”, ignoring the macron over the e.
You can also view definitions by selecting a Hebrew or Greek word from the Go To form for either the Hebrew or Greek dictionary. Open the dictionary, then select the Go To button on the toolbar (or Menu | Go To) to open the Go To form. Select the word you're interested in from the table of contents.
Each Bible containing Strong's numbers specifies a particular dictionary to use when looking up the definitions of Strong's word numbers from that Bible. If you want to always use a particular dictionary for this purpose regardless of what is specified in the Bible, you can change Preferred Book settings.
How to set a bookmark; go to a bookmark
To set a bookmark in a Bible:
To set a bookmark in a book other than a Bible
To go to a previously saved bookmark:
How to create bookmark categories
By default, bookmarks are uncategorized. You can create categories in which your bookmarks reside. This allows you to organize bookmarks.
To create or edit bookmark categories, select Menu | Settings | Manage Bookmark Categories.
How to print a verse
More information on advanced features.
To print a verse:
How to share a verse
You can easily send a Bible verse to a friend using PocketBible's email and texting features.
To email a verse:
To text a verse:
If you'd like to send more than one verse, use Copy Passage to copy the desired verses to the clipboard, then select Paste to Email or Paste to Text Message.
Note that to use these features, you must have configured email and/or text messaging, respectively. Some devices might not support email and text messaging.
PocketBible's text messaging features require devices with iOS 4 or later and that support the programmatic interface to text messaging. If your device does not support the programmatic interface to support texting, then the texting menu items will not be shown. (Your phone may provide text messaging but not the programmatic interface needed for PocketBible to use text messaging.)
How to highlight a verse
You can use highlighting to add a colored background to any verse in the Bible. Highlights made in one Bible affect the same verse in all your Bibles. Only Bibles may be highlighted, and only entire verses (not individual words).
To highlight a verse:
More information on listing highlighted verses.
More information on searching highlighted text.
How to see a list of all highlighted passages, or all passages highlighted with a certain color
On the iPad, open the H'Lites tool in the Toolbox and select a Bible. You'll see a list of highlighted verses. To see only verses that are highlighted in a particular color, choose the color from the drop-down list of colors at the top of the panel.
On the iPhone, select Menu | All Highlights. Or, to see a list of all passages that have highlights with a certain color, select Menu | Highlights with Color. Select the desired color from the resulting list. (You can select only one color.)
In both cases, you will see a list of the verses that contain the highlight that you've selected. Select an entry to see it in context within your Bible.
You can also search for specific words or phrases that are highlighted in a particular color. See Searching.
How to add a note to a verse
You can add your own comments to a verse. Your notes can be simple plain-text comments, they can contain links to other Bible verses, and they can contain HTML tags to format the text. You don't have to know anything about HTML to create notes, but if you know a little HTML you can add some style to your notes.
To add a note to a verse or to a section in a reference book:
To view an existing note:
To edit an existing note:
To delete a note:
More information on listing verses with notes.
More information on creating and editing notes.
How to see a list of all verses with notes
To see a list of all verses to which you've attached a note, select Menu | All Notes (iPhone) or select the Find Notes tab in the Toolbox (iPad) and delete and search word or phrase that might be present in the search bar at the top of the panel.
You will see a list of the verses that have notes. Select an entry to see it in context within your Bible.
How to find all my notes that contain a particular word or phrase
This feature is currently only available on the iPad.
Open the Find Notes tool in the Toolbox. Enter a word or phrase into the search bar at the top of the panel and press the Search button on the keyboard. The library list will show the number of notes that contain the word or phrase you're searching for in each of your installed books. Select a book, and the results list will show you an excerpt from each of your notes that contain the word or phrase you searched for.
Searching notes takes longer than searching your Bibles and books because they are not indexed. Because all of your Toolbox settings are saved and restored each time you run PocketBible, you might want to clear the search results when you're done with them so you don't have to wait for the search to complete each time you run the program. To do this, simply clear the text in the search bar and dismiss the keyboard. The Find Notes tool will return to showing you lists of all your notes.
The note searching features supports all of the Boolean operations supported by the Bible/book searching feature of PocketBible. See Searching for more information.
How to edit a note while continuing to read the Bible
This feature is currently only available on the iPad.
Because the note editor in the iPad version of PocketBible is not “modal” you can continue to use the other features of the program while creating a note. It helps, though, if you select the Lock button in the upper right corner of the Notes tool so that the Notes tool won't try to show you the notes on the current verse as you move around in the Bible.
How to back up your data to prevent loss
You can back up your notes, highlights, bookmarks, and devotional reading progress to our server to help protect you against loss of this data. Select Menu | Manage My Data. If your email address (or Laridian customer ID) and password are not already entered, enter them as requested. Then select Back Up My Data to Server. The back up functionality will copy your notes, highlights, bookmarks, bookmark categories, devotional reading progress, and devotional start dates to a database on our server.
To restore data from a backup, select Menu | Manage My Data then Restore From a Backup. The program will download a list of backup data sets from the server. You can choose which data set to restore based on the date and time it was backed up.
In addition to your manual backups, the program does an automatic backup of your data during synchronization. These are noted in the list of available backup data sets.
We will store your backups for at least 30 days, and will retain at least one backup beyond that, up to a year.
More about back up and restore
How to synchronize your data with your other devices
You can synchronize your notes, highlights, bookmarks, and devotional reading progress with our server. This allows you to:
To synchronize with the server, select Menu | Manage My Data. Enter your email address (or Laridian customer ID) and password if they're not already entered for you. Then select Sync My Data with Server. The first time you do this, your data is simply copied to the server. If you've previously sync'ed with the server (either from PocketBible for iPhone or from PocketBible for Windows) or if you've created notes, highlights, bookmarks, or reading progress using our iPocketBible.com website, the data from your iPhone will be “intelligently merged” with the existing data on the server. So if you've added a note using another device, it will be copied to your iPhone. If you've deleted a bookmark on another device, it will be deleted from your iPhone. Similarly, items you've added or deleted on your iPhone will be added or deleted from the data on the server.
Synchronization can be used in place of back up and restore to simply back up your data. Unlike a simple backup, synchronized data can be moved to another device simply by synchronizing that device with the server. (Note that older Windows Mobile and Palm devices must first be synchronized with PocketBible for Windows, then PocketBible for Windows must be synchronized with iPocketBible.com in order to get data from those devices to the server. The process is reversed to get data from the server back to those devices.)
The synchronization process can't read your mind. If you accidentally delete some notes from your iPhone, don't think you can simply sync with the server to restore the notes. When you do that, the server will assume that you deleted those notes intentionally and will not only not restore them to your iPhone, but will delete them from the server! If you need to recover something you've deleted accidentally, use the restore function to restore your last backup. Note that in this case you'll lose anything you created on the iPhone since your last backup. But you will recover the data you accidentally deleted.
How to synchronize Bibles and commentaries so they move together
PocketBible's synchronize mode can be used to keep all your Bibles and commentaries in sync with the Bible through which you're navigating.
When you tap a Bible reference in a book that isn't itself a Bible, all of your Bibles will be positioned to that verse, and one of your Bibles will be displayed to show the verse.
NOTE: When synchronization is enabled, PocketBible must interact with all of your other installed books as you navigate in your active book. You may notice that navigation is a bit slower when synchronization is enabled, especially as you install more and more PocketBible books and Bibles.
How to track my progress through a Bible reading plan or devotional
How to catch up on my reading plan if I get behind
Select the Today button to bring up the Devotional menu. Select Devotional Settings. Select Catch Up.
You can catch up through yesterday, which leaves you something to read today, or through today, which makes the last “read” reading be today's reading so there's nothing to read today.
Note that this function gets confused if you've been reading out of order. That is, it works best if you've read the articles in the devotional sequentially.
How to start over when I've finished a devotional (or when I just want to start over)
Select the Today button to bring up the Devotional menu, then select Devotional Settings to view the Devotional Settings menu, then do two things:
Now go to today's reading and start reading!
How to scroll maps and other large images that don't fit on the screen
Horizontal scrolling of large images is not yet provided. We anticipate that this feature will be added at a later date.
In general it's best to enable the Shrink Images to Fit setting. On the iPhone, rotate to landscape mode. Close any other panes and view large images with only one pane open.
How to add books to my PocketBible library
See Managing Books for general information.
See Free Books for your PocketBible Library for information about free books available when you register PocketBible.
See Adding Books to Your Library for information about purchasing books or downloading free books.
See Downloading Books for information about downloading free and purchased books to your device.
How to open all installed books (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
PocketBible will open a tab for each category of installed books (such as Bibles and Commentaries), and then open all of the installed books into one of those tabs. (If no books are available for a tab, then that tab is closed.)
To keep from cluttering your screen, this Help book and the associated Welcome book will not be opened into the “Other Books” tab unless you have other books in that category.
How to listen to the Bible (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
PocketBible can read the Bible to you aloud using advanced voice synthesization techniques. While this does not result in pronunciation or inflection that is as natural as an audio recording of a person reading the Bible, in most cases it does a very good job. Furthermore, it takes less memory on your device and is available with all of your installed Bibles, not just a selection of translations for which voice recordings are available.
PocketBible can read the selected text, a verse, a passage, or even simply start reading and continue until you tell it to stop. There are many ways to start and stop the spoken audio. Peruse some of the options in both the Menu and the Context menu.
Audio can also be controlled via the audio remote control. If the audio remote control is not currently shown, show it by selecting Menu | Show Audio Remote. The audio remote control allows you to:
For more information, see Audio Features.
How to automatically study a verse (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
PocketBible can generate a report on any verse in the Bible, including related information from your installed books in the report. The information to included in the report is highly customizable, and the report can be copied to the pasteboard, saved to a file, or printed.
To start an automated study on a verse:
For more information, see:
Verse Autostudy
Autostudy Results
Autostudy Options
How to automatically study a word (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
PocketBible can generate a report on any word, including related information from your installed books in the report. The information to included in the report is highly customizable, and the report can be copied to the pasteboard, saved to a file, or printed.
To start an automated study on a word:
For more information, see:
Word Autostudy
Autostudy Results
Autostudy Options
How to find out what version of PocketBible I'm using
Select Menu | About PocketBible to view PocketBible's about box. The about box shows two important version numbers related to PocketBible. It also shows the date the program was built.
PocketBible Version indicates the program version. It includes a major version, minor version, and revision number. For instance, if the PocketBible version is 1.2.3, the major version is 1, the minor version is 2, and the revision number is 3. Generally, changes to the revision number indicate bug fixes and insignificant new features. The minor version is incremented when significant new features are added. The major version is incremented when a major upgrade to the program is released.
Book Reader Engine indicates the version of the software engine used to read Laridian books. This engine is used in many Laridian products, such as versions of PocketBible designed for other phones and computers, Memorize! and MyBible®. Like the program version, the book reader engine version number includes both a major and minor version number. For instance, if the book reader engine version number is 1.064, the major version is 1 and the minor version is 64. Due to the way these version numbers are used, the major version number is almost always 1, except for demo versions of our programs for platforms other than the iPhone. A change to the book reader engine is therefore indicated by a change in the minor version number.
