Thankfully, Accordance doesn't lock you in to one way of working. If you want to detach a tab from a workspace so that you can view that resource in a separate window, simply choose Detach Tab from the Tabs submenu of the Window menu. When you do, that tab will become a separate window that you can view alongside your workspace.

I would like to map all the places mentioned in the book of Acts. How do I do so? You can only highlight one place at a time. Any ideas?

By mentioning the ability to highlight one site at a time, this user showed that he already knows how to find sites on the map. Let's say, for example, that you're reading in Acts 17 and you want to map all the places mentioned in the first verse.

If you select Amphipolis and click the Map button on the Resource palette, a map window will open with Amphipolis highlighted in red. You could then go back to the text, select Apollonia, and click the Map button again. Now those two sites are highlighted on the map. Actually, because there are two sites named Apollonia, you'll see one highlighted near Amphipolis, and another on the opposite side of Greece. Since that second Apollonia clearly cannot be the one mentioned in Acts 17, you can remove the highlighting from it by selecting it and hitting the delete key. Finally, you could return to the text once more, select Thessalonica this time, and click the Map button once again.

Just as you can convert multiple map layers into a "set," you can convert these found sites into a Custom Site Layer. To do this, just choose Convert to Custom Layer at the bottom of the Sites pop-up menu of the Map window. In the dialog box that appears, you can give this new layer a name (such as Acts 17 sites) and can even choose other sites to add.

This process of amplifying repeatedly to the map and then converting the found sites into a layer gives you an easy way to customize the sites you want to appear on the map. While handy, this method is admittedly a little tedious, especially if you're wanting to map more than a few sites. That's why the user who wanted to map all the sites in Acts mentioned the fact that you can only select one location at a time.

Thankfully, a different approach is available. (You knew there would be, didn't you?)

Most of the site layers you can overlay on the Atlas are based on a database of geographical information. For example, "Major Biblical Sites" shows all sites mentioned in the Bible which meet a certain level of importance. "Iron Age Sites" shows all sites which were occupied during that particular archaeological period. While we provide you with these predefined site layers, you can create your own site layers which meet whatever criteria you specify.

To find all the sites mentioned in the book of Acts, choose Define Site Layers from the Site pop-up menu. In the dialog box that appears, create a new site layer, give it an appropriate name (like Acts sites), and in the Biblical Periods section, check the checkbox labeled NT Writings (Acts-Rev). When you click OK, you should see all of the sites mentioned in those NT books. Obviously, you may get a few which are not mentioned in Acts, but the vast majority of them will come from Acts.

Those who purchase the Atlas are immediately impressed by its flexibility, integration with the text of the Bible, animated routes, and 3D capabilities. But even all of that is just scratching the surface. When you learn how to customize Atlas layers in some of the ways I've shown you this week, you come to realize how incredibly powerful the Atlas really is.

Once you've created a useful combination of layers, you can convert them into a layer "set." Sets are combinations of individual layers, and you already have a few pre-installed for you. Modern Nations and Roman Provinces are actually Region Sets combining two or more individual layers. To add this new combination of layers as a set, simply choose Convert to Region Set at the bottom of the region layer pop-up menu. This will open a dialog box where you can give your Region Set a name and even add additional layers if you'd like. Once you finish and click OK, your new Region Set will be listed as a single item in the pop-up menu that you can select whenever you want.

For example, let's say you want to see which modern nations now contain the territories allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel. If you look at the region layer pop-up menu of the Map window, you'll see a layer for the Tribes of Israel, and you'll see a layer for Middle Eastern nations, but how can you select them both so that you can view them at the same time?

Answer: The Shift key. If you select one layer, then hold the Shift key down while selecting another layer, the two layers will appear on the map at the same time. The pop-up menu can only show the name of the last layer you selected, but a plus will appear next to the name so you can see that other layers have been selected as well. If you open the pop-up menu you'll see a plus beside each layer which is currently displayed.

Here's what I get when I combine the Tribes of Israel with Middle Eastern Nations. The combination of layer colors creates an interesting effect:

If you find that the combination of colors gets confusing, you can customize one of the layers to show only region borders rather than the color fills. We even include a Tribe Borders layer which is basically the Tribes of Israel layer with the fills turned off:

I'll show you how to turn off the fills and otherwise customize layers in an upcoming post. In the meantime, try combining layers using the Shift key and see what you discover about biblical geography.

If you don't like the default look of the Resource palette, you can modify it in a number of ways. First, you can collapse any sections of the palette you don't use by clicking a disclosure triangle. For example, if you don't have the Atlas or Timeline (what are you thinking?), and you don't want those two icons reminding you how much you're missing out on, you could collapse the Background section of the palette. You can also go into the Appearance settings of the Preferences and choose a horizontal orientation for the palette, or choose to use text buttons rather than icon buttons.

