Overview
I’ve been a WORDsearch user since 1991, when my very first Bible Study software purchase was an early DOS versions of WS, which I picked up at a CBD Warehouse Sale. Although I currently also have Logos, QuickVerse, Pradis, The Word, Bible Explorer, and a few other odds and ends installed on my computer, WORDsearch is still my primary Bible Study program. This is not to say it’s perfect. My familiarity with it tends to make me both a strong advocate for it, and a strong critic of it. As well as I know its flaws, however, this is probably the most important piece of software I own.
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Current Version
The current version (WS8) was released in November 2007. It is a significant functional upgrade from the prior version (WS7). Updated builds are released periodically to deal with program bugs and modest enhancements, and an automated update facility is included in the program. WORDsearch is nothing if not a work in progress. As of this writing (29 Apr 2009), the current build number is 8.0.2.66, released on January 14, 2009.
This is the second major version of WORDsearch released since the merger of WORDsearch Corp with Epiphany Software in July, 2003 (WORDsearch 7 was released in November 2004). A Macintosh version was introduced sometime in July of 2008, though it appears to actually be WS8 for Windows running under WINE. A free handheld product, WORDsearch To Go, uses a book format incompatible with WORDsearch, and will not be reviewed here at all.
Background
Prior to the WORDsearch/Epiphany merger, WORDsearch was a mature STEP-based product aimed at preachers, teachers, Bible Study leaders and other non-specialists needing a high-quality viewer and search tool for electronic Bibles and supporting library resources. Epiphany was marketing a low-end but apparently influential Bible Study package called Bible Explorer (BE), which was designed around web browser technology, and Internet standards such as HTML and XML. Bible Explorer is built on top of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer framework.
WS7 appeared to be largely an attempt to port the functionality of legacy WORDsearch onto the Internet standards-based framework of BE – a not entirely successful effort. WS8 is a continuation of that effort, yet it also takes further advantage of the inherent web capabilities of the BE framework to successfully incorporate Internet resources into the main Bible study application.
Still, there remains important functionality available in earlier, STEP-based versions of WORDsearch, that has not made its way onto the new platform, five years after the merger. My WORDsearch Versions Functional Comparison page provides a fairly comprehensive look at the differences – from a functional perspective – between the last three major versions (v.5, v.7, v.8), as well as the current version of Bible Explorer (v.4), which continues to be made available – but which is now free.
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High-Level Assessment
One oft-cited strength of WS8 is in its usability – the interface just lends itself to comfortable productivity. WS8 is also ahead of the pack in terms of integrating user-created content. Verse lists are flexible in their layout, and support annotation smartly, although they integrate clumsily with the rest of the study environment because of the way the verse syncing technology works. Other than the (excellent) new Bible annotation “Notebooks” introduced in version 8, the program does not support user-created “books” (even though pre-Epiphany versions did), but instead focuses user content into HTML documents, which can be created using an integrated text editor, or created in external editors and word processors. It’s not a perfect solution for user-content (especially in light of ongoing searching failures in the MyDocuments folder), but still, WORDsearch is far and away the best program I’m aware of at putting the output of Bible Study work (studies, lessons, sermons, and other documentation) at the center of the program, where it belongs. No one else seems to even be taking this aspect of program functionality seriously, which puts WORDsearch in a class by themselves in this area.
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WS8 is unfortunately somewhat weak in terms of Bible searching, having a functionally limited Bible-only searching tool associated with the Parallel Bible window, which supplements the primary, general purpose search tool that is, frankly, not really adequate for the specific task of Bible searching. Search results from the general search tool are returned in a static table that provides a copy of the returned results within their immediate context (such as the containing verses, in the case of Bible results), as well as hyperlinks to each returned result within the actual source books. The tool is single-instance, meaning you can’t have more than one search results table open at a time. The search results handling is not at all flexible or manipulable, and is one of the key shortcomings of the program, considering how this had once been a strength of WORDsearch for many years.
The book-chapter-verse (BCV) syncing mechanism is also rather clumsy, with windows having a simple on/off button for syncing, and every synced window having the capacity to change the BCV context for the entire synced set. This kind of solution would be better suited to a simple Bible reader environment than to a true study environment, where users will tend to want to work with several Biblical contexts simultaneously – and not be prone to having open Bibles lose their place in the process.
Both of these fundamental technology areas are good candidates for improvement in future versions.
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Most of the major English Bible translations are available, along with several more obscure versions. Side-by-side comparisons can be very effectively pursued in several formats (including Greek & Hebrew texts). I have not found a Bible Study program that does as good a job of providing effective means of viewing versions in parallel. This is clearly a strength of WORDsearch. Original language capability is not the primary focus of WORDsearch, but a reasonable collection of lexicons and other original language supports is available for the English-first audience, often accessible via Strong’s tagging. This includes tagged interlinear Greek and Hebrew texts. WORDsearch also offers two resources, unique in the industry, based on the Holman CSB translation: a Strong’s tagged Bible, and a Reverse Interlinear. The original language capabilities will be adequate for most folks, though a tagged interlinear LXX text would fill out the offerings nicely. Original language resources often sync on Strong’s number, which works pretty well, but the inability to set a language-synced window to not sync makes it more difficult than it should be to compare entries. An annotation system exists for non-Biblical books, but it is still poorly implemented in WS8.