Some Laridian books may require a specific book reader engine. Because of the way iPhone applications are distributed, it should always be the case that you have the correct version of the program to read any available Laridian book. That is, if an updated book reader engine is required for a new title we're releasing, we'll upload the new program to the App Store prior to releasing the new book.
The Build Date is simply the date on which we built the version of the program you're using.
This section provides help with specific PocketBible features, providing more details than the “How To...” segment of this book.
iPad Toolbox
When running on an iPad, PocketBible adds a new user interface element, the Toolbox, to make it easier to work with user-created notes, highlights, bookmarks, and search results. Unlike the iPhone, where this data is presented in “modal dialogs” which take over the screen and keep you from using other features of the program, the Toolbox is non-modal and allows you to do things like edit a note while looking up various Bible verses.
There are some key concepts with which it helps to be familiar as you consider how to best use the Toolbox in your Bible study:
Find Panel
Search results are displayed in the Find tool. There are two ways to initiate a search. The simple way is to type a word, phrase, or combination of words in the search bar at the top of the Find tool and select the Search button on the keyboard. PocketBible will search your entire library and show you the results. If you want to limit your search to a particular range of verses, search only your highlighted verses, or search only verses you have bookmarked, use the Advanced Find form, which is accessed by selecting the magnifying glass button on the toolbar or choosing Find (Advanced) in the menu. This brings up a form that allows you to enter more parameters for your search.
The search bar at the top of the Find tool accepts search specifications in the same format as the Advanced Find form. See Searching for details.
To review your search results, simply select a book from the library list and a search hit from the results list. To keep the lists from moving as you select cross-references and review other books in other panes, select the lock button in the upper right corner of the panel.
Once you've performed a search, any word you searched for will be highlighted in the text in a different color to make search results easier to spot. This will continue until you enter a new search specification. If you want to view the text without any search words highlighted you can either choose Clear Search Results from the menu or go into Settings and turn off the Mark Results in Text option. The former will simply clear the results of your search so no words are highlighted. The latter makes it so the program never highlights any search results.
Bookmarks Panel
Viewing and Setting Bookmarks
The B'Marks tool gives you easy access to all your bookmarks. Select a category from the drop-down list at the top of the panel. You'll see the number of bookmarks in that category in each of your books in the library list, and excerpts from the selected book in the results list. Select an entry in the results list to go to a bookmark.
To set a bookmark, you don't actually use the B'Marks tool. Instead, tap-and-hold on a Bible verse or a passage in a reference book until the Context menu appears. Select Bookmark to set a bookmark or Remove Bookmark to remove one.
What Can I Bookmark?
Bookmarks have to be attached to something. In Bibles, bookmarks are attached to verses. You can set a bookmark on any Bible verse and the same verse will be bookmarked in all your Bibles.
In reference books, bookmarks are actually attached to the table of contents. That is, when you tap-and-hold on the text of a commentary, dictionary, devotional, or other book, and choose the option to set a bookmark, the bookmark will be added to the closest table of contents entry prior to that point in the text. In a dictionary it might be that the bookmark is attached to the entry for the word your reading. In a commentary, it might be attached to the commentary for the particular verse you're reading about. In a devotional, it will probably be attached to today's reading.
Highlights Panel
The H'Lites tool allows you to see all the verses you've highlighted. Since only Bibles can be highlighted, the library list will show only your Bibles. And since highlights apply to all Bibles (that is, if you highlight John 3:16 in the KJV, it will also be highlighted in the NIV and all your other Bibles) there won't be much of a difference in the results lists between your Bibles.
To highlight a verse, you don't actually use the H'Lites tool. Instead, tap-and-hold on a verse until the Context menu appears. Select Highlight and choose a color to use to highlight the verse. To remove highlighting, select the same Highlight option, but scroll to the bottom of the color list where you'll find the highlight eraser.
Notes Panel
What Can I Annotate?
Notes have to be attached to something. In Bibles, notes are attached to verses. You can create a note on any Bible verse and the same note will appear when you view that verse in another Bible. You cannot create notes in the front matter or back matter of a Bible.
In reference books, notes are actually attached to the table of contents. That is, when you tap-and-hold on the text of a commentary, dictionary, devotional, or other book, and choose the option to add a note, the note will be added to the closest table of contents entry prior to that point in the text. In a dictionary it might be that the note is attached to the entry for the word your reading. In a commentary, it might be attached to the commentary for the particular verse you're reading about. In a devotional, it will probably be attached to today's reading.
Viewing Notes
The Notes tool differs from the other tool panels in that it doesn't have a library list and a results list. Instead, this is where you view and create notes. At the top of the panel is a drop-down list of all the verses (if the current book is a Bible) or table of contents sections (for other types of books) that can be annotated. Below that are buttons that allow you to choose either the “edit mode” or “view mode” depending on what you want to do (edit or view a note).
There are three ways to select a note to view, edit, or create. To view a note, tap the Note link that appears at the start of the verse (or the start of the section of text in non-Bibles). The note will appear in the Notes tool. Alternately, you can select the drop-down list of verses/sections at the top of the Notes tool and select the note you want to view, or tap-and-hold on the text you want to annotate and select View Note from the Context menu.
Creating/Editing Notes
To edit a note, first select it for viewing, then select the Edit button on the Notes tool.
You can use a limited number of HTML tags to add style and structure to your notes. You don't have to know HTML to use the notes feature of PocketBible, but if you learn a little bit about it you'll find it's easy to add simple enhancements like bold, italics, and underlining to your notes.
Overall, use of the Notes tool in edit mode is similar to the note editor in the iPhone version of PocketBible, which you can read about here. The iPad version currently does not support undo/redo, nor does it have the small toolbar mentioned for the iPhone version.
Notes are saved automatically. This happens about every ten seconds while typing, and also when exiting edit mode, selecting a different tab in the Toolbox, selecting a different note to view, synchronizing your notes with the server, and when the program exits.
See Adding Notes for more information about creating and editing notes.
Find Notes Panel
The Find Notes tool serves the dual purpose of showing you a list of all your notes and allowing you to search your notes for words or phrases. If there is nothing in the search bar at the top of the Find Notes tool, then you are looking at a list of all your notes. If you type something in the search bar and select Search on the keyboard, you'll see a list of all the notes that contain the word or phrase you enter in the search bar.
For the most part, the search bar on the Find Notes tool recognizes the same search syntax as the general searching feature of PocketBible. There are obvious exceptions, such as the searches that involve Strong's numbers, and proximity searching.
Because the text in your notes is not indexed like our Bibles and reference books are, searching your notes takes significantly longer than performing the same search on one of your books. And because the Find Notes tool has to be kept up-to-date as new notes are added, new books are activated, and as you move through the text of the active book, you'll find that performance is greatly enhanced if you clear your notes searches after you've found what you're looking for. Simply select the search bar, select the X button on the right end of the search bar, then dismiss the keyboard to clear the search results.
PocketBible Controls
PocketBible uses standard iPhone widgets and controls for interaction. You're probably already familiar with most if not all of these standard means of interaction.
Title Bar
The PocketBible title bar appears at the top of each book pane. The title bar shows both the abbreviation of the active book and an indication of your location within the active book.
The title bar may be turned completely off so that it is never shown, may be turned completely on so that it is is always shown, or may be configured to show on request only. In this latter case, tap near the center of a book pane to show the controls, including the title bar.
The title bar also serves as a shortcut means to switch to a different open book. If you have more than one book open in a pane, tap the title bar to see a list of the open books. Then select a book to view in that pane.
See PocketBible Settings for information on controlling when this title bar appears.
Toolbar
The PocketBible toolbar appears near the bottom of the screen, and contains various buttons that serve as shortcuts to invoke common PocketBible features. Simply tap one of these buttons to invoke the associated action.
On the iPad, the toolbar follows the iPad Home button as you rotate the device. So it may be on the right or left side, or even at the top of the screen.
Like the title bar, you can configure the toolbar to always appear, or to only appear when you tap near the center of a book pane to show the controls. Since the toolbar is the only means of accessing the PocketBible menu, the toolbar cannot be completely turned off.
If you've configured the toolbar to appear only on request, tap near the center of the active book pane to show the controls, including the toolbar.
See PocketBible Settings for information on controlling when this toolbar appears.
Navigation Overlay
The navigation overlay only appears when you choose to show the optional controls, such as by tapping near the center of the active book pane. This control is called an overlay because it temporarily “lays over” the text of the book that you are reading, and shows what tapping in the various tap zones will do.
When the navigation overlay is visible, PocketBible is still ready for your instructions. In other words, you don't need to wait for the overlay to go away... simply tap in one of the tap zones to take action.
The navigation overlay will automatically disappear after a few seconds of inactivity, or you can tap the center of the pane again to dismiss it.
Want to try it now? Tap the center of this book pane to show the overlay, then wait a few seconds for it to disappear.
The navigation overlay may be turned off so that it never appears. See PocketBible Settings for information on turning off the navigation overlay.
Menu
The menu is the main gateway to the many PocketBible features. The menu is grouped into logical sections, making it easier for you to find what you are looking for.
To access the menu, press the Menu button on the toolbar. If the toolbar is not currently visible, tap near the center of the active book pane to temporarily show the toolbar and other controls that are not currently visible.
Context menu
The PocketBible Context menu provides access to features that rely on the context, such as the word or verse under your fingertip.
To see the Context menu, press your finger onto the screen as if you are tapping, but instead of bringing your finger back off the screen, simply hold down for a moment or two. This gesture is called “tap-and-hold”.
If you have not enabled PocketBible's Advanced Features, then PocketBible will respond by showing the Context menu, customized for the verse, word, or article that you are pushing on.
If you have enabled PocketBible's Advanced Features, then the word under your tap will be selected and a menu bar will appear. Choose Menu on the menu bar to access the Context menu.
Audio Remote Control (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
The audio remote control appears in the lower-right corner of your books, and can be shown or hidden. Even when shown, you may find that you can adequately read the text beneath the remote control. The audio remote control manages the synthesized text-to-speech features of PocketBible. It allows you to:
Opening Books
PocketBible is similar to a library of Bibles and related reference books. Just as you need to take a book of a library shelf to use it, in PocketBible you need to open a book to use it. Once you open a book, you can read the book, search the contents of the book, and so forth.
There are three ways to open a new book in the current book pane:
After choosing one of these options, select the kind of book that you'd like to open. (It might be helpful to imagine that PocketBible keeps your Bibles on one shelf, your commentaries on another, and so forth in order to make it easier for you to find the book that you are looking for.) Finally, select the desired book.
PocketBible may occasionally automatically open a book for you. For instance, if you have installed one or more dictionaries to your PocketBible library, but have not opened one yet, then when you perform a Look Up, PocketBible may automatically open your preferred dictionary.
Switching Between Open Books
Once you have opened more than one book, you can easily switch between them. Press the Previous Open Book tap zone to view the previous book, or the Next Open Book tap zone to view the next book.
