WordSend Overview

What is WordSend?

WordSend is a software project that allows you to convert Scripture files from Unicode USFM (and eventually from selected other formats) to other formats for the purpose of publishing those Scriptures in various print or electronic formats. Currently, the most useful transformation is the conversion of Unicode USFM to Microsoft Word 2003 (or later) XML documents (WordML) for the purpose of typesetting or printing for village checking. It is also possible to use WordSend to help facilitate using Microsoft Word 2003 or later as a Scripture editor in some cases. The WordSend 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		USFM files		WordSend		WordML + USFX		Microsoft Word 2003 + suitable PDF generation software		Printer-ready output (PDF or paper)
		Layout template (WordML document) + options settings				USFX				Other file formats (RTF, .DOC, HTML, etc.) or import to other programs

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 WordSend project is home for some other Scripture file format conversions, using USFX as the central hub of the conversions.

WordSend Philosophy

The philosophy behind WordSend is to:

• take advantage of all the work that has already been done (and is being done) by the Paratext and Translation Editor teams;
• take advantage of all the work that Microsoft has already done in writing Microsoft Office Word 2003;
• take advantage of and use the current best standards (Unicode and USFM);
• provide a simple bridge between Unicode USFM Scriptures (as produced with Paratext or whatever) and Word 2003;
• implement the program in such a way that it is easy to integrate with other software systems;
• avoid doing in custom software what is already done adequately in software that has been written already (i. e. Word);
• don’t try to be all things to all people (Word 2003 can’t do that), but make something that works for most Scripture typesetting projects in Papua New Guinea and areas with similar requirements;
• plan a future path to do a similar thing with Graphite-enabled Open Office Writer and/or Omega/Lambda/XeTeX (Unicode TeX) instead of Microsoft Word;
• footnote handling in Microsoft Word is good enough unless you have a very large crossreference list, but very large crossreference lists are of questionable value in first-published Scriptures for minority languages;
• I don't expect the average user of WordSend to understand or directly edit WordML files except by using the Microsoft Word itself in the way it was designed to be used;
• leave the “high-end” Scripture typesetting for other solutions currently being pursued by others. By “high-end,” I mean solutions that can handle variations in footnote handling that Microsoft Word cannot do, complex layouts for study Bibles, etc.
  

In other words, WordSend 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.

System Requirements

To run this complete 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.

To run the command line utilities of this project, you may also be able to use Linux or Mac OS X with Mono. Mono is included in the repositories of the major Linux distributions. (I used Ubuntu Linux and the Synaptic Package Manager to install Mono. Your situation may vary.) To install under Linux or Mac OS X, unzip the latest command line utilities archive to a convenient directory and include that directory in your search path for executable files. Note that the Linux/Mac OS X functionality is of limited usefulness, now, because OpenOffice.org Writer doesn't properly interpret the WordML files produced by WordSend, and the direct conversion to Open Document Text format is not yet complete.

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