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WORDsearch is competent at exporting text, including Turabian-style citation options, though detail such as poetic formatting is not maintained in copy/paste operations. A Bibliographer tool will prove useful for students and those writing for publication. Version 8 introduced a powerful, enhanced xref searching tool that can cross reference a verse in every resource in the library, including user documents (although Verse Lists, unfortunately, cannot be searched).
Internet resources are integrated into the program through the underlying IE architecture, with an internal web browser, the ability to include certain web sites in library Topics searches, and a smartly utilized tabbed window of Internet dictionary sites. Printing is also handled by the IE engine, which is not exactly known for its elegance – or competence.
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Books can be opened in either stand-alone mode, or in a very useful tabbed window mode – called window docking. Unfortunately, not all window types support docking. The desktop layout can be auto-arranged by the program, or the user can define window sizes and locations after opening them. Challenges with the display and behavior of windows in user-defined layouts have been being addressed with updates over the past several months. Multiple “Desktops” can be created and saved for later retrieval; their saved state includes both window layout and book context information. Unfortunately, each “Desktop” defines its own unsharable scope for user data such as book highlighting and non-Bible book annotations. By contrast, Bible annotations, vastly improved in this version, are available globally across all Desktops.
The scope of available books is quite extensive (including limited 3rd party publishers), though Catholic and Orthodox resources are virtually non-existent except for the Early Church Fathers collection as edited by Schaff. At a street price of $35 from CBD, the WS8 Thompson Chain-Reference Bible Library is very affordable, and quite well outfitted. It is, without a doubt, one of the very best Bible Study values on the market. You can spend enormous sums for their bigger packages, however.
It seems commonly held among WORDsearch users that books are cheaper to buy for WORDsearch than for other programs, but my preliminary research into this (which I will publish on this site when complete) suggests that this is not the case today – if it ever was. To be fair, many of the customer comparisons are made with Logos, in which case there may be some merit to the claims.
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It must be said that while program speed is often a strong suit of WS8, program stability has not been. WS8 has been one the buggiest commercial programs on my computer – as was its immediate predecessor, WS7. Aggravating this, it too often handles exceptions ungracefully. I was a beta tester for this version, and I’ve commented before that I felt like I was still running a beta version for quite a while after the “release” version shipped. A year and a half after commercial release, it seems pretty solid, but it was a long road to get here. When released, the product was not only glitchy, but there were several functions that were not wired up, the last of which was not correctly implemented for more than six months.
Personally, I don’t find it too difficult to deal day-to-day with not-quite-finished software. I have my limits, but I’d rather have new functionality while it’s still a work in progress, rather than going without it completely until it is perfect. However, if polish in an application is highly important to you, or if you’re a chronic complainer when everything doesn’t work just right, WS8 may not be for you.
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Recommendation
Still, with all its flaws – and there are many – I find WORDsearch 8 to be an extremely useful program. I’m glad I have alternatives when I need to do analytical or complex searching, but its ease of use alone makes it worth the low entry level cost, and its integration of my own Bible Study documents makes it extremely valuable to me.
Recommended – especially at the lower-priced offerings – for non-scholars looking for a Bible Study program to help produce output, be that in the form of lessons, sermons, articles, handouts, etc., with the caveat that this is ocassionally buggy software that might sometimes drive you up the wall.
I’m reluctant to recommend spending many hundreds of dollars for the premium packages until I see the Bible Study software market moving toward a place where users can expect their investment in electronic books to be resistant to changes in the marketplace. That’s a fancy way of saying that ebook formats need to become portable, if not standardized. Biblical reference works are, without a doubt, far easier to use in electronic format – especially formats that are tightly integrated in an environment like WORDsearch – but you need to weigh the value of that improved study and productivity against the risk of finding yourself, at some point, with an expensive set of ebooks that can no longer be used by the current computerized study programs on the market. Maybe someone out there will support the CROSS format of ebooks for as long as a hardback copy of the works would be readable, but I have my doubts about that.
I think the next version of WORDsearch will be critical in terms of mitigating the risk of CROSS books becoming obsolete in the near future. If WORDsearch can avoid the temptation to try to be all things to all people, fix its few key weaknesses, and extend its market leadership in its strength area of knowledge management, it has the potential to break through in this very competitive market, and become one of those few products that the others need to be measured against.
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Version Compare
Click the link below to open the WORDsearch version comparison chart in a new window.
WORDsearch Versions Functional Comparison
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WS8 Tweaks
Below are some tweaks I’ve employed to improve my WORDsearch 8 working environment. Feel free to use them, modify them, or distribute them. They come without any kind of warranty, though if you email me or leave me a comment here, I will try to answer any questions.
For a description of each download, and instructions for use, click on the green arrow above the download link.
[...] W. Gillis is working on what promises to be an in-depth review of WORDsearch 8. As part of this ongoing project, he has published a very interesting chart [...]
John, thanks for the documentation on color schemes. One question: In everything I’ve seen in drawing programs and online, the S & L numbers in HSL are percentages that do not go above 100. Yet the numbers in the INI file commonly go above 100 for L & S. Can you clarify how to convert a standard HSL number (with the 100-max limit on S & L) into WS format?
Reply to Ken