If you've opened several books and want to return to a specific book, you may find it easier to select a book from a list of your open books. To do so, tap the title bar (showing the abbreviation of and location in the active book). Pick a book from the resulting list. If you've turned off the title bar so that it appears only on request, then remember that you can see the title bar by tapping near the middle of the active book pane. (Of course, if you've turned off the title bar so that it never appears, you won't be able to use this feature.)
If you know that you want to switch to a particular book, but are not sure if it is open yet, use one of the options above to open the book as if it was not open. PocketBible will open the book if it is not yet open, or if it is already open, PocketBible will switch to that book. (PocketBible will not open a second copy of the book in the same pane.)
The book that you are looking at is called the “active book”. The abbreviation of the active book is always shown in the title bar, so you'll be able to identify the active book and distinguish it from your other books.
Closing Books
Once you are through using a book, you can remove it from the active pane by closing the book. Once the book is closed, you cannot view it by cycling through your open books via the Previous Open Book and Next Open Book tap zones. Note that the book is not deleted from your device, just removed from the list of open books in its pane. You can open it again later if you wish.
To close the active book, select Menu | Close Book. Since PocketBible likes to have at least one book open at all times, if you have only one book open, you cannot close it.
To close all books in a pane except the active book, select Menu | Close Other Books.
Open All Books in your PocketBible Library (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
PocketBible can open all books in your installed libary in one easy step. This is ideal for gaining organized access to your Bibles and references books in one simple step. PocketBible will open a tab for each category of installed books (such as Bibles and Commentaries), and then open all of the installed books into one of those tabs. (If no books are available for a tab, then that tab is closed.)
To open all books, select Menu | Open All Books. (You will also see this option using many of the other methods that can be used to open a book.)
To keep from cluttering your screen, this Help book and the associated Welcome book will not be opened into the “Other Books” tab unless you have other books in that category.
Free Books for your PocketBible Library
Laridian offers several free books that you can add to your PocketBible library. In order to add these books to your PocketBible library, you must first register your PocketBible with Laridian.
If you've not yet registered, select Menu | Register PocketBible. You'll need an active Internet connection in order to complete your registration. PocketBible will guide you through the registration process. If you already have a Laridian customer account, then please register with that account. Otherwise, you'll need to create a new customer account.
If you do not see Register PocketBible in the menu, then you have already registered PocketBible and do not need to register it again.
After you have completed your PocketBible registration, the free Bibles and books will be added to your Laridian customer account. To download these books, follow the steps below.
Adding Books to Your Library
There are two steps involved in adding books to your PocketBible library.
Select Shop for Bibles and Books from the menu to access the PocketBible Bookstore from within the program. Or visit the Laridian website at www.laridian.com to purchase the same titles at lower prices.
Once you've purchased books in the bookstore, you'll have the option to have those books automatically downloaded to PocketBible. When you choose this option, you'll be logged into the Add/Remove Books form and your new books will be selected for installation. Select the Update button to install your new books.
Once you've purchased a book, you are ready to download that book and install it to your PocketBible library on your iPhone. To do so, follow the instructions in the next section.
From time to time we release books that we distribute at no charge, or we reduce the price on an existing book to $0. Unlike the procedure on other platforms, you don't need to do anything to “order” or “purchase” a free book for your iPhone or iPad. All free books automatically show up in the Add/Remove Books list on your device.
To download books, follow the steps in the next section.
Downloading Books
To add books from your Laridian customer account to your device, select Menu | Add/Remove Books. (If you see Register PocketBible rather than Add/Remove Books, then you still need to complete the PocketBible registration.)
Adding a book is a two-step process:
You may also be asked to sign-in to your Apple account using your Apple ID. This step allows PocketBible to include any PocketBible books that you may have purchased using your Apple account.
PocketBible will guide you through the login process, and then show a list of available books from your customer account. Some of these books may already be installed, some may have been updated since you installed, and others may not be installed yet. Tap a book to change the status of that book, and then press the Update button to complete the change.
An active Internet connection is required to add and remove books from your device. However, once you have installed a book, you do not need Internet access to use the book. So, the active Internet connection is required only for installation.
It is possible, but not advised, to purchase books with In-App Purchase then downlaod them without creating a Laridian customer account. Simply choose Continue Without Registering on the login form.
Touching to Change Pages
You navigate within your PocketBible books by tapping on the screen. Where you tap determines how PocketBible will respond.
How does PocketBible decide what to do? Each book has nine tap zones. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid superimposed on the book. Each square (or rectangle) in the tic-tac-toe grid is a different tap zone, and each tap zone may have a different action associated with it. Tap near the center of this book now to see the tap zones for this book.
Different types of books make use of these touch zones differently. A Bible has different tap zone actions than a devotional, which itself has different tap zone actions than a dictionary, for instance. If you're ever unsure what the tap zone actions are, tap near the center of the active book pane or choose Show Controls from the tap-and-hold Context menu. The resulting navigation overlay will identify the tap zones and their associated actions.
In general, tap on the right-center of the book pane to turn to the next page and tap on the left-center of the book pane to turn to the previous page. (“Right-center” in this case means near the right edge, vertically centered.)
Swiping to Change Pages
While tapping allows you to change pages, tapping is also used to activate a link. If a page contains many links, it may be difficult to find an empty spot that can be used to tap to turn the page. Therefore, PocketBible also allows you to “swipe” instead of tap. Simply start your swipe in the desired tap zone, and swipe toward the middle of the book pane. Thus, a right-to-left swipe near the center (the vertical center, that is) will change to the next page, while a left-to-right swipe will change to the previous page.
We've found that some people really like swiping, and prefer to swipe to change the page rather than merely tap.
Using Go To to Change Pages
Tapping or swiping is a convenient method to change pages. But what do you want to do if you want to turn from the title page of a Bible to the book of Revelation? That would be a lot of page turns!
The PocketBible Go To feature allows you to quickly jump to another page in a book.
Go To in a Bible
PocketBible provides three means to turn to a different Bible verse: the “3-tap book/chapter/verse method”, “calculator method”, and the “spinner” method.
The 3-tap book/chapter/verse method is the default navigation method for Bibles. Activate the desired Bible, the press the Go To button on the toolbar. Select the desired book of the Bible, then the desired chapter, and then the desired verse. You can stop after selecting the book to see the first verse in that book, or after selecting the chapter to see the first verse in that chapter. Just press the Go button instead of making your next selection.
The calculator method allows you to first choose the book from a drop-down list, then use a numeric keypad to enter the chapter number, a colon, and the verse number. In the rare event that you need to use a full alphanumeric keyboard (Sirach Prologue and the lettered chapters in some versions of Esther), the ... (ellipsis) button on the keypad will invoke the full keyboard.
The spinner method is an alternate method that allows the book, chapter and verse to be selected from “spinners”.
We've included three different methods because we have our own (differing) preferences about which to use. Rather than select just one (making one of us, and perhaps you, too) unhappy, we make all three available for you to choose from.
See PocketBible Settings for information on choosing which method you prefer.
Go To in a Devotional
Since devotionals are typically organized by a day of the year, rather than chapters and pages, the devotional is navigated via a calendar. Simply select the calendar date that you'd like, and PocketBible will turn to the correct page.
Because the articles in a devotional are accessed by date, there's no convenient way to refer to the “front matter” of the book — that portion of the book that comes before the first article. To get to the title page, copyright information, and other front matter for a devotional book, go to the first reading in the book and then back up by page to the start of the book.
Go To in Any Other Book
All other books, such as commentaries and dictionaries, can be navigated via an expandable table of contents. When the entry is expandable to show additional detail, the standard iPhone disclosure indicator (“>”) will be shown. Select that entry to expand the contents to see additional detail. Otherwise, select the entry to turn to the page.
Basic Searches
Search the text of any book using PocketBible's Find feature. On the iPad, most searches can be performed quickly and easily on the Find tool. Just tap the Find tab on the Toolbox and enter the word or phrase you want to search for in the search bar at the top of the panel. For more advanced searches, or if you're running PocketBible on an iPhone, select Menu | Find or press the Find button on the toolbar.
On the iPhone, if you've not yet performed a search, PocketBible will show the Search form, allowing you to specify what you'd like to find. If you have previously performed a search, PocketBible will show the results of that search. To search for something else, just press the Search button in the upper left corner.
On the iPad, the results of the search specification you enter on the Search form are displayed in the Toolbox. Your entire library will be searched and you'll see a list of all your books and the number of occurrences of your search phrase in each book, and when you select a book, you'll see the detailed results of the search in that book.
The best way to understand how to enter basic searches is by example:
After you've specified what you want to find, press the Search button. PocketBible will then show the Search Matches window. Select any match to see the text in context.
Find Words and Phrases
To find a word or phrase, just enter it in the Search input form. Examples:
Note that capitalization is ignored, as is punctuation.
Remember, the Search form is found by selecting Menu | Find or pressing the Search button on the toolbar. If PocketBible responds by showing the results of your previous search, simply press the Search return button near the upper-left corner of the search matches.
Find Using AND, NEAR, OR, NOT and XOR
PocketBible supports AND, NEAR, OR, NOT and XOR (exclusive OR) searches, as described below. Note that you can substitute phrases for any of the words used in the examples below.
AND (&)
To find all the verses in which the words “love” and “husband” appear, enter:
It's important to type AND in all uppercase. If you type “love and husband” PocketBible will look for the phrase “love and husband”. You can substitute the ampersand character (&) for AND.
NEAR (~)
To find verses containing “love” or “husband” that are near other verses containing “love” or “husband”, type:
Again, make sure NEAR is in uppercase. You can substitute the tilde (~) character for NEAR.
This type of search only works in Bibles. In all other books it is treated like AND. The width of a NEAR search is controlled by a setting in the settings menu. This allows you to control just how close together the words must be in order to be found.
OR (+)
To find all the verses in which either “love”, “husband” or both appear, type:
Again, make sure OR is in uppercase. You can substitute the plus character (+) for OR.
XOR (^)
To find all the verses in which either “love” or “husband” but not both appear, type:
You can substitute the caret character (^) for XOR.
NOT (#)
To find all the verses in which “love” appears but not “husband”, type:
You can substitute the number sign (or 'pound' or 'sharp') character (#) for NOT. Note that you cannot do a “unary NOT” operation (as in “NOT love” to find all verses that do not contain “love”).
Complex Boolean Searches
AND, OR, XOR and NOT can be combined in one search. They are evaluated left to right. Example:
In this case, every verse containing “Jesus” or “Christ” is found, then those verses are searched for those that contain the word “spirit”.
Parenthesis
Parenthesis can be used to change the order of evaluation:
This search finds all verses containing the word “Jesus” or both the words “Christ” and “spirit”. In the non-parenthesized version of this search, every resulting verse must contain the word “spirit” but in by adding the parenthesis it's possible that some verses containing “Jesus” will not contain “spirit”.
Wildcard Searches with * and ?
An asterisk (*) can be used anywhere in a word to match zero or more letters. So:
A question mark (?) matches any single character. So:
Wildcard words can be used anywhere a word is used in any search, including within phrases.