You can even close the Resource palette altogether. After all, the Resource palette isn't the only way to open modules or amplify to them. To open modules, you could use the New submenu of the File menu to open a new window with your default Bible text, tool of each type, parallel, map, etc. You might also choose to leave your Library window open all the time. That way, you could use the Find box to locate specific modules very quickly, then hit return to open them.

As far as amplifying is concerned, all the options on the Resource palette are also available through the Amplify menu at the top of the screen. Many of those options are also available through the use of keyboard shortcuts and contextual menus.

It's a radical vision, and one which this Accordance old-timer is not quite ready to adopt, but those of you who are looking for ways to save on screen real estate or simplify the interface may well want to consider living life without the Resource palette.

This new capability has caused many of you to change the size and position of your Instant Details box to accommodate the additional information. If you use the command-key feature a lot, it no longer makes sense to keep the Instant Details box tucked down at the bottom of the screen where you can only see a line or two. But if you make it larger to accommodate more information, what is the best place to put it?

One possibility is to place it over some of the other palettes. For example, if you keep the Library window open, you could place the instant details box over the Library window. This should give you plenty of room to view long dictionary articles.

Of course, if you want access to the Library window, you now have the problem that it is covered by the Instant Details box! But here's the trick, you can set the Instant Details box to fade from view whenever it is not in use. To do this, go to the Instant Details settings in the Preferences and check "Set to automatically fade." The Instant Details box will now appear whenever you drag over a word in your main workspace, but will disappear when you drag anywhere else, thereby revealing the Library window underneath.

Last year, when there was no shortage of Accordance work for me to do, OakTree Software graciously gave me the time I needed to write a book entitled Macs in the Ministry. That book is being published by Thomas Nelson as part of their new Tech Guide series, and is scheduled to be released next month. While the book does include a couple of chapters on Bible software (one surveying the available options and another outlining how to study using Bible software), its focus is not primarily on Bible software, but on how you can use your Mac to help you in six alliterative ministry activities: preparation, presentation, publication, promotion, participation, and practical needs.

Macs in the Ministry is divided into two parts. Part One is designed to provide you with "Inspiration." Each chapter takes one of the ministry activities just listed and shows you what you Mac can make possible. You'll find lots of ideas you can incorporate into your own ministry, and plenty of examples from other "Mac ministers." Part Two is about "Perspiration," about learning how to do some of the things part one inspired you to do. This section contains step-by-step tutorials on how to create movies, slideshows, websites, sermon outlines, a daily Bible study curriculum, etc.

When writing Macs in the Ministry, I wanted to do more than just write a technology book. So I took this as an opportunity to preach to the preachers. Throughout the book you'll find practical ministry advice on developing a coherent philosophy of technology in ministry, selecting the right image for a presentation, taking advantage of social networking, Biblical examples of self-promotion, why we often fail to involve others in the work of ministry, ways to avoid neglecting your family, and much more. My hope is that Macs in the Ministry will end up on people's shelves because of their interest in technology, but will stay on their shelves because it offers ministry advice which will never become obsolete.

Macs in the Ministry should be available in bookstores and online outlets in a few weeks, and I believe you'll also be able to buy it from OakTree. Until the book is released, I'll be blogging about it and sharing more tidbits at macsinministrybook.com.

Alright, I guess I've commandeered my employer's blog long enough. OakTree Software has been incredibly supportive of this project, and I'm very grateful for their selflessness in that regard.

My point here, apart from teasing my friend, is that Macs are hard to kill. They work and work and work until you finally move on to something else, and even when you no longer have any use for them it's hard to part with them completely. Heck, I still get nostalgic when I see my Pismo's translucent bronze-colored keyboard.

Because we know many older Macs are still in circulation, we have always been committed to supporting them as far back as we can without limiting our future development. Users of very old Macs may not have access to a handful of Accordance features, but even to this day that list remains incredibly short. Even more amazing is the fact that the latest versions of Accordance still run lightning fast on these old machines. When my friend saw how quickly Accordance ran on my ten-year-old Pismo, he was quick to express his amazement. One user even posted pictures to our forums of Accordance running on a PowerBook 170, one of the first generation PowerBooks released in 1991!

Our commitment to users of older equipment is not half-hearted, as can be seen by how quickly we released Accordance 8.4.3. Yesterday morning I reported that Accordance 8.4.2 was causing problems for users of PowerPC Macs and that we would soon release a fix. Accordance 8.4.3 was released just a few short hours later. We refuse to use the fact that you're using older hardware as an excuse for problems with Accordance. While there's always the possibility that the limitations of older hardware may affect something, we will "not go quiet into that good night." If your Mac still runs, chances are it will still run Accordance surprisingly well.

