The Onyx project is one way to use the new XML features of
Microsoft Word 2003 (or later) to
typeset Scriptures from Unicode
USFM source
documents, among other things. It can also be used as a way to preview Scripture
portions for village checking in a reasonably nice format. It is also possible
to use Onyx to help facilitate using Microsoft Word 2003 or later as a Scripture
editor in some cases. The Onyx project also contains some programs to do other
Bible file format conversions.
The current process looks something like this:
Paratext
or other Bible translation editor |
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USFM files |
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Onyx |
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WordML +
USFX |
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Microsoft Word 2003 + suitable PDF generation software |
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Printer-ready output (PDF or paper) |
Layout
template (WordML document) + options settings |
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USFX |
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Other file formats (RTF, .DOC, HTML, etc.) or import to other programs |
In the near future, we plan to add the ability for Onyx to convert between some
other Scripture file formats besides USFM and USFX.
Because Microsoft Office Word 2003 allows a custom XML schema to be attached to a WordML document, and custom XML tags embedded in that document, this provides a clean way to regenerate the USFM markup from the Word document after editing. USFM isn’t XML, but the USFM markup can be converted reasonably directly to an XML format and back using a schema that I call USFX (Unified Standard Format XML).
In addition to the simple Scripture publishing path mentioned above, the Onyx project is home for some other Scripture file format conversions, using USFX as the central hub of the conversions.
The philosophy behind Onyx is to:
In other words, Onyx does not (and cannot) change what Microsoft Word can do, but it can automate the creation of document features that would be exceedingly tedious and error-prone to create manually, such as creating the hidden tags for each verse used for updating the running headers.
To run this set of programs, you must be running Windows XP, 2000, or NT. It
has only been tested with Windows XP, so strange things might happen on other
versions of Windows. You must also have installed the .NET runtime package,
which is available through Windows
Update or run this Microsoft program (dotnetfx.exe) (mirrored here for Ukarumpians only)
to install it.. You must also have installed Microsoft Word 2003 (or later). You
can use some (but not all) features by using the
freely downloadable Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 instead of the full
word processor.
This program cannot work with earlier versions of Microsoft Word, because it
uses features introduced with Word 2003. SIL members are encouraged to contact JAARS for discount licensing arrangements.