I have been translating the Samyutta Nikaya using Bilara, and I have now completed roughly half of the collection. At this stage, I would like to do a thorough review of the translation completed so far. For that purpose, I would like to export my translation from Bilara into a format that is easier to edit and proofread (Word file or similar).
However, I have not been able to find a way to do this. Is there any method for exporting a translation project for offline review and editing?
Yes I plan to synchronize online and paper version.
At this moment I am not sure how many changes are going to be, hope not too many, as I was already checking the text on the go, after each sutta was translated. If otherwise, it would be nice to have some import function at least on the sutta level, so not every comma or typo has to be entered manually.
You may need to explain in more detail. Are you looking for just a .docx type file?
You might be able to find a way to dump all of the json files (like this) into a text file. Every segment id (e.g. sn1.10:0.1) is unique, so that wouldn’t be a huge problem. But you would have to make sure to touch none of the formatting that makes it a json file.
No, I don’t have a suggestion. I am making all my edits in Bilara itself. And they are many!
For what it’s worth, Bilara does have a search function which allows for find/replace. I have hardly ever used it because in German, the grammar is too complex for a simple find/replace. I prefer to see things in context and open each sutta separately.
iirc @cdpatton has a script made for importing translations TO bilara. Such a script could be easily tuned to export as well.
It should be a trivial thing to set up if you’re familiar with a little bit of code. If not, if you tell me range of your translations I can help you set up a script for it.
OTOH, I always wondered why this was restricted to Bhante Sujato’s translations. Can we tune this to make it compatible with other translations bhante? @Snowbird
Not trying to put the work on you, perhaps I can take a look.
This is basically what Bilara’s “editions” project is meant for. It’s meant to be for completed, proofread collections, then it can produce printable pdf files from the same data that are shown online.
You can still make edits, and the editions files will be updated along with the website in a weekly rhythm, I believe.
Bhante, I didn’t say it is hard to edit in Bilara. What I was asking for is to have my SN translation out of the system, as I want to prepare it for printing it as a book.
So it sounds like your primary goal is bringing the translation to publication, and you imagine that as part of that process you may want to make changes/edits/corrections.
This is a really common problem in modern publishing. The real solution is probably making the Editions process that Ven. Sabbamitta mentioned more accessible to translators. Then you would just export the translation to a PDF and be done.
If you simply want to have your translation in a .docx file because it would be easier to edit, yeah, that’s going to be difficult to go backwards to Bilara. I guess if you kept the segment numbers in that new doc you could map it back to Bilara.
That is exactly what the editions program would do for you. I am now going to enter that path for my translations. It would work as follows:
If you want to publish via this program you should first discuss it with Bhante Sujato.
You make your edits in Bilara as you did all the time.
You write some preface or such thing, some glossary or whatever you’d like to add to the actual translation text. This is currently not done in Bilara, but would need to be done in some extra file. Markdown would be good, but perhaps a .docx or .odt file would also do.
This would need to be added by one of the Bilara devs, probably Hongda.
You can even make notes to individual segments in Bilara and then include them into your printed edition or not.
The output would then be a ready-to-print pdf or epub, nicely laid out and all.
If you find more things that need changing that can all be done inside the system without first exporting the entire collection.
But of course if you prefer to take another path, that can be done. There just isn’t a ready-made solution for it in Bilara.
Venerable, when I say making a book layout that means a layout identical as previous editions od DN and MN of our Buddhist Community, not the kind of pdf file like Ajahn Sujato’s translations were published as a PDF file. Therefore, I need to import the editable text of the Serbian translation into InDesign program and make proper layout for the printer.