Mixing Phrases, Wildcards and Boolean Operators
Some programs require quotation marks around the phrase or entering a special “phrase search” mode; PocketBible does not. You can use phrases (any sequence of words) anywhere without any special punctuation. You can use wildcard characters in phrases.
Searching with Strong's Numbers
When searching within a Bible (such as the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance and the King James Version Exhaustive Concordance) that contains Strong's numbers, you can perform some complex searches that take advantage of these Strong's numbers.
You can search for a Greek word by entering “G” followed by the word number in the Find field. For example, to search for Greek word number 26, enter “G26” and tap Search. Similarly, you can search for Hebrew words by entering “H” and the word number.
Greek and Hebrew word numbers can be combined using AND, OR, and other Boolean operators just like any other search. They can also be combined into phrases and mixed with English words in phrases. Here are some examples.
To find a particular English word only when it's translated from a specific Greek or Hebrew word, use the following format:
To find a particular English word only when it's not translated from a specific Greek or Hebrew word, use the following format:
To find a particular Greek or Hebrew word only when it's not translated as a particular English word, use the following format:
Limiting Searches to Specific Passages
You can limit searches to a simple or complex range of verses. To do so, press Only Verses on the Search form, then either select a common range or type a specific range. These limits can be as simple as “John” to find your word(s) or phrase(s) in the Gospel of John or as complex as “Mat 5-7;John 15,16” to search only these five chapters in Matthew and John.
Note that most Bibles published for PocketBible contain the full “Front Matter” and “Back Matter” that are included in printed Bibles. For instance, the front matter might contain a preface or introduction from the translators. Your searches will include these sections of the Bible unless you explicitly exclude them (generally by limiting your searches to “Gen-Rev”).
Limiting Searches to Highlighted Text
You can limit your search to only those verses (or passages of a reference book) that you have highlighted in a particular color. To do so, press Only highlights in on the Search input form, then select the desired highlight color.
In order to match the search, the individual words you're searching for must be highlighted in one of the colors you select.
Searches involving highlights take just a little longer than those that do not, because after the program finds all verses matching the search word or phrase it must then verify that the words occur in one of the colors you've selected.
Limiting Searches to Bookmarked Verses
You can limit your search to only those verses (or passages of a reference book) that you have bookmarked. To do so, press Only bookmarks in on the Search input form, then select the desired category.
Looking Up Definitions
If you own a dictionary-type reference (a Bible dictionary or a resource like Nave's Topical Bible that is organized by word) you can use the Look Up feature to look up the definition or article for a word.
Select Menu | Look Up and then enter the word that you'd like to look up. PocketBible will then try to find an article in one of your dictionaries that relates to the word. It will check the active book first (in case you are already looking at a dictionary), then your preferred dictionary, then your two preferred Strong's dictionaries (Hebrew and Greek), and then any dictionary that it can find until it finds an article for the word you've entered.
As a shortcut, if you are looking at a word that you'd like to look up, tap down on the word and wait for the popup Context menu to appear. Then select Look Up [word], where [word] is the word that you tapped upon.
No error is reported if the word you're looking for is not found in any dictionary-type books you have installed.
Bookmarking Favorite Passages
PocketBible provides extensive bookmarking features.
Adding a Bookmark
To add a bookmark, tap-and-hold on the verse or article that you'd like to bookmark. In the resulting Context menu, choose Bookmark [reference] or Add Bookmark, then select the desired category for the new bookmark.
You can also create a new category for this bookmark when the bookmark is added. Instead of selecting an existing category, press the + (plus symbol, or “add”) button in the upper-right corner.
Removing a Bookmark
To remove a bookmark, first go to the bookmarked location. Then tap-and-hold on the bookmarked verse or article. In the resulting Context menu, choose Remove Bookmark. Delete the bookmark from the desired category or categories.
Organizing Your Bookmarks
Your bookmarks can be organized with “categories”. You can create, edit, and remove categories via the PocketBible settings. See PocketBible Settings for information on creating, editing, and removing categories.
For instance, you might use categories for your specific studies:
Or, you may find it helpful to categorize bookmarks related to specific topics:
Bookmarks can be given a category, or added to the list of “uncategorized” bookmarks. An uncategorized bookmark is simply a bookmark that was not put into a specific category.
Note that if you choose to remove a category, the bookmarks in that category are not removed. Instead, they are simply marked as being uncategorized.
Backing Up, Restoring, and Synchronizing Bookmarks
PocketBible contains features that allow you to back up your bookmarks and categories to our server for safekeeping. You can restore from backups to recover lost data. You can also “synchronize” with the server to transfer bookmarks between devices or between instances of PocketBible running on the same device. See Backup and Restore and Synchronization for more information.
Listing Your Bookmarks
Viewing a list of your bookmarks is done differently on the iPad and iPhone.
On the iPad, activate the Toolbox if it is not already visible, and select the B'Marks tab. You'll see a list of all your books and the number of bookmarks in each. If you select a book you'll see a list of the bookmarks in that book. A drop-down list at the top of the panel allows you to select a particular category, so that you can view only the bookmarks in that category.
To see a list of bookmarks on your iPhone, first open or activate the book that contains the bookmark. Then select either Menu | All Bookmarks or Menu | Bookmarks in Category. Select a bookmarked entry to see the verse or article in context.
When your device is in landscape orientation, a Bookmarks button is added to the toolbar to facilitate easy access to your bookmarks. The Bookmarks button appears as a flag.
Remember, a bookmark on a Bible verse applies to all of your Bible translations. So, even though you may have added the bookmark in one translation, you can see it in all of your translations.
Searching Bookmarked Content
When searching the content of a book, you can limit the search to only the portions of the book that have been bookmarked. For instance, if you've bookmarked several verses with the category “grace”, you may want to search only those verses to find those that contain a specific word, such as “mercy”.
To limit a search only to verses that have been bookmarked, select a category on the search input form. You can select a specific category or Any Category to include bookmarked content regardless of category.
See Searching for additional information.
Highlighting Verses
PocketBible's highlighting feature allows you to highlight entire verses in a variety of colors. Unlike your printed Bible, a highlight can be easily changed to another color, or even erased.
Highlights apply to all of your Bibles, so when you highlight a verse in one Bible translation, that verse will be automatically highlighted in your other Bible translations.
Adding a Highlight
To add a highlight to a verse (or change the highlight color of the verse), tap-and-hold on the verse. In the resulting Context menu, choose Highlight [reference], then choose the desired highlight color.
Highlighting Consecutive Verses (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
If you'd like to highlight several verses at once, tap and hold on the starting verse until a word is selected. Adjust the selection to include the last verse that you'd like to highlight, then select Selection Actions from the resulting menu bar. Next, select Highlight Selected Verses to select the desired highlighting color and apply the highlight.
Removing a Highlight
To remove a highlight on a verse, tap-and-hold on the verse. In the resulting Context menu, choose Highlight [reference], then choose the Highlight Eraser.
Backing Up, Restoring, and Synchronizing Highlights
PocketBible contains features that allow you to back up your highlights to our server for safekeeping. You can restore from backups to recover lost data. You can also “synchronize” with the server to transfer highlights between devices or between instances of PocketBible running on the same device. See Backup and Restore and Synchronization for more information.
Listing Your Highlights
Viewing a list of highlights is done differently on the iPad and the iPhone.
On the iPad, activate the Toolbox if it is not already visible, then select the H'Lites tab. You'll see a list of all your Bibles and the number of highlighted verses in each Bible. Select a Bible to see the specific verses that are highlighted. You can select a highlight color from the drop-down list at the top of the H'Lites tool to see only those verses that are highlighted in that color.
To see a list of verses that are highlighted on your iPhone, first open or activate a Bible. Then select either Menu | All Highlights or Menu | Highlights with Color. Select a highlighted verse to see the verse in context.
Remember, a highlight on a Bible verse applies to all of your Bible translations. So, even though you may have added the highlight in one translation, you can see it in all of your translations.
Searching Highlighted Content
When searching the content of a Bible, you can limit the search to only the verses of the Bible that have been highlighted.
To limit a search only to verses that have been highlighted, select a highlight color on the Search form. You can select a specific color or Any Color to include verses highlighted in any color.
See Searching for additional information.
Adding Notes to Verses
PocketBible gives you the ability to personalize your Bible by adding your own notes. Just as you might write in the margins of your printed Bible, you can add your own comments, thoughts, and observations to the text of your electronic Bible. However, with your electronic Bible your notes show up regardless of which Bible you're viewing at the time. So your note on John 3:16 in the KJV is not lost when you switch to the NKJV. It's right there where you expect it to be.
You have two views of your notes. The note editor is where you create or edit your notes. It includes helpful features for formatting the text using attributes like bold, italic, and underline and for creating colored text, lists, tables, and more. The note viewer is where you view your note. If you've included any references to other Bible verses in your note, the note viewer will automatically link those so when you tap the link, PocketBible will show you the verse.
Creating and Editing Notes
| Creating and editing notes on the iPad is slightly different than doing so on the iPhone. Many of the general comments below apply, but the user interface is different. For more information on creating and editing notes on the iPad, see Notes Panel. |
When you create a new note or edit an existing one, you're presented with the note editor. Tapping anywhere in the text causes the keyboard to be displayed. At its most basic, you just type your thoughts and select the upper left button to exit the editor and return to viewing the note. Any Bible references you've entered will be automatically linked in the viewer.
As you type, the editor keeps track of what you've done so that you can undo or redo (iPhone only) what you've typed using the Undo and Redo buttons on the note editor toolbar, located just above the keyboard. The undo/redo history is discarded when you exit the note viewer.
While this is pretty easy, the note editor contains some advanced features that give you a lot of formatting options in your notes. The note system recognizes a limited set of HTML tags. HTML is a mark-up language that can be used to describe everything from simple text attributes like bold and italic to complex tables and outlines.
Using HTML Tags in your Notes
We can't really teach you HTML in this limited space, but we can tell you about some of the ways we've made it easy to tag your notes using HTML in the note editor.
The HTML... button gives you access to an organized list of HTML tags you can insert into your notes. Simply position the cursor where you'd like the tags to be inserted, then select the tag. If you first select a word, the tag will be applied to that word. So to underline a word, first select it using standard iPhone selection gestures, then tap HTML... and choose Underline. PocketBible will put the <u> (underline) tag in front of the selected word and </u> (stop underlining) tag after.
If you choose not to use any HTML mark-up, or if you use only the character styles such as bold, italic and underline, PocketBible will treat the Enter (or Return key as the end of a paragraph.
If you use even one paragraph, list, or table tag in your note, PocketBible will expect you to take control over where all your paragraphs begin and end (in this particular note — not in all your notes). For this reason, the <p> tag is immediately accessible on the note editor toolbar. (As is the italic tag, which is frequently used for emphasis.)
The list of HTML tags includes most the tags recognized by PocketBible. If you don't see a particular tag listed there it is either because it is not recognized or it is not useful. (For example, the <img> tag is excluded because there's not currently a good way to get images onto the device into a location where the image files can be accessed by PocketBible and embedded into your notes. Similarly, the <map> and <area> tags make little sense without the <img> tag, so they are excluded.)