In the duh-can't-believe-we-left-that-out department, we've added the Edit User Note command to the contextual menu which appears when you right- or control-click a verse in a Text window. Yes, you could always choose Edit User Note from the Selection menu or use the keyboard shortcut command-U, but we should have included it in the contextual menu as well. That oversight has now been corrected.

In the consistency department, when you're viewing your user notes in a parallel pane and you begin typing in that notes pane, Accordance will automatically open an edit window and place it neatly over the notes pane. However, if you used the Edit User Note command, the Edit window would appear in a different location. In Accordance 8.4.2, whether you open an Edit window by typing in a notes pane or using the Edit User Note command, the Edit window will always appear neatly over the notes pane.

In the convenience department, whenever you make the Library window active, the Find box will automatically receive focus (provided nothing is selected in the Library browser pane). This enables you to begin typing to find a module as soon as you bring the Library window to the front.

I said earlier in this post that 8.4.2 fixes bugs so obscure few of you would ever discover them. Unfortunately, it also introduced a bug for some users of PowerPC Macs which has been quite easy to discover. This bug was apparently introduced by a new compiler, and we'll release a fix soon. In the meantime, users of PowerPC systems may want to wait until the release of Accordance 8.4.3.

The hardest part about attending our company dinner is deciding where to sit. When you'd like to visit with everyone, it's hard to settle on a table. Basically, my wife and I just try to position ourselves at one of the larger tables and then wait and see who else sits down. In some settings, such a luck-of-the-draw seating strategy could easily backfire, but with OakTree staff, every hand is a winner.

The annual company dinner is always a pretty informal affair. There's no marshaling the troops pep-talk or state of the union address. The only business-related talk we heard was a brief update about current and upcoming projects.

Last year, because we were being visited by a world-class Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, we asked him to give a brief talk about the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Because this scholar still knows how to communicate with regular folks, we all learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

This year, we had no visiting scholar with us, so one of our own gave a Keynote presentation on the spectacular Nabataean site of Petra. Often featured in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Petra features beautiful edifices cut right into the red stone cliffs. If you have the Bible Lands PhotoGuide, you can explore this amazing site yourself.

After we applauded the presenter and the members of our office staff who had organized the event, the evening began to draw to a close. Everyone got up and began gathering their belongings, while the winners of an earlier drawing laid claim to the tulip centerpieces which had decorated each table. Almost as soon as my wife and I had picked ours out, I had to defend it from the clutches of our iPhone developer. Yes, we have an iPhone developer, and yes, he was able to find another unclaimed centerpiece to take home. By the way, if the thought of grown men fighting over flowers seems odd, please understand that we were acting on behalf of our wives. :-)

In the end, we all headed home well fed, better educated, and with the renewed feeling that our company is more like a family than a corporation.

Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary has been updated to include page numbers and a browser which reflects the volume divisions of the print edition. Previous versions of Anchor had page number information at the beginning of each article, but did not have actual page numbers presented throughout the text. Anchor is currently on sale for just $199.

Context of Scripture has undergone a major upgrade with the addition of page numbers and extensive hyperlinking. It too is currently on sale.

Other free updates include updated tagging of the works of Philo, as well as extensive improvements to our various rabbinic modules.

In addition to Anchor and Context of Scripture, two other items are currently on sale. The Essential IVP Reference Collection continues to be one of the best values we offer in terms of high-quality dictionaries, commentaries, and other reference works. The current sale price works out to be less than ten dollars per volume.

Finally, Walt Kaiser's History of Ancient Israel is also on sale. I've written previously about how helpful this volume is as a companion to the Accordance Timeline.

So there you have it, if you already own these modules, You can enjoy free updates to many of them. If you don't already own them, now's the time to get them for less.

In response to that post, someone describing himself as more organized and methodical asked for an example of my "loosey-goosey" workflow. I'll do my best to accommodate that request, and I hope in doing so to show how Accordance makes it easy to bridge the gap between methodical and random.

When I describe my use of Accordance as "loosey-goosey" and "free-wheeling," that is partly a function of the many different things I use Accordance to do. If I were preparing a sermon every week, I probably would be a little more organized and methodical. Instead, I turn to Accordance to come up with examples for blog posts, to answer questions posted to our user forums, to test new modules we're developing, to help my kids with their schoolwork, to lead family devotions, and to perform a variety of other tasks. Consequently, in the course of a day I may end up with tabs containing everything from very simple searches to seemingly arcane scholarly stuff.

