Each verse a separate paragraph – is it possible?

Hi, everyone,

We want to produce a draft in a format familiar to the audience: each verse as a separate paragraph with the verse numbers (except v. 1) at the left margin. However, we certainly do not want to go into the source SFM file and change it so there is a \p before every verse number.

Is that possible with PTXprint? Could it be implemented via Advanced > Apply Customized Settings (ptxprint-mods.tex)?

I realize that in some books (e.g., John) this may be a bit easier to program, but what about in Psalms, where we have \qa and \d? In our case, the “Alef” marked by \qa comes before the \v that it should be prefixed to (i.e, \qa Alef \p \v1 in Psalm 119). But we have the equivalent of \d \v1 A Psalm of David. Verse text in, e.g., Psalm 29.

Please let me know if this is already possible or if it someone could help us by making the ptxprint-mods.tex file to do it.

Thank you very much!

Before you go down the route of making every verse a new paragraph, have you considered marginal verse numbers? (as shown here below):

image

To do that, all you need to do is turn on the Marginal Verses setting on the Body tab:

image

If you really want each verse to be a new “paragraph” then you can just place a rule in the changes.txt file (see the 2nd option at the top left of the Advanced tab) and then enter a rule like this:

"\\v " > "\\p \\v "

But that will make every verse a paragraph. Probably not what you really want.

Alternatively, you could make them all \m margin aligned paragraphs, by replacing the \p above with a \m which would give you this:

image

…but then you lose your real paragraph breaks. So what you probably need is to KEEP the original paragraph markers \p whilst turning all the others into \m markers:

image

"\\v " > "\\m \\v "
"\\p ?\r?\n?\\m " > "\\p "

Which will result in this layout (I’ve highlighted the actual para breaks):

Does that help?

I’m not too sure about what you’re aiming at, but have you tried turning on the option for “Special Books” on the Body tab?
image

If you send an archive to ptxprint_support@sil.org along with an image of what you need it to look like, we could take a look and suggest something to go in the ptxprint-mods.tex file (if it is needed at all).

@mjpenny, Wonderful! I think that what you provided …

"\\v " > "\\m \\v "
"\\p ?\r?\n?\\m " > "\\p "

will work perfectly for what we need.

My only problem now is that I cannot make it work to have the desired output without headings (\s). I filed an issue here: Headings printing even when "Body > Section Headings \s" is unchecked · Issue #679 · sillsdev/ptx2pdf · GitHub.

I am very grateful for your help!

P.S. I have not yet looked at how to get the desired results with the Psalms, but you have pointed me in the right direction, so I will be able to look at it later.