Because the list of tags is quite long, PocketBible uses More... in several places to indicate that more items are available. Select More... to see the rest of the tags in each section. PocketBible remembers which More... items you've selected between sessions.
Some tags are presented with a variety of attributes filled in, or with attributes that you can fill in by making a choice from a submenu. Not all possible tag attributes are presented here. If you have favorites you don't see here, give them a try.
Any tag you insert into your note can be modified in the note editor. So just because we default table borders to 1 pixel doesn't mean you can't have 3-pixel borders. Just modify the value of the “border” attribute.
Creating Links to Bible Verses in your Notes
We've extended the syntax of the anchor tag (<a href="...">) to allow you to link any arbitrary text to a Bible verse.
Normally, if you want to include a cross-reference to a Bible verse in your note, you just type the reference, like “John 3:16”. The note viewer will automatically link the reference to the Bible. But if you want your link to say something other than “Jn 3:16”, you need to manually add the link yourself.
Say you want to write “The Bible says God loves us” and have “God loves us” link to John 3:16. Simply enter the sentence, then select the phrase you want to link (“God loves us”). Now select Bible Link from the HTML Tags menu. You should see the following text in the note editor:
The Bible says <a href="bible:">God loves us</a>...
The program has done as much as it can for you. You need to tell it the destination of the link. So move the cursor to just after the colon in “bible:” and type “John 3:16” (without the quotes, of course). So now you'll see:
The Bible says <a href="bible:John 3:16">God loves us</a>...
When you subsequently view the note in the note viewer, you'll see that “God loves us” is underlined and blue, indicating it is a link. Select it and PocketBible will take you to John 3:16.
Using the Pasteboard
PocketBible allows you to copy verses and passages to the system pasteboard. You can paste those results into your notes.
When you chose the standard iPhone Paste button in your notes, you'll get the plain-text version of the pasteboard contents. If you prefer to get the same formatting we use in the Bible text, select the HTML... button to bring up the HTML tags and scroll to the bottom of the menu. You'll find Paste HTML near the bottom of the list. Choose this item to paste the HTML version of the pasteboard contents into your note.
See Copy and Paste for more information about copying verses and passages, setting options, and pasting into other applications.
Saving Your Work
PocketBible saves your changes as a result of any one of these events:
Peculiarities of the Note Editor
There is a known bug in the iPhone text editing system that we use that causes it to have difficulty with the HTML character entity (non-breaking space, ASCII 160). We recommend you don't use but instead use   which has the same effect.
When inserting tables and lists into your notes from the Tag menu, you'll find that you don't just get a <table> tag or a <ul> tag. Your table will have one row and that row will have one data cell. Any text that was selected prior to bringing up the menu will be placed in the data cell. Your list will have one list item in it, and any text that was selected will become that list item.
The HTML Tag menu will also insert carriage returns after certain tags in an attempt to make your tagged text more readable. “Readable HTML” is a bit of any oxymoron to many people, but we at least try.
Our note viewer is very particular about its HTML. It's more strict than your average browser. So while most browsers let you do things like skip the <ul> tag and create a bulleted list by just using the <li> tag, ours does not. Most browsers will let you end your paragraphs with </p> without first starting them with <p>. Ours does not. You must have <p> at the beginning of a paragraph if you're going to have </p> at the end.
Another incorrect tagging technique that has been encouraged by overly tolerant browsers is putting in-line tags like <b> (bold) outside of a series of paragraphs and expecting all the paragraphs to be bold. This isn't valid HTML, and it isn't accepted by the PocketBible note viewer.
Finally, in order for the automatic verse linking to work, you need to be explicit about your Bible references. PocketBible won't recognize “3:16” as a Bible reference unless you put a book name in front of it (“Jn 3:16”). You can use almost any abbreviation of the book name you can imagine; just don't put a period after it. So “Gen 1:1” is recognized as Genesis 1:1, but “Gen. 1:1” is not.
If you're working with a Spanish Bible like the NVI you might be tempted to use Spanish book names, like “Juan 3:16”. While PocketBible recognizes Spanish book names in other contexts (like links in the footnotes of the NVI itself), they are not recognized in your notes.
Viewing Notes
Once you've created a note, you view it with the note viewer. The note viewer interprets the HTML tags you've inserted into the text and also links your Bible references.
Note that the tap-zone system used to navigate within Bibles and reference books in PocketBible does not apply to your notes. PocketBible uses a built-in text-viewing facility on the iPhone that renders your entire note at one time and allows you to scroll up and down by dragging and flicking gestures. As a result, it will take a long time to display a long note. Keep your notes brief.
List All Verses with Notes
To view a list of all the verses that have notes, select Menu | List Notes on your iPhone, or go to the Find Notes tab in the Toolbox on the iPad.
Backing Up, Restoring, and Synchronizing Notes
PocketBible contains features that allow you to back up your notes to our server for safekeeping. You can restore from backups to recover lost data. You can also “synchronize” with the server to transfer notes between devices or between instances of PocketBible running on the same device. See Backup and Restore and Synchronization for more information.
Copying Verses
To copy a verse to the iPhone pasteboard, tap-and-hold on the verse and select Copy Verse [verse] from the Context menu. PocketBible places both a plain-text and HTML version of the verse onto the pasteboard.
Copying Passages
To copy more than one verse to the pasteboard, tap-and-hold on the first verse you want to copy, then select Copy Passage [verse]... from the Context menu. You'll be taken to a screen where you can choose the last verse you want to copy.
If you have purchased PocketBible's Advanced Features, then you will select Passage Action rather than Copy Passage.
Obviously you can change both the start and end verses from this screen, so it's not really necessary to tap-and-hold on the first verse to copy a passage. Instead, just tap-and-hold anywhere in the Bible, choose Copy Passage then set the range of verses you want to copy.
PocketBible limits you to copying 100 verses at a time. This is done for two reasons. First, it limits the amount of memory PocketBible needs to perform this operation, thus simplifying the programming somewhat. Second, it is a nod to our publisher partners, who get nervous about unlimited copying of their copyrighted works. You should always consult the “Copyrights and Permissions” section of any Bible or book from which you're copying text to make sure you have adequate permission for the use to which you're putting the text.
PocketBible puts both a plain-text and HTML version of the passage on the pasteboard. If you are pasting into another application, it may or may not use the HTML version.
Copying Selected Text (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
To copy selected text to the pasteboard, use the familiar method of selecting text. That is, tap-and-hold to select a word, then move the “drag handles” at the beginning and end of the selected text until you've selected all the text you want to copy.. In the resulting menu bar, select Selection Actions. From that menu, you'll be able to copy the selected text (and do other things with the selected text as well).
Pasting Verses into Notes
When pasting verses into your PocketBible notes, you can paste either the plain-text or HTML-formatted version of the verse. If you use the standard iPhone Paste menu button, you'll get the plain-text version. If instead you select the HTML... button in the note editor and scroll down to the Paste HTML item, you can paste the HTML-formatted version of the pasteboard into your note. This may look rather ugly when viewing it in the note editor, but once the note viewer formats it, it will look just like the Bible from which it was copied.
Copy Passage Options
There are several options that control how verses are formatted during Copy Passage operations. See Copy Passage Options for details.
Printing (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
Printing requires iOS version 4.2 or later, plus a compatible AirPrint printer.
In general, any time that you can choose to Copy a verse, passage, or selected text, you can choose instead to Print the verse, passage, or selected text.
Printing a Verse
To print a verse, tap-and-hold on the verse, select Menu from the resulting popup menu bar, and then select Print [verse] from the resulting Context menu.
Printing a Verse
To print a passage, tap-and-hold on the verse, select Menu from the resulting popup menu bar, and then select Passage Actions from the resulting Context menu. You'll then be able to select the range and choose to print it.
Printing a Verse
To print selected text, start by selecting the text that you'd like to print. From the popup menu bar, select Selection Actions. You'll then be able to choose to print it.
Share a Verse
To text or email a verse to one of your contacts, tap-and-hold on the desired verse. In the resulting popup Context menu, select either Email [verse reference] or Text [verse reference] to access the composition form. Select a recipient, edit the message as desired, and send it.
Share a Passage
If you'd like to send more than one verse, use Copy Passage to copy the desired verses to the clipboard, then select Paste to Email or Paste to Text Message from the menu.
Share the Pasteboard Contents
If you've copied text to the pasteboard, you can open a new email or text message and automatically paste the text from the pasteboard into the new message. Select Paste to Email or Paste to Text Message from the menu.
If you've copied something other than text to the pasteboard, choose New Email or New Text Message from the menu, then tap and hold to insert the clipboard contents. Some messages may not support all formats, so you may not be able to paste the pasteboard contents into your message. Also, note that the text messaging composition form may not support multimedia content.
A Note About Availability and Features
To use these email and text messaging features, you must have configured email and/or text messaging, respectively. Some devices might not support email and text messaging.
The email and text messaging composition forms are provided by the operating system. The email and text messaging features may vary based upon your device (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) and the version of the operating system.
PocketBible's text messaging features require devices with iOS 4.0 or later and that support the programmatic interface to text messaging. If your device does not support the programmatic interface to support texting, then the texting menu items will not be shown. (Your phone may provide text messaging but not the programmatic interface needed for PocketBible to use text messaging.)
About Devotionals
Devotionals or daily reading books are books that are organized by date. They may have a list of Bible verses for you to read each day, or they might have a reading or article for you to read. Most devotionals contain 365 or 366 readings — enough for a whole year. A few have less and are intended to be used over a period of a few months.
PocketBible helps you use devotional books by keeping track of your progress. You start by telling it the “start date” of the book — the date you want to start reading the book (usually today). Then, as you finish each day's reading, you tell PocketBible to mark that day as “read”. This allows PocketBible to tell you if you're ahead or behind schedule, or take you to the first reading you have not yet read.
Most devotional features are accessed through the Devotional menu, which is activated by the Today button, which is the button that looks like a calendar. Some of these functions are duplicated on the main PocketBible menu (activated with the Menu button). Devotionals also have their own tap zone definition and a customized Context menu.
Note that some devotionals contain a list of Bible verses to read. PocketBible does not keep track of whether or not you've read all the passages that are linked to in a devotional reading, just whether or not you've read the entire reading. So if you're using one of our through-the-Bible reading plans to read through the Bible, it might have three different passages it wants you to read. You'll have to remember which of the three passages you've read as you do your reading that day. Then when you're done you'll mark the entire reading as “read”.
Tap Zones for Devotionals
When a devotional book is open, the top left and top right corner tap zones take you to the previous and next reading, respectively. Both the middle and lower left and right zones take you to the previous and next page, and the top and bottom center tap zones switch books, just like when viewing other types of books.
The Today Button and Devotional Menu
The Today button has a dual purpose. When you're viewing a Bible or any type of reference book other than a daily reading book, selecting the Today button will cause the preferred devotional to be opened to today's reading. If you are already viewing a devotional book, then selecting the Today button causes the Devotional menu to be displayed. The Devotional menu is where you'll access most of the functions related especially to daily reading books.