Because my use of Accordance tends to be so multifaceted, I've set my preferences to start up Accordance using the "Last Session." In other words, whenever I launch Accordance, I am presented with the windows and tabs I had open when I last left the program. If I always wanted to start with the same basic setup, I would choose the "Default Session" instead. (You can find these options in the General Settings of the Preferences dialog.)

Having Accordance start up where I last left off may mean that I open with twenty different tabs pertaining to three or four different tasks or projects. I might then continue with one of those, or I might be opening Accordance because I have some new task to tackle. If I no longer care about the stuff I was doing before I may just close the entire workspace and start over. Or I may keep all those existing tabs and just open a new tab for this new task. In most cases, I'll start by opening a new tab containing the resource I need to work with. Typically that's an English Bible or original language text, but sometimes it might be a dictionary or other secondary resource.

Because I'm often starting from scratch, I have to add any additional panes if I want them. If I used the same basic pane arrangement every time, I could set it up once and save that window or session, but again, I typically don't know what panes I'll want until I need them. I'm therefore thankful that I just have to click and hold one of the Add Pane buttons and select the parallel text or reference tool I want.

I tend not to open more than two or three panes at once, preferring instead to switch the contents of a pane to a different resource. For example, if I have a commentary in a parallel pane and want to look at another commentary, I'll just change the commentary displayed in that pane. I've never figured out how to read two commentaries at one time, so I prefer one large commentary pane to two or more smaller ones. Again, the fact that I can easily change the contents of a pane on the fly makes it easy for me to use fewer panes.

In terms of consulting secondary resources, I triple-click and amplify a lot. (Remember that amplifying refers to selecting text I want to find and then choosing the resource(s) I want to search from the Resource palette.) I love that I can triple-click to get to my most used resources and make a quick trip to the Resource palette to access all my other resources.

If I merely want to open a not-so-frequently-used resource, I will often go to the palette and start to scan the menus, then realize it would be faster to do a search in the Library window, which I leave open on the left side of my screen. Why the abortive trip to the Resource palette before turning to the Library window? Because after so many years of using it to open modules, it's second nature to turn to the Resource palette first. More and more, however, I'm finding the Library window a more convenient way to find and open modules, and I'm looking forward to some of the enhancements to the Library window which we have planned for a future upgrade.

As you can see from these examples, there's nothing really earth-shattering or unusual about my "free-wheeling" Accordance workflow. It's just that I typically don't know what I intend to do until I think, "Hey, I wonder what this resource would have to say about that." The nice thing is that Accordance is designed to let me answer those kinds of questions quickly and easily. That means I can follow a train of thought without getting distracted by unnecessary steps or having to pause while the program tries to catch up. Accordance is always ready to keep up with me no matter which way I happen to zig or zag.

The really cool thing about all this is that those of you who resemble the more methodical "other Dave" can easily use Accordance to have your cake and eat it too. You may have a predefined setup for sermon prep with two English Bible panes, an original language pane, and a pane containing your favorite commentary, but you can easily switch some of the panes in that setup to consult other resources. Once you've consulted your most used resources, you could amplify to the Search All window to look something up in resources you may have forgotten you have. Accordance is flexible enough to bridge the gap between the "other David" and myself, enabling both methodical study and random discovery.

The other David's first impulse was to turn to the youth ministry's library of planning materials. He'd find some lesson outline on the topic we were supposed to cover, flesh it out with a suitable activity from some idea book of youth activities, and then tackle whatever preparatory work needed to be done.

My approach to planning a Bible study or activity was very different. I was loath to thumb through all those resource books trying to find something I could tweak to my own purposes. I preferred to go for a walk, pray, and think through how best to get across what I'd been assigned to teach. I knew I was probably reinventing the wheel, and it was obvious I was taking much more time to prepare than the other David. Yet somehow, I couldn't bring myself to work any other way. While I recognized that my approach was much less efficient, I also felt that when the time came to teach the material, I had made the lesson my own. Whether or not it was really true, I liked to believe that such personal ownership made for a better lesson. At the very least, by the time I was ready to teach, I was passionate about the subject matter.

Why am I recounting all this ancient history? Because it occurs to me that I still tend to study in this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-even-if-it-means-reinventing-the-wheel sort of way. Even though Accordance lets you set up workspaces ahead of time and save sessions for various purposes, I rarely do that myself. I'll tend to begin with a simple search window containing the main Bible text or translation I want to study, and then access whatever resources I need as I work through the text. Because I'm not the procedural type who always follows the same basic method, setting things up ahead of time would largely be counter-productive for me. That's why I love Accordance's speed and efficiency when it comes to accessing resources and features. It enables me to study in the loosey-goosey, free-wheeling way with which I'm comfortable, without getting frustrated by unnecessary steps or needless waiting for the program to catch up.

