Paratext 7 Tips and Tricks

If your Paratext projects folder became damaged or corrupted after a computer disaster, and files are missing from your project, DO NOT do a send/receive. The send/receive will first send your present damaged project to the repository, deleting or corrupting files for your colleagues. This can happen even if you do not have permissions to make changes in the project.

What you should do is remove the project using Tools > Delete Entire Project Resource. Then you can do a send/receive, and you will receive a fresh copy of the project from the server, rather than distribute your corrupted version.

See also “Unable to share” in Paratext help

The Internet server for send/receive permits projects having the same short name. This is a convenience. Imagine the annoyance of starting to set up send/receive and being told it can't work over the Internet because your project name is already in use.

But what can't happen is for two projects with the same short name to have the same users. If Joe and Amanda are working in two different places, and create two projects with the same short name, the server keeps the two projects apart. If Joe and Amanda now want to work on the same project, the other project with the same short name has to be deleted from Paratext and deleted from the server. (It could be backed up in Paratext, then restored to a new project name if one wanted to keep the data in it).

So if you want to add someone as a user to your Paratext project, and you get a message that you cannot add that person to this project, this is what has happened.

Another thing that could create this message, if two people were working on the same project using the Paratext 6 process of making backups and sharing them with each other instead of send/receive. If Amanda is the translator, and she uses the Paratext 7 backup to Internet feature on the project before Joe the administrator sets up send/receive for the project, he may see a message in his Paratext that he cannot share the project with Amanda. Amanda needs to remove her project, and also tell Paratext to remove the backup from the Internet, before she can send/receive the project that Joe administers.

If Amanda has some changes in her copy of the project that she wants to get into the shared version, what she can do before removing her project is to do a backup of it, then restore it to a new project name. Then she can remove the original named project, get the shared project from the server, and use Compare texts to compare her version (the newly named project restored from backup) with the shared version. If there are changes to implement, she can copy and paste them into the shared project. (Or if she doesn't have editing rights, she can make notes, or send her suggestions to Joe by email or other means).

The repository (the database that stores the project history) can become corrupt. Beginning with Paratext 7.1.119 there is a tool to verify the state of your repository. Go to Tools > Advanced > Verify Repositories to check the status of your project repository(ies). This checks the repository attached to the project on your computer, as well as the repository on the Internet server, and repositories on flash drives or network folders if they are currently available.

What to do if a repository is corrupt? 1) If the local repository is corrupt, but the internet server repository or the repository on a USB or network drive is OK, you can delete the Paratext project from your Paratext, and do a send/receive again to get the project back on your computer from the good repository. If you have changes in your text files you haven't been able to share with others, you can make a copy of your books into a new project, by doing a file backup, then restore from that file to a new project. When you get your existing project back from a good repository, you can use the Compare Texts tool to compare your regular project with the new project you just made, to see what needs to be reintroduced into your regular project.

2) If the local repository is fine, but the repository on a USB or network folder is corrupt, do a send/receive to a different USB or different folder. You should probably delete the corrupt repository folder on the USB or network folder so it won't bother you again.

3) If the internet repository is bad, but your local repository is good, contact UBS support via the report problem tool in Paratext, and we can work on the repository on the Internet. In the meantime, use the send/receive to USB or to a network folder.

4) If all your repositories are bad, what you may have to do is recreate the project anew. The project administrator can create a new project, use the Copy Books or Import books commands to get your texts into this new project, and then share this new project with your team members. If different team members have changes they haven't been able to share with others, they can make file backups of their copy of the project, and send those to the administrator, and the administrator can compare those texts to start the new project with the best available versions.

Two basic troubleshooting steps: 1) Reset Paratext.

Hold down the Shift key when you start Paratext. It will ask if you want to submit a problem report and reset Paratext. Click Yes. The problem report form will appear, you can describe your issue and submit your report, or you can cancel out of this if you are not ready to submit a report or have already submitted one. Then Paratext will start, it may ask you what language to use for the interface, and will probably not remember the windows you last had open, but all your projects should be present and your saved text combinations in the Windows menu should be available.

2) Delete the application data folder.

In Windows 7 this is in c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\United_Bible_Societies. In XP it is c:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\United_Bible_Societies

delete the entire “United_Bible_Societies” folder. Then restart Paratext. As with the reset, it will begin asking which language to use, and it will not remember your last opened windows, but your projects and your saved text combinations should be there.

