MdBible - Versions

How to install a zip in MdBible

In the app, open Settings → Translation → Install from a zip file and pick the file. The app checks the whole zip before it writes anything: if the zip is damaged or is not a version, nothing is written to your vault. If your vault already has a folder with the same abbreviation, the install is refused — delete the old version first, from the same menu. Your notes