At the same time, Accordance also accommodates those of you who develop specific tasks and layouts for particular kinds of study. If you're like the other David, you love to create Favorite workspaces and other custom setups that you can turn to whenever the need arises. Being able to tailor everything to your specific needs enables you to work as efficiently as possible.

Whichever of these two Davids you most resemble, Accordance is designed to adapt to your own method of study, rather than forcing you to work in some predetermined way.

Now, suppose you come across a phrase you want to search for, but you don't necessarily want to find that exact phrase. If you select that phrase, then hold the shift key down while clicking the Search button, Accordance will automatically insert the FUZZY command to allow for inexact matches.

For example, if I select the phrase "the ground is cursed" in Genesis 3:17 of the HCSB, then shift-click the Search button of the Resource palette, Accordance opens a new tab which finds phrases like "the ground is dry," "the land is cursed," "the ground is cracked," and "the deceiver is cursed."

Note that because the phrase I selected was relatively short, Accordance inserted [Fuzzy 1], which means that one word can be missing from or substituted in the original phrase. To increase the degree of fuzziness, you can replace the 1 with a higher number.

If you select a longer phrase, such as "tree of life in the midst of the garden" in Genesis 2:9, Accordance will automatically insert a fuzzy command with a larger number when you shift-click the Search button.

Spend some time experimenting with selecting phrases and shift-clikcing the Search button. You'll find that such instant access to the fuzzy command can make for much more flexible searching.

This is incredibly useful, and the kind of search you'll want to do most of the time. (That's why it's the default.) However, there may be times when you just want to search for a particular inflected form rather than all forms of a word. To do that in the search entry box at the top of a Search window you would just enclose the inflected form you want to find in quotation marks. But is there a way to search for inflected forms using the Search button on the Resource palette?

Of course there is! Let's say you're reading Matthew 1:1 in the Greek New Testament and you want to find out more about the word υἱοῦ ("son"). If you select it and simply click the Search button on the Resource palette, a new tab will open and search for that word's lexical form (υἱός). That search returns 377 hits. If you want to search for the specific form υἱοῦ, simply select it and hold down the option key when clicking the Search button on the Resource palette. Holding the option key down tells Accordance to search for inflected forms, and Accordance automatically encloses υἱοῦ in quotes for you. That narrower search returns a mere 36 hits.

As you can see, the Search button becomes even more versatile through the simple use of a modifier key. I'll show you more useful variations in upcoming posts.

Let's say I'm looking at Genesis 1:1 and I want to search for the phrase ‏‏השׁמים ואת הארץ ("the heavens and the earth"). Many new Accordance users will try to select those words, copy them, and then paste them up in the search entry box at the top part of the window. When they hit return, they immediately get a word list asking them to choose a different lexical form. What, they wonder, is going on? Why can't it find something they just copied right out of the text?

To understand the problem, you have to understand that Accordance defaults to searching for lexical forms (the representative form that appears in most lexicons) rather than inflected forms (the form of the word as it appears in the text). When you paste text you copied into the search entry box, you have given Accordance inflected forms when it was expecting lexical forms.

To further complicate things, the Hebrew database has actually been "morphologically separated," which means that scholars have separated prefixed and suffixed words from the words to which they are attached. You can see this when you drag your mouse over the word ‏השׁמים. When you drag over ה you'll get the parsing and definition of that definite article, and when you drag across ‏ שׁמים you'll get the parsing and definition of that noun. Even though ‏ השׁמים looks like a single word, it is really a phrase consisting of two words. When you type a search for that phrase into the search entry box, you need to separate each word with a space. Yet when you copy and paste text into the search entry box, Accordance doesn't know where the word breaks are supposed to go.

If you've ever tried to paste Hebrew text into the search entry box, you now know why it didn't work. But the question remains: how do you search for Hebrew text that you run across in your study of a passage? You simply select the words you want to find and click the Search button on the Resource palette. A new tab will open with all the right lexical forms and word breaks automatically entered for you and the results displayed instantaneously.

Try it yourself. Select ‏השׁמים ואת הארץ in Genesis 1:1 and click the Search button on the Resource palette. Be sure to notice how Accordance automatically translates what you selected into a properly formatted lexical search. If you learn how to amplify, searching for Hebrew text becomes almost laughably easy.