Other troubleshooting ideas:

Try logging on as a different user in Windows Some Paratext settings are unique to one user account, some are not. If one user account can use Paratext and another cannot, look at what is different about the two accounts in terms of permissions. Paratext should work even if the user account does not have administrative privileges, but there may be some permission settings that trip up Paratext.

Run a virus scan on your computer

Run a Windows system file check on your computer

Windows 7 or Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

Windows XP: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/system_file_checker.mspx?mfr=true

See if your data is causing the problem

Move all the .ssf files from your Paratext project folder to a new folder and try Paratext again. If it then runs, you can move .ssf files back to the Paratext project folder one by one or a few at a time, to identify which one makes Paratext crash.

If you identify a project as causing the crash, if you are using send/recieve you can attempt to delete it and receive it again. Otherwise you could delete the .ssf file, move the project folder to a temporary folder, create a new project and use Import books to import the project files from your temporary folder. This will wipe clean your project history but you should get all your books back.

A simple mistake in editing the language settings can make the search feature almost useless. When you enter lower case/upper case pairs in the Alphabetic characters section, the lower case character MUST come first. If your case pairs are in the wrong order in the language settings; searching for “a” will only find “A”, unless you select “match case”, in which case it will find “a” but not “A”. Searching for “sheep” will only find “SHEEP”.

Paratext lets you define what the Scripture book files will be called in your project, but it makes other files that you may not be aware of. Here is a list. Many of these names use the project short name, but not all. I'll abbreviate the project short name as PSN.

Files that may be common to several projects These are in My Paratext Projects

• usfm.sty or usfm_draft.sty or various other .sty files. The style sheet. This informs Paratext how the markers are used, and the formatting to use for them in standard, or preview views, also when you save as RTF or print draft.
• language.lds The language settings file. Stored in My Paratext Projects.
• eng.vrs or org.vrs or othNN.vrs. Versification files.

Files unique to a project Usually inside the project folder, within My Paratext Projects

• PSN.ssf The project settings file. This stores info such as the name pattern for the book files, their location, whether the project is editable or not, and the number of books created. Located in My Paratext Projects, not inside the project folder.
• BiblicalTermsPSN.xml. The Biblical terms rendering data. In earlier versions of Paratext 7 and Paratext 6 this data was in a file named PSN.kb2.
• ProjectUsers.xml. The list of users, roles and permissions for the project.
• unique.id. A long string of hex digits, I assume it is how Paratext can identify unique projects, even if they are shared on the Internet where there may be other projects with the same short name.
• .hg. The folder containing the repository data. Don't attempt to change anything in here, or you could corrupt your repository.
• gather A folder where Paratext keeps a copy of files the project needs that are not in the project folder, such as the style sheet, the language description and the .SSF file.
• Comments_User Name.xml. The file of notes made by the named user.
• Lexicon.xml Part of the interlinear information – it stores words and their analyses and glosses.
• Interlinear_language A folder containing the specific interlinear information for specific books. Each interlinearized book is represented by a file inside this folder. The language name is that of the model text used to interlinearize in.

There are several utilities that will sync files automatically between two different computers. Programs like Dropbox or box.com will let you sync files to the Internet and potentially sync with other users you give permission to connect with you. It would be a bad idea to use one of these services to sync your Paratext project folder with other users. The problem is the Paratext project history repository is stored in a special file structure controlled by a program called Mercurial that Paratext runs. If Paratext and Mercurial need to write to the special repository files, and at the same time Dropbox is writing to these same files because your colleague is also working in Paratext and syncing to your project folder, the result easily could be a corrupt repository, resulting in a loss of your project history and the ability to do search and replace and other kinds of changes to your project.

If you want to use Dropbox or other file sync utilities instead of the Paratext internet server to share your work with each other, do this: do send/receive to the folder that Dropbox syncs. You can do this via the send/receive to network folder option. (You can specify any folder on your computer as a “network folder.” Paratext may warn you that the folder you've chosen doesn't appear to be a network folder, but you can ignore that.) When you send/receive to the Dropbox folder, Dropbox will sync that repository to your colleague, and she can then send/receive to and from that same folder, which Dropbox will sync back to you.