The main functions on the Devotional menu allow you to mark readings as “read” or “unread”, go to today's reading or the first unread reading, view your progress, alter your reading plan (to start over, catch up, or make other adjustments), and open a different devotional.
Context menu for Devotionals
When you tap and hold on a devotional book, the Context menu is displayed, as usual. Near the top of the menu you will see a choice that allows you to mark the selected reading as “read”. This is especially useful for Bible reading plans and other cases where more than one day's reading is visible on the screen. Whereas it's easy to mark either today's reading or the current (top) reading as “read”, it can be time-consuming to maneuver one of the readings in the middle of the page up to the top. Tap-and-hold on the reading you want to mark “read” and then mark it “read” using the Context menu.
Note that there will be no visible indication on the screen when you change the status of a reading that is in the middle of the page. The title bar changes color based on the status of the current (top) reading, but there is no such indicator for readings in the middle of the page.
The Preferred Devotional
Many people make use of just one devotional book as they go through the year. To simplify some of the operations described below, PocketBible allows you to select a “preferred devotional”. This is done through the program Settings menu. Once you've selected a preferred devotional, you can get to today's reading in that book by tapping the Today button.
If you tap the Today button without having previously selected a preferred devotional, you will be prompted to select one.
Starting from the Beginning of a Devotional and Tracking Your Progress
When you first install a devotional book, or if you've never used the progress-tracking features of the program, the first item on the Devotional menu will be Begin Tracking Progress. This menu item accesses the Devotional Settings menu where you will choose a start date. Normally you're starting today, but you can also choose any date before today that is within the range of dates covered by the book. So if the book has 365 readings, you can choose today as your start date or any date in the last year.
If you already have marked some readings as “read” you'll have the option to either keep or delete that information when you change the start date of the book. If your intent is to start fresh, say at the beginning of the new year, you'll want to delete your previous progress information.
After you've selected a start date, if there is no reading progress information for this book (either because there never was any or because you deleted it), you will still see Begin Tracking Progress as the first item in the Devotional menu. Once you've marked at least one reading as “read”, this choice will go away and be replaced by Devotional Settings at the end of the menu.
With your new start date selected and with your progress information cleared (or not) you can begin reading your book. After you complete a day's reading, you can mark it “read”. The next time you view this book, choose First Unread Reading from the devotional menu to get to the article you need to read that day.
Starting in the Middle of a Book and Tracking Your Progress
If you've been reading out of a particular devotional book for a while and decide to start tracking your progress, or if you've been using another program or the printed version of the book and want to switch to PocketBible, the program provides features that allow you to quickly mark all past readings as “read”.
Simply navigate to the reading you want to read today using the Go To button, the View Progress item on the Devotional menu, or by choosing the Next Reading tap zone (upper right corner) until you get to the reading for today. Then open the Devotional menu by selecting the Today button. Choose Begin Tracking Progress, or, if it is not present, Devotional Settings. You should see an option to make today's reading be the current reading. When you choose that item, you'll be asked what you want to do about progress tracking. You can mark all readings through yesterday or today as “read”. Choose either of those options and you're ready to begin using PocketBible for your daily devotional reading.
Starting Over After All Readings are Complete
Once you've read through an entire book, you can start over by simply changing the start date for the book to today and clearing your reading progress information. You do this from the Devotional Settings menu.
Getting Around in a Devotional Book
PocketBible gives you several ways to navigate through a devotional book. Like other books, you can select the Go To button (second from the left on the tool bar). You'll be able to select a date to go to the reading for that date, or choose several short cuts such as First Unread Reading (to go to the first reading you haven't yet read), Today's Reading (to go to the reading for today), or Next Reading (to go to the next reading from the one you're currently looking at).
Obviously you can page through a devotional book like any other book. The upper left and upper right tap zones, however, move you to the previous or next reading, respectively.
The Devotional menu (accessed through the Today button) has shortcuts that take you to today's reading (if you're not already there) and the next unread reading (if there are any).
From the Devotional menu you can choose View Reading Progress. This will take you to a list of all the readings in the book. Select a date from this list to be taken to the reading for that date. (You can also enter edit mode on this list and use it to quickly and easily mark several days' readings as “read” or “unread”.)
Keeping Track of Your Progress
As you complete the reading for each day, you need to tell PocketBible you're done. You do this by marking that reading as “read”. There are several ways to do this:
Reading Out of Order
Of course you can read your devotionals in any order you'd like. The progress tracking features work best if you read sequentially. If you skip a reading or read randomly through the book, PocketBible has trouble telling if you're on schedule or not. It will indicate that readings are not being read sequentially as part of the status message at the top of the Devotional menu.
You will also find that the Catch Up function doesn't really work the way you might expect. (We don't know what you might expect in these circumstances, so it's safe to say it may not work the way you expect.) It will make the last reading you've read (which could be a future reading) be yesterday's (or today's) reading, which may leave gaps of unread readings in the past, putting you behind schedule.
Again, if you're going to use the progress tracking features it's best to read the book sequentially.
Viewing Your Progress
There are several ways that PocketBible indicates your reading progress:
When You Get Behind
PocketBible provides a Catch Up function to help you adjust your reading plan when you get hopelessly behind. Select Catch Up from the Devotional Settings menu (accessed from the Devotional menu, which is displayed when you select the Today button while your devotional book is visible). You will be given the option to catch up through yesterday or through today.
PocketBible will adjust the start date of your book so that the last reading you have read will be yesterday (Catch Up Through Yesterday) or today (Catch Up Through Today). The former leaves you a reading to do today; the latter assumes you've done all the reading you want to do today and leaves the first unread reading for tomorrow.
Backing Up, Restoring, and Synchronizing Devotional Data
PocketBible contains features that allow you to back up your reading progress and devotional start dates to our server for safekeeping. You can restore from backups to recover lost data. You can also Synchronize with the server to transfer devotional data between devices or between instances of PocketBible running on the same device. See Backup and Restore and Synchronization for more information.
Miscellaneous Devotional Issues
If you read the same book in another program or in print and want to track progress in PocketBible:
In this way you can update your progress in PocketBible even though you've read several of the previous days' readings from another source.
Once you've finished a daily reading book if you want to read it again you should reset the start date to today's date and delete your reading progress.
Some of PocketBible's devotional features work best if you read sequentially. If the status message on the top of the Devotional menu says you are not reading sequentially, select View Reading Progress and scan through the list for a reading you may have accidentally marked as “read” in the future, or one in the past that you accidentally marked as “unread”.
You don't have to use the progress tracking features to do your daily reading with PocketBible. If you always do the readings every day you can just go to today's reading each time you open your devotional.
“Red” does not mean “read” (as in “I have already read that day's reading.”). Think of the colors this way: Red is used to get your attention and point out that something is wrong. That is, you need to read this reading today. Green is good. Green readings have already been read (technically, they've also already been red!).
About User-Created Data
User-created data includes notes, highlights, bookmarks, bookmark categories, devotional reading progress, and devotional start dates. Over time you may accumulate a lot of this type of data, and recovering from its loss can be time-consuming. PocketBible gives you the ability to store a copy of this data on our Web server for safekeeping, and restore it later in the event of loss.
Backing Up
Select Menu | Manage My Data. If your email address (or Laridian customer ID) and password are not already entered, enter them as requested. Then select Back Up My Data to Server. The back up functionality will copy your notes, highlights, bookmarks, bookmark categories, devotional reading progress, and devotional start dates to a database on our server.
In addition to these manual backups, the program does an automatic back up of your data during synchronization.
Restoring from a Backup
To restore data from a backup, select Menu | Manage My Data then Restore From a Backup. The program will download a list of backup data sets from the server. You can choose which data set to restore based on the date and time it was backed up.
Note that when you restore from a backup, all your existing data is first deleted. If you have made changes to your notes, highlights, etc. since the backup you are restoring, those changes will be lost.
Furthermore, since existing data is deleted, this is not intended to be a way to share your data with other users. That is, if you give someone else your login information, their existing data will be deleted if they download yours. Worse yet, if they back up using your login credentials, your data will be replaced with theirs.
Data Retention and Privacy Policy
We will store your backups for at least 30 days, and will retain at least one backup for at least one year.
The data sets you store on the server are only accessible to you, using your Laridian customer ID (or email address) and password. Obviously, we can see your data as well. Your backed-up data resides on one of our servers and is not directly accessible from the Web.
Don't share your login credentials with other PocketBible users, for the reasons cited above. This could cause loss of data for you or for the person with whom you share your credentials.
About User-Created Data
User-created data includes notes, highlights, bookmarks, bookmark categories, devotional reading progress, and devotional start dates. If you use PocketBible on multiple devices (including PocketBible for Windows and iPocketBible.com on the Web) you can use the synchronization feature to intelligently share this data between those devices.
Why Synchronize?
While synchronization works great if you're just running PocketBible on one device, its real strength is its ability to allow you to view and edit your data on any supported platform. Right now those platforms include:
By using the synchronization features of these programs, you can edit your notes, highlights, or bookmarks on any device and always be sure that your latest changes will appear on all your devices. Simply synchronize with the server before and after you make your changes. (In fact, you can usually just wait until after you've made the changes to synchronize.)
The Synchronization Process
The first time you synchronize with the server from any supported device/program, your user-created data is essentially just copied to the server. It's the second and subsequent times that get interesting.
Each data type (notes, highlights, bookmarks, reading progress and devotional start dates) is handled the same way:
Items Modified on the Device and Server
When a note, highlight, or devotional start date has been modified in two places since the last sync, the program can't be sure which you want to keep. So it will ask you. You can keep the local version, the server's version, the newer version, or the older one. In the case of notes, you can choose to simply combine the server and local versions into one note. You don't have to make the same choice for each data type. That is, you can keep the notes from your iPhone, but choose to save the highlights from the server.
New Items that don't Exist on the Other Device
When the program encounters an item that was created since the last sync, and which doesn't exist on the other side of the sync connection, it assumes that this is a new item and copies it to the other side of the sync.
Items Modified on Only One Device
When the program finds an item that was modified since the last sync on one side (either the server or local device) but which has not been modified since the last sync on the other side of the sync connection, it means you've changed that item and it needs to be copied to the other device.
Deleted Items
When you delete an item from your iPhone, the server will find that it still has a copy from before the last sync. Because the item is older than the last sync date, it must be the case that you deleted it, so the server will delete its copy. Similarly, an item on the device that no longer exists on the server needs to be deleted from the device.
Using Synchronization to Move Data
To move user-created data from PocketBible for Windows Mobile or MyBible for Palm OS to PocketBible for iPhone:
To move user-created data from PocketBible for Windows to PocketBible for iPhone:
To move user-created data from iPocketBible.com to PocketBible for iPhone, simply synchronize your iPhone with the server.
To move user-created data from your iPhone to any of the platforms above, simply reverse the process.
Synchronizing After Restoring
When you perform a restore operation, the modification date of all your data is set to the current date/time. So the next time you synchronize it will appear that ALL of the data on your device is newer than the data on the server. As a result, items you previously deleted may reappear in the synchronized dataset. It should not be the case that synchronizing deletes anything unexpectedly, however.