When you're studying a passage and you run across a word you want to search for, simply select it and click the Search button on the Resource palette. This will open a new tab displaying every occurrence of that word in the current text. This is much more efficient than typing the word into the top part of the window, running the search, and losing the passage you were studying, only to have to go back to that passage when you're done examining that secondary search. By selecting a word and clicking the Search button (a process we call amplifying), you get your search results in a separate tab and can simply click on the previous tab to return to your main passage.

If you're typing secondary searches into your main Bible tab and then struggling to get back to your original passage, discover the beautiful simplicity of amplifying to search.

Some programs perform simple operations quickly but grind to a halt when doing anything more advanced. I've never found that to be the case with Accordance. Accordance is arguably the most powerful Bible software available, yet even the most advanced searches run quickly and without taxing your system. I can't remember a time when I got the dreaded "color wheel of death" in Accordance. I can't say that about other programs I use, including many of Apple's own apps. Neither can I think of a time when an Accordance user has felt the need to upgrade their hardware just to get Accordance to run properly—unless we're talking about really old hardware.

I say that I've been spoiled by Accordance's speed because I've had very little to compare it to. Accordance rarely makes me wait and I largely take that convenience for granted. But when I show Accordance to people who are accustomed to other software, they are invariably blown away by Accordance's speed. Apparently not everyone enjoys the instant gratification we Accordance users do.

Advanced software doesn't have to be slow. It shouldn't require a super computer. It should simply handle everything you throw at it as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Accordance does that as well as any program I know.

Discover the Daily Readings module: If you've purchased any level of the Library or Scholar's collections, you should have a module named Daily Readings installed. You'll find it in the General tools pop-up of the Resource palette, or you could just type "daily r" in the Find box of the Library window. This module has two plans for reading through the Bible in a year. The devotional arrangement presents you with an Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, and passages from Psalms and Proverbs for each day of the year. The chronological arrangement presents passages in a roughly chronological order, so that, for example, passages from the prophets are presented in the context of the historical events they discuss.

Command-click to view all the passages: Once you've selected the arrangement you want and gone to today's date, you can click each hypertextable Scripture link to read each passage. Of course, who wants to go back and forth between the Daily Readings module and the Bible window that opens when you click each link? Wouldn't it be better to click once and view all the passages in the same window? Sure it would. To do that, just hold down the command key when you click one of the links. It's like clicking all the links at once.

Auto-scroll the passages: Once the passages are opened in a single window, you can use the auto-scroll feature to make it easy to read through the text as you would read from a teleprompter. To turn auto-scroll on, go to the Appearance settings of the Preferences and choose a speed from auto-scrolling pop-up (I use medium). You can then command-click the up or down scroll arrows on the scroll bar to start auto-scrolling. If you find it scrolling too fast or too slow, try resizing the text in the window. A large text size together with the medium scroll speed works well for me. If I find myself falling behind the scrolling, I'll just click with the mouse to stop it momentarily, then command-click again once I've caught up.

Have Accordance read to you: Sometimes hearing a passage read aloud can help you notice things you miss when reading it yourself. So there may be days you'll find it helpful to select a passage and click the Speech button on the Resource palette. Accordance will then use the Mac's text-to-speech to read the passage aloud. You can set the voice in the Preferences (I like the new Leopard voice named "Alex"). You may also want to modify the text to suppress superscripts or remove the references so that Accordance doesn't try to vocalize those.

Use Highlighting to keep your place: The Daily Readings are arranged by date, so if you never miss a day you'll always know where you last left off. But let's be realistic. At some point you're probably going to fall behind, so you may want to remember where you last left off. One way to do that is to highlight the day you last finished reading. Simply select the name of the day you just completed, then choose a highlight color from the highlight palette. (You can open the highlight palette from the Window menu.) The next time you open the Daily Readings module, use the Style command (Search menu --> Enter Command) to search for the highlight style you used. That will take you right to where you last left off. You can then clear the highlight style from that day and highlight the following day.

By following this simple methodology, I hope you'll find it easy to keep your resolution of reading the Bible regularly in 2010.

La nueva Biblioteca Hispana de Accordance en CD-ROM ofrece grandes ventajas para los usuarios de software bíblico en lengua española. Para empezar, reúne en un solo disco todas las Biblias castellanas distribuidas por OakTree Software, con un total de 5 textos bíblicos distintos, más otros 3 que se pueden desbloquear pagando una cantidad adicional. Además, incluye la Reina-Valera de 1960 con números de Strong y otras importantes mejoras. Finalmente, contiene la última versión de Accordance, un potentísimo programa que permite estudiar los textos bíblicos de una forma fácil, intuitiva y muy versátil.

En esta ocasión quisiera centrarme en las posibilidades que ofrece contar, por primera vez, con la RVR60S.

