The Sword Project
Useful SWORD Project Links
Crosswire Bible Society – The organization behind The SWORD Project
Crosswire wiki – The best source of information related to The SWORD Project
format converters – There are some perl scripts for converting other formats to OSIS here.
usfm2osis.py – A python script to convert usfm to osis is available here. This is original authors usfm to osis converter that The SWORD Project's currently uses. I don't currently recommend using it. It's quite slow and was designed using complicated regular expressions for the conversion. It also hasn't been updated to handle newer additions to the usfm specification. I recommend using an alternative instead. (usfm can be converted to osis using haiola, bibledit, or my usfm converter below.)
crosswire's usfm2osis.py – This is the version of usfm2osis.py that is currently used by The SWORD Project. It's based on an older version of the above script and has been updated by them. Since it's based on the the above code it suffers from many of the same problems, in addition to the problems introduced by the new maintainer. Therefore, I don't recommend this one either. When I last tested it in February of 2017 it was very broken and it's output was unusable.
AutoKey script for The SWORD Project
This is a script for the linux AutoKey utility that will allow you to insert Bible text or dictionary entries from modules you have installed for The SWORD Project into your documents.It should work fine with OpenOffice, LibreOffice, plain text editors, instant messengers, and other programs. It uses the python bindings to The SWORD Project if available, and diatheke if they're not available.
Here is the script. It's not the best solution. It is the only way to do this sort of thing that I'm aware of right now. If you have any problems with it or suggestions for it please contact me. It's public domain. Use as you wish. (last updated: April 15, 2010).
Back in 2010 I had considered turning this into a proper program that didn't rely on diatheke and didn't depend on autokey. Lack of feedback told me that this was not desired though.
Modules That Cannot Be Made
I'm not going to be contacting any other companies that hold the rights to commercial bible translations to try and get permission to make those bible translations available for use with The SWORD Project software.
NIV
I tried to obtain permission to make the NIV available for use with The SWORD Project software. Unfortunately IBS-STL (now Biblica) has no interest in allowing it to be used with The SWORD Project or even on a linux based operating system. Their response to my request stated this: “Our policy at this time does not allow us to release the NIV database to individuals or for use in Linux based, open source or shareware software products; therefore IBS-STL will not be granting your request for use of the NIV.”
NKJV
I tried to obtain permission to make the NKJV available for use with The SWORD Project software. Unfortunately, Thomas Nelson turned down my request. Perhaps someone at Crosswire Bible Society will look into making it available one of these days. They'll probably have much better luck than I did with regards to getting permission to make it available. Until then, there are four alternatives that are already available for The SWORD Project: The American King James Version (AKJV), the Updated King James Version (UKJV), the Bond Slave Version (BSV), and Green's Modern King James Version (MKJV). I would recommend using one of those for now.