Accessing Your Data from the Web
After synchronizing, your data is actually stored in the same database we use for our iPocketBible.com website. You can thus view your user-created data by logging into www.iPocketBible.com using your Laridian customer ID (or email address) and password. Changes you make to your user-created data at the website will be reflected on your device after the next time you sync.
Synchronization Caveats
Not For Sharing
While you might be tempted to give your login credentials to another PocketBible user so they can get a copy of your notes or other user data, this creates a problem. Any time that user modifies his data, he will cause changes to your dataset the next time he synchronizes with the server. Do not use synchronization as a way to exchange user-created data with another PocketBible user.
We Can't Read Your Mind
If you accidentally delete some notes on your iPhone, don't think that you can synchronize with the server to restore them. We always assume that changes to your data are intentional. So when the server sees you've deleted some notes from your iPhone, it will simply delete them from the server, too. After all, that must be what you intended.
To recover data that is accidentally deleted, use the restore functionality to restore from your last backup. You will lose anything you've added since the backup, but that might be less of a loss than what you accidentally deleted.
Text Selection (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
Text selection and related actions are provided when the advanced features upgrade has been purchased or applied. Text selection allows you to select and act upon an arbitrary block of selected text.
Selecting Text
You are probably already familiar with how to select text, but if not, here's a quick refresher. Tap-and-hold on a word until the word is selected. Then use the “drag handles” at the beginning and end of the selected text to select the desired range of text.
Clearing the Selection
To remove (or “clear”) the selection, simply tap the text again.
Selection Actions
The popup menu bar associated with the selected text allows you to act upon the selected text. Select Copy to copy the selected text to the pasteboard, Selection Actions to choose among various actions related to the selected text, or Menu to view the Context menu.
Copy and the Context menu have been adequately discussed elsewhere. Choose Selection Actions to choose an action related to the selected text. For instance, you can choose from the following:
The availability of some of these actions depends upon the capability of your device and the content of the selected text. For instance, printing requires iOS version 4.2 or later. If your device is still running iOS version 4.1 or previous, then the Print option will not be shown.
Audio Features (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
Overview
PocketBible uses advanced text-to-speech voice synthesization techniques to read text from any book to you. Text-to-speech voice synthesization is different than playing an audio recording of a professional speaker reading the text.
While text-to-speech voice synthesization does not result in the same natural pronunciation and inflection as an audio recording of a professional speaker, in most cases it does a surprisingly good job reading the text.
When we set out to implement this feature we had several goals. Among them:
The text-to-speech synthesizer works by applying phonetic rules to determine how to best pronounce a word. Some words, especially the names of people and places, don't always follow the rules, and you may hear some unusual pronunciations of those names (just like your GPS, which sometimes has trouble with street names).
However, with that understanding of some of the limitations, we think that you'll enjoy listening to the Bible, a devotional, or other book being read to you.
Buying a Voice
PocketBible text-to-speech synthesizer requires a voice module. Several voice modules are available: male, female, younger, older, English, Spanish. Voice modules may be purchased using In-App Purchase within PocketBible, or directly from Laridian.
To purchase a voice module:
Note that the samples you hear are actual recordings of the voice using text-to-speech synthesis. The samples will give you a good idea of what the voice will sound like.
If you prefer, voices can also be purchased at the Laridian Web site.
To download a purchased voice module:
Selecting a Voice
If you have installed more than one voice, you can select which of these voices you'd like to use. We call this “the preferred voice”. Select Menu | Settings and choose the Preferred English Voice and/or the Preferred Spanish Voice.
See Preferred English Voice and Preferred Spanish Voice for more details.
Listening
PocketBible can read an individual word, a verse, a passage, or even simply start reading and continue until you tell it to stop. There are many ways to start and stop the spoken audio. Peruse some of the options in both the Menu and the Context menu.
Audio can also be controlled via the audio remote control. If the audio remote control is not currently shown, show it by selecting Menu | Show Audio Remote. On the iPad, you can press the Audio button on the toolbar to show or hide audio remote control. The audio remote control allows you to:
Here are some tips that help you as you explore and use this feature.
Automated Study (Advanced Feature)
More information on advanced features.
Overview
PocketBible can generate a report on any verse in the Bible or on a word, including related information from your installed books in the report. The information to included in the report is highly customizable, and the report can be copied to the pasteboard, saved in a file, or printed.
Two kinds of automated studies are available:
Verse Autostudy
The Verse Autostudy uses information from your installed and selected books to generate a report related to the selected verse. The report can include any of the following information:
Each of the above elements can be excluded from the report, and the books used to generate the content for each element can be adjusted as well. For details, see Autostudy Settings.
Word Autostudy
The Word Autostudy uses information from your installed and selected books to generate a report related to the selected word. The report can include any of the following information:
Each of the above elements can be excluded from the report, and the books used to generate the content for each element can be adjusted as well. For details, see Autostudy Settings.
Autostudy Results
PocketBible creates an Autostudy report on the verse or word of interest, including the available information that you've selected to include. Once the report is generated, you can, of course, read it on screen. However, you can also choose to output the report in a variety of other helpful formats. Based upon the capability of your device, you can choose to:
Autostudy Options
The content of the Autostudy report is highly customizable. You can select which books to include (and exclude), which elements to include, and even the order of the elements to include and the order of the books within each element.
For details, see Autostudy Settings.
PocketBible provides many optional settings that allow you to customize and personalize PocketBible for your preferences. To see and/or change these settings, choose Menu | Settings. These customizable settings allow you to do many things with your electronic books that you just can't do with printed books. For instance, if you need to have the text be just a little larger, you can select a larger font size.
Most of the settings choices are self-explanatory. For instance, as you might expect, the Font setting allows you to select the font used by your books.
These settings are applied to your PocketBible program and all of your PocketBible books. So, when you select a font, for instance, all of your PocketBible books will begin to use that font.
You can't hurt anything by changing the settings, so feel free to experiment in order to find the settings that you are most comfortable with.
Font
Adjust many of the settings related to the display in one convenient form. This includes the font, font size, brightness, whether to show panes in tabs (Advanced Feature), and the number of open panes (Advanced Feature).
Font
Select the font to be used in your PocketBible books. The font choice applies to all of your books, not just to the book that you are currently looking at.
Font Size
Choose the size of the font used in your PocketBible books. Some typical choices are provided, but you can choose any font size within the supported limits.
Open Panes
Select the number of open panes.
Show Panes in Tabs (Advanced Feature)
Check to show the panes maximized within tabs, or uncheck to show panes in a tiled format.
Lock Rotation
On the iPad, this function is not available in Settings but rather you use the hardware switch located on the side of the iPad to lock orientation.
Normally, when you rotate your iPhone the screen will reorient itself so that text always appears right side up. This can be frustrating if you're trying to read while lying down or while in some other position in which the phone is not perpendicular to the pull of gravity.
To disable this autorotation, orient the device the way you want the text to appear, then select Lock Rotation from the Settings menu. PocketBible will ignore any device gyrations and will keep the text "frozen" in its current orientation. It will remember this setting between sessions, so the next time you launch PocketBible it will come up locked in this orientation.
To re-enable autorotation, orient the device so the text is right side up, then select Lock Rotation from the Settings menu. Now when you rotate the device, the text should be free to rotate as expected. Again, this setting is remembered between PocketBible sessions, so the next time you run the program it will honor the orientation of the device and keep its text right side up.
Note that not all PocketBible screens are able to rotate in the first place. There is a small number of screens that only support one orientation (usually “portrait”). These screens are not affected by the setting of Lock Rotation.
Margins and Line Leading
You can set the left, right, top, and bottom margins and the line leading (or “line spacing”) for the text you see on the screen. There are separate settings for the single-pane and multiple-pane configurations. When viewing only a single book, you might want larger margins and line spacing to make reading more pleasurable. These settings allow you to do that.
When splitting the screen to view two or more Bibles and reference books, you probably want to decrease the amount of unused space so that you can maximize the amount of text visible at any given time. Also, if you increase the font size you might want to decrease the line leading (i.e. the space between lines) to match your personal tastes.
Margins are in pixels. You can experiment with the settings that look best to you. Remember to set the Single-Pane Margins to affect the program when only one book is displayed and the Multi-Pane Margins to affect the display of multiple panes.
Line leading (rhymes with heading) refers to the space between lines and is sometimes called “line spacing”. It is expressed as a percentage. 100 is the minimum and represents “normal” line spacing as dictated by the largest font on a given line. A value of 150 would give you 50% more than normal spacing. A value of 200 results in what is commonly known as double-spacing. (The term “leading” goes back to when type was set by hand and lead strips were placed between the rows of type to keep descenders from touching the tallest characters in the line beneath.)
Changes take effect immediately. On the iPad, you'll see your changes affecting the display as you make them. There is an option at the bottom of the Margins & Leading menu to reset the values to their factory defaults. If you get hopelessly confused, try resetting and starting over.
Strong's Numbers
Select whether to show the Strong's numbers within the text of books that provide this capability. Some PocketBible Bibles (such as the King James Version Exhaustive Concordance and the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance) include optional Strong's numbers that can be shown with most of the English words in the Bible text. You can turn these extra numbers on and off with this setting. Of course, if a Bible does not contain Strong's numbers as an option, this setting will not make them appear.
Since not all books are capable of showing Strong's numbers, you may not see any visible change when you change this setting.
Words of Christ in Red
Select whether to show the words of Christ in red. Most, but not all, PocketBible Bibles include the “words of Christ in red”. The editor(s) of the particular edition and translation of the Bible determine which words are the words of Christ. Since different editors apply different criteria, there is some variance in which words are marked in red between different translations. If you prefer not to see the words of Christ in red in your Bibles, you can turn off this option.
Footnote Style
Select how to treat footnotes included in the text. Some, but not all, PocketBible books include additional editorial or translator's notes. This setting allows you to hide these additional notes completely, mark the notes with a hot-linked indicator, or automatically always show the content of the note within the text.
Highlight Linked Passage
Select whether to temporarily highlight a passage you reach as the result of following a link. This is perhaps best described by example. Suppose that you are reading a commentary that refers to Ephesians 2:1-10. When you click on the link to read the Bible text, if this option is turned on, PocketBible will highlight verses 1 through 10 in a subtle color that will identify the verses that were referenced. This prevents you from needing to remember the exact set of verses that you were to read. This option is especially helpful if you are using a “read through the Bible” reading plan that helps you read a large number of Bible verses each day.
Indent Poetry
Select whether poetic indentations should be allowed. Many, but not all, PocketBible Bibles include special indentation in many poetic passages, such as the Psalms. If you find these indentations distracting, you can turn them off.
MSG Verse Numbers
Select whether verse numbers should be included within the text of The Message. In print format, The Message is printed without the traditional verse numbers used to identify verses. In PocketBible format, you can choose whether to include these verse numbers or not.
Shrink Images to Fit
Select how images are treated. Some PocketBible books include pictures and other images. PocketBible can show these images full-size (some are quite large) or can “shrink” the images to fit the smaller screen of your iPhone.