Pongamos por caso que nos interesa encontrar todos los derivados del verbo "amar" en el Nuevo Testamento. Hasta ahora, con cualquier otra Biblia en español teníamos que conformarnos con utilizar comodines y escribir algo así como am?(aeo)* para tratar de encontrar todas las formas posibles de "amar", como por ejemplo ama, amaba, amaría, amé, amó, etc. Sin embargo, el programa daría por buenos términos que nada tienen que ver con amor (Amón, amos, amargura, amarillo, amedrentar, amanecer, amonestar, amontonar, y un largo etcétera). Una forma de evitar esos resultados no deseados sería enumerándolos entre paréntesis, precedidos por el operador @ (arroba) y el signo - (menos), pero como no sabemos de antemano qué otras formas aparecen en el texto, este método no resulta muy eficaz.

Con la RVR60S, sin embargo, este tipo de búsquedas son muy sencillas. Basta con fijarnos en cuál es el número clave que corresponde a la palabra que deseamos buscar (algo que podemos ver fácilmente en el cuadro de información automática, en la parte inferior de la ventana de búsqueda). Supongamos que estamos leyendo Mat 5, 43 y nos interesa el término "amarás". Colocamos el cursor sobre esa palabra y en el cuadro de información nos aparece el número G0025, que corresponde al verbo griego ἀγαπάω. Pues bien, lo único que tenemos que hacer es control-clic (o clic con el botón derecho) sobre esa palabra y en el menú contextual que aparece seleccionamos Buscar --> Nº clave. Así encontraremos todas las formas verbales griegas, aunque Accordance subrayará las palabras castellanas de la RVR60S que se utilizan para traducir el original griego.

También podríamos haber utilizado el botón Buscar de la paleta de recursos. Si pulsamos el botón sin más, el programa buscará la palabra seleccionada (basta con que se encuentre debajo del cursor en forma de barra intermitente), pero si mantenemos pulsada la tecla Opción, Accordance buscará el número clave. ¿Verdad que resulta sencillo?

Pero todavía hay más. Si después de realizada la búsqueda pulsamos el botón Detalles y vamos a la pestaña Análisis, descubriremos todos los términos empleados en la RVR60S para traducir ἀγαπάω, incluyendo la expresión "menospreciaron" en Ap 12, 11, que literalmente es "no amaron". Es decir, que sin dejar en absoluto el texto castellano hemos buscado el original griego.

Accordance permite "ampliar" nuestro estudio de forma rápida y sencilla. Así, al hacer triple clic sobre cualquier palabra de la RVR60S, el programa abre el léxico hebreo o griego correspondiente a ese término (siempre que tenga un número clave asociado al mismo).

Si lo que queremos es profundizar más en los textos originales, también podemos hacerlo desde la propia RVR60S. Por ejemplo, seleccionando un texto y pulsando el botón Morfología en la paleta de recursos aparecerá una tabla con el texto castellano, el número de Strong correspondiente, el lema hebreo o griego y la transliteración. Por su parte, si pulsamos el botón Sintaxis en la paleta de recursos, Accordance nos presentará una hoja de cálculo con diversas columnas: el texto castellano, el número clave, el término original y la transliteración, además de otras dos columnas adicionales donde podremos anotar la función que desempeña cada palabra y los comentarios que estimemos oportunos realizar.

Hay que tener en cuenta que tanto en las ventanas de Análisis como de Morfología se puede seleccionar cualquier palabra o número clave y ampliar a cualquier texto o herramienta que incluya el mismo idioma o número. Por lo tanto, se puede ampliar a cualquier Biblia castellana, a cualquier Biblia que contenga los números de Strong o a cualquier recurso en que se encuentre esa palabra o ese número clave.

Si decidimos adquirir alguno de los textos originales con códigos morfológicos que ofrece Accordance, y lo abrimos en paralelo con la RVR60S, observaremos que el programa resalta automáticamente el texto original que corresponde a la palabra sobre la que colocamos el cursor en la Biblia castellana.

En resumen, que la inclusión de la Reina-Valera de 1960 con números de Strong abre toda una serie de posibilidades que hasta ahora solamente podían disfrutar aquellos usuarios que trabajaban con Biblias en lengua inglesa. Sin ningún género de dudas, la Biblioteca Hispana de Accordance es una herramienta muy útil, que además ahora mismo se puede conseguir a muy buen precio, y que resulta altamente recomendable para quienes ya compraron en su día Compubiblia para Mac.

