• A "Bible" or Text must be compatible with a versification system in one of the Accordance Text resources in your Library. For example, you can import a non-biblical such as Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.
• The text must be one of the following:
• A plain text file (.txt) in Roman script and use only standard characters such as those in the Times New Roman font.
• The text can also be created using a UTF8 or UTF16 encoded Unicode font. This is used for non-Western languages such as Russian or Chinese, or European languages with special characters.
• Verse references in the text file must use standard ASCII characters, no special Unicode characters.
• The file must be saved with ANSI encoding.
• The format of each verse must be a valid Bible reference (as used in most English Bibles) followed by a space followed by the contents of the verse. Each verse is ended by a return character, except for the last verse.

• The book name (any standard Accordance abbreviation) only needs to appear with the first verse of the book, but can be repeated.

  Remove any space between a preceding number and the book name so that, for example, 1 Sam becomes 1Sam.

Hint To display a list of standard Accordance book names and abbreviations, do the following: Make a Bible text the active The application, window, tab, or other screen element which is currently being used; sometimes called the "front" or "frontmost" screen element tab. On the Display menu, choose List all Book Names. You can also view a list of official book abbreviations in this Help.

• The chapter number only needs to appear with the first verse of the chapter, but can be repeated. A colon must separate chapter and verse.
• Thus the following formats, among others, are acceptable:

Gen. 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Gen. 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Gen. 1:3 ¶ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Gen. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Gen. 2:1 ¶ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Gen. 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

or

Genesis 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 ¶ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

2:1 ¶ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

You can import Bible text with missing portions, or out of order relative to your chosen versification scheme, with the following limitations.

• Books can be in any order and number. That is, Bibles with incomplete, missing or out-of-order books can be imported.
• Chapters within a book must be consecutive, but need not be complete. If a chapter is missing, create a chapter x verse 1 and leave it blank, for each skipped chapter.
• Verses within a chapter can be skipped but must not be out of order; verses 2,4,5,8 are acceptable, but not verses 2,4,3,5,8. Extra verses are not accepted. The KJV is the standard for the number of chapters in each book, and verses per chapter.
• If necessary, renumber the verses and put the original number in parentheses for reference, so the previous example could look like:

2 text of verse 2

3 (4) text of verse 4

4 (3) text of verse 3

5 text of verse 5

Certain additional characters can be used to add paragraphs, line breaks, styles and color to the text.

You can use any text editor software to convert styled text to plain text with these codes.

• Paragraph marks are denoted by use of the paragraph marker (¶) with a single space on each side. If paragraphs are used, a paragraph marker must appear after the reference of the first verse of the first book, otherwise Accordance assumes there are no paragraphs in the text. The marker should also appear at reasonable intervals throughout the text.
• The markup codes in the table below are acceptable within the text.
• Each code must end within the verse, and be restarted on the next verse if needed. For example:

Gen. 1:1 ¶ <color=green>In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth</color>.

Gen. 1:2 <color=green>And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters</color>.

Gen. 1:3 ¶ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

 

Note If a markup style does not end within the verse, a message appears during import. If codes are incorrectly entered, they appear in the body of the text. You can use the character search (for example .<) to find any visible codes, in order to edit the text and delete them.

 

Markup	Code
	Start	End
bold	<b>	</b>
italic	<i>	</i>
underline	<u>	</u>
small caps	<c>	</c>
subscript*	<sub>	</sub>
superscript*	<sup>	</sup>
color**	<color=red>	</color>
new line within a verse	<br>

 

*The superscript and subscript styles also reduce the font size of the enclosed text.

**Use one of the Accordance color names: Black, Gray, Red, Green, Sapphire, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Chocolate, Brown, Olive, Turquoise, Cyan, Magenta, White, Purple, Lavender, Burgundy, Navy, Cerulean, Forest.

If you would like to have alternate names for the books of the Bible, create a *.TXT file, with one line for each book name, as follows: Original Book Name <TAB> New Book Name. For example