Synchronize
Select whether PocketBible should synchronize books to the active book. PocketBible can automatically “synchronize” the contents of your books with the active book. Synchronizing tries to keep all of your books turned to the same book or article as your active book. So, when you turn to Ephesians 4:22 in one Bible, your other Bibles will turn to this same verse when synchronization is turned on. When you next look at another Bible, it will also be positioned at Ephesians 4:22. When synchronization is turned off, changing the page in one book does not affect in of your other books.
Commentaries can move along with your Bibles. So if you have both a commentary and a Bible open, and change to Ephesians 4:22 in your Bible, your commentary will go to an article on Ephesians 4:22 (if the commentary contains such an article). Changing articles in your commentary, however, will not change the verse in your Bible (see below).
Synchronization also affects dictionaries and devotional books. If you look up a word in a dictionary with synchronize mode turned on, all your dictionaries will attempt to turn to their entry for that word. If you go to a reading for a particular day in a devotional when synchronize mode is turned on, all your devotionals will turn to their article for that day.
Note that simply flipping pages in a dictionary or commentary will not cause your other dictionaries and commentaries to move, but doing so in a devotional book will cause all your devotionals to move to their article for the date you're looking at in the active devotional. This is because dictionaries and commentaries can have multiple words or Bible passages, respectively, associated with a particular article so the program doesn't know which of the many words/passages to tell your other dictionaries/commentaries to go to. Devotionals, however, can only have one date per entry so the program can easily tell what date the other devotionals should go to.
Preferred Books
Select your preferred books. Your PocketBible books may contain many kinds of links to other books. Additionally, you may perform certain actions (such as looking up the definition of a word or turning to today's devotional reading) that require PocketBible to choose a book to use to satisfy your request. In these cases, you can help PocketBible pick the book that you'd prefer to use by identifying your “preferred choice” for a Bible, devotional, and dictionary. You can choose three preferred dictionaries, which allows you to select your preferred English dictionary and your preferred dictionaries to use for Hebrew and Greek Strong's numbers.
(You can actually pick any dictionary for your Hebrew and Greek dictionary. This allows you to select your first, second and third preferred choices of English dictionaries instead of the choice for looking up the definitions of words associated with Strong's numbers, if you prefer.)
Preferred English Voice (Advanced Feature)
Select the synthesized voice to use when reading English text. Only available when at least one English voice is installed.
Preferred Spanish Voice (Advanced Feature)
Select the synthesized voice to use when reading Spanish text. Only available when at least one Spanish voice is installed.
Verse Selection
Select how you prefer to pick a Bible passage. PocketBible provides three options for turning to a specific verse in a Bible: the Book/Chapter/Verse method (where you pick the desired book, then desired chapter, and finally the desired verse from lists of available choices), the Calculator style (where you select the book from a list then enter the chapter and verse on a numeric keypad), and the Spinner method (where you spin the wheels to bring the book, chapter and verse into view).
Color-Code Bible Book Buttons
The Book/Chapter/Verse or “3-tap” verse selection method normally presents its list of books of the Bible using color-coded buttons to help you more quickly find the book you're looking for. If you don't find these colors helpful, you can disable them here. This option is only available when the Verse Selection is set to Bk/Ch/Vs and it only affects buttons displayed using that method.
Change Login ID or Password
If you have already registered PocketBible, the program will use the customer account credentials you entered at that time. If you want to change those for some reason, you can do that here. Note that it's not a good idea to maintain two accounts with us, or to use someone else's login credentials to attempt to access their books and Bibles. First, your notes, highlights, bookmarks, reading progress, and other personal data is connected to your account. If you maintain two accounts or use another person's account, you risk losing or corrupting your personal data (or the other person's data).
Second, your Apple account is implicitly connected to the first Laridian account you use with it. As a result, your purchases using In-App Purchasing are recorded in that Laridian account. When you change accounts or use another person's account, you will have to deal with a stream of error messages as we warn you about trying to register In-App Purchases with two or more Laridian accounts, and your books won't be available to you in the new account.
Finally, certain items such as the upgrade to the advanced feature set will actually get removed from your device if they are not found in the second account. This is necessary to support the possibility of these items being refunded by Apple or by us. Once refunded, you lose access to those items. So if you log into an account that does not contain an upgrade you've already applied (or a book you've alredy downloaded), we may remove the upgrade (or book) because it appears you've asked us to issue a refund and remove it from your account.
If you have a legitimate need to maintain more than one account, contact technical support about the potential issues. If you alredy have more than one account, technical support can merge them into a single account for you.
Manage Bookmark Categories
Add, edit, and remove the categories that you use to organize your bookmarks.
System Status Bar
Per Apple's recommendation, the iPad version of PocketBible does not allow you to hide the system status bar.
On the iPhone, use this setting to select whether you'd like to show or hide the system status bar. Your iPhone includes a system status bar that (usually) shows your network connectivity, the time of day, your battery status, etc. You can choose whether you want to see it while PocketBible is running, or if you'd rather PocketBible use the space for text.
Title Bar
Select how you'd like to see the title bar for each book. The title bar shows the abbreviation of and location in the book that is active in a particular pane. If you often find yourself switching between many books, this can be very helpful. But if you find that you read only one book or Bible most of the time, this information may be unneeded. So, PocketBible lets you specify whether you'd always like to see this, never like to see this, or see it only when the controls are shown. (Tap the center of any PocketBible book to see the controls.)
Toolbar
Select how you'd like to see the PocketBible toolbar. Similar to the title bar setting, this setting allows you to choose whether the toolbar should always be shown or shown only when you see the controls. (Tap the center of any PocketBible book to see the controls.) You might choose this latter option if you'd prefer to see more text of the book that you are reading.
Navigation Overlay
Select how you'd like to see the PocketBible navigation overlay. The PocketBible navigation overlay identifies the tap zones and actions that will occur when you tap within the tap zone. The navigation overlay is typically only shown when you choose to show the controls, such as by tapping near the center of the active book pane. However, you can configure PocketBible to never show the overlay, even when you request that the controls be shown.
Result Style
Select how you'd like to see results of your searches. As you've learned, PocketBible provides many powerful searching features to allow you to find what you're looking for in your books and Bibles. One additional customizable feature allows you to determine how you'd like to see these results. If you'd like to see as many results as possible, then you don't want to see any excerpt from the match. You just want to see the title. On the other hand, you may find it useful to see an excerpt from the verse or article that matches what you're looking for. The Small Excerpt choice will show a concordance-style excerpt, while Large Excerpt will show a larger excerpt from the beginning of the verse or article.
Mark Results in Text
Indicate whether or not you want search matches to be identified by a different color than surrounding text.
Near Proximity
Indicate the size of the proximity used for “near” searches.
Include Notes
When checked, your notes will be included along with any verses you copy to the pasteboard using the Copy Passage function.
Include Verse Numbers
When checked, verse numbers will appear in the text copied to the pasteboard during Copy Passage operations. This feature also enables the verse delimiter settings in the following sections. When this item is not checked, there will be no verse numbers in the Bible text you copy to the pasteboard during Copy Passage.
Verse Delimiters
When Include Verse Numbers is checked, this option controls how verse numbers are indicated in the plain-text verses copied to the pasteboard. The verse number can optionally be surrounded by any characters to set it off from the rest of the text. Common choices are included in the list you see when you select this item, such as brackets, parenthesis, braces, hyphens, etc. However, you can enter any sequence of characters for the left and right delimiters.
For example, if you enter ** as the left delimiter and STARTS HERE: as the right delimiter, then copied Proverbs 3:1-4, you'll get the following:
**3:1STARTS HERE: My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: **2STARTS HERE: For length of days, and long, life, and peace, shall they add to thee. **3STARTS HERE: Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: **4STARTS HERE: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
Obviously, something simple like parenthesis will look a lot better.
HTML Verse Delimiters
When Include Verse Numbers is checked, this option controls how verse numbers are indicated in the HTML version of verses copied to the pasteboard. The verse number can optionally be surrounded by any characters (or, in this case, HTML tags) to set it off from the rest of the text. Common choices are included in the list you see when you select this item, such as superscript, superscript bold, and italic. However, you can enter any sequence of characters or HTML tags for the left and right delimiters.
Verse Autostudy Settings (Advanced Feature)
This is where you customize the content of your Verse Autostudy reports. You can customize which of the shown elements may be included in a report, and then further customize the content of each element by selecting the books that can be used to generate the report. Additionally, the order of both the elements and the books can be adjusted.
You can adjust:
Word Autostudy Settings (Advanced Feature)
This is where you customize the content of your Word Autostudy reports. You can customize which of the shown elements may be included in a report, and then further customize the content of each element by selecting the books that can be used to generate the report. Additionally, the order of both the elements and the books can be adjusted.
You can adjust:
Customize CSS (Advanced Feature)
Those that aren't faint-of-heart can adjust the cascading style sheet (CSS) that is used to format the autostudy report. If you don't understand what you see, it's better not to change it.
Timeout
Change the timeout used when communicating with the iPocketBible.com server while synchronizing your data (such as notes, highlights, bookmarks, and devotional reading progress). The default value is 60 seconds. However, for larger amounts of personal data, you may need to increase this value to prevent timeout errors. This timeout is the amount of time that PocketBible will wait on the server before it assumes that there is a temporary communication outage. Therefore, set the timeout to a larger value if you want to give the server more time to process your data and respond. The only downside of setting a larger value is that if there really is a temporary communication outage, you'll have to wait longer before PocketBible will stop waiting.
Factory Defaults
Reset all of the settings back to the factory defaults. This is especially convenient if you've generously experimented with various options, and just want to return back to the default state.
Most of the Bibles and other reference material available for PocketBible are protected by US and International copyright laws. To find complete copyright information on any book, choose About This Book from the Menu.
First and most important, you cannot give or sell copies of PocketBible or any of its copyrighted books to other people. You can keep a backup copy of any setup and installation files on your desktop computer.
Second, if you copy text out of any of the copyrighted books that are sold with PocketBible, you may be subject to limits that are set by the copyright holders. Look for the “Permission to Quote” statement in the book you're interested in copying from. If you have any doubts, contact the copyright holder named in the copyright statement.
Generally, you can use any copyrighted material for your own personal use and for certain educational uses. But even educational use does not permit unlimited copying. Contact the copyright holder if you need to quote extensively from copyrighted material.
The best way to reach Laridian is on the Internet:
The Laridian web site contains FAQs and support information for Laridian products. Whether you want to learn about additional products or need assistance with a product that you have purchased, the Laridian web site is a good place to start!
Laridian is a software development and marketing company specializing in electronic publishing on mobile devices.
PocketBible was designed and developed by Craig Rairdin and Jeff Wheeler. In early 1999 Craig and Jeff left Parsons Technology, where they had spent ten years creating and marketing the QuickVerse Bible software for DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Together with co-worker Jim VanDuzer, they founded Laridian for the purpose of creating and marketing Bible software for mobile devices.
Laridian is a virtual corporation. Most of its employees work from home (or sometimes from local coffee shops with free WiFi) in several cities around the USA.
We hope you enjoy PocketBible!
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| Craig Rairdin | Jeff Wheeler |
| For All of Your Friends at Laridian | |