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The new Accordance Biblioteca Hispana CD-ROM offers great advantages for Spanish-speaking users of Bible software. For a start, it offers in one single disk all the Spanish Bibles distributed by OakTree Software, that's a total of 5, plus 3 others that can be unlocked for an additional fee. Moreover, it contains the Reina-Valera 1960 Bible with Strong's numbers and other noteworthy improvements. Last, but not least, it includes the latest version of Accordance, a powerful program that allows users to study the biblical texts in an easy, intuitive and extremely versatile way.

In this post I'd like to focus on RVR60S, available for the first time, and all the possibilities it has to offer.

Let's say we are interested in finding all the different forms of the verb "amar" in the New Testament. Until now, with any other Spanish Bible we had to use wildcards and write searches like am?(aeo)* in order to find all possible forms of "amar", like ama, amaba, amaría, amé, amó, etc. However, Accordance would also return hits that had nothing to do with "amar" (Amón, amos, amargura, amarillo, amedrentar, amanecer, amonestar, amontonar, and so on). A way to weed out those unwanted results was by listing those words in parentheses, preceded by the at operator (@) and the minus sign (-), but since we did not know beforehand what other forms might appear in the text, this method is not particularly efficient.

Now, with RVR60S, these kinds of searches are very easy indeed. We simply have to identify the key number associated to the specific word we want to search for (something we can easily do by looking at the Instant Details box, at the bottom of the Search window). So let's assume we are reading Mat 5:43 and the word "amarás" grabs our attention. We place the cursor on this word and the Instant Details box displays number G0025, which corresponds to the Greek verb ἀγαπάω. Well then, the only thing we have to do is control-click (or right-click) on it and choose Search --> Key Number in the context menu. This way we are going to find all the Greek verb forms, although Accordance will highlight the Spanish words in RVR60S that have been used to translate the original Greek.

We could also have used the Search button in the Resource palette. If we simply press that button, the program will search for the selected word (having the cursor blinking on it is good enough) in that same Bible, but if we hold the Option key while clicking on the button, Accordance will search for the key number underlying the Spanish term. Easy, right?

But there's still more. By pressing the Details button in the Search window after the search has been performed and opening the Analysis tab we'll discover all the different words used in RVR60S to translate  ἀγαπάω, including the verb "menospreciaron" in Rev 12:11, which is literally "no amaron". In other words, without leaving for one moment the Spanish text, we have been able to search the original Greek.

Accordance lets us "amplify" our study quickly and easily. Thus, if we triple-click on any RVR60S word, the program will open the corresponding Hebrew or Greek lexicon and look it up (provided there is a key number associated to it).

If we want to dig deeper into the original texts we can also do it straight from RVR60S. For instance, selecting the Parse button in the Resource palette we will be presented with a table displaying the Spanish text, Strong's number, Hebrew or Greek lemma and its transliteration. Similarly, if we select the Syntax button Accordance will display a spreadsheet with different columns: Spanish text, key number, original word and transliteration, as well as two additional columns where we can write down the function of each word and whatever comments we may want to add.

One thing to keep in mind is that in both the Analysis and the Parsing windows we can always select any word or key number and amplify to any other text or tool containing the same language or key number. So, for instance, we can amplify to any Spanish Bible, any Bible tagged with Strong's numbers or any resource where that particular Spanish term or key number may be found.

If we decide to buy any of the morphologically-tagged texts offered by Accordance and we open it in a second text pane alongside RVR60S, we'll notice that the original word is automatically highlighted as we move our cursor over the Spanish text.

In conclusion, having Reina-Valera 1960 Bible with Strong's numbers opens up many possibilities that, until very recently, could only be enjoyed by those users who worked with English Bibles. There's no doubt that the Accordance Biblioteca Hispana CD-ROM is a very useful tool, available right now at a great introductory price, and a highly recommended upgrade for current users of Compubiblia para Mac.

This morning we contacted the processing company and learned why credit card orders were no longer being authorized. It seems we had processed so many orders this month that we had exceeded some predefined cap on the amount that could be charged in a given month! We have now corrected the problem and taken steps to ensure it won't happen again. We do apologize for the inconvenience to those of you who tried to place an order over the weekend. Still, I can't help thinking that if you're going to have a problem, too many sales is a good problem to have. At a time when so many companies are struggling to survive, we're grateful to you, our users, for presenting us with the opposite problem!

These days, I just click the Help menu to enumerate many of these sources of help. In recent updates, we've added links in the Help menu to take you directly to the podcast, blog, forums, etc. If you're a Mac user who is loath to look at the Help menu of an application, or you just never bother because so many other applications offer help which is less than helpful, you need to make an exception in the case of Accordance. Not only is Accordance Help quite good, the Help menu is like a launching pad to online training and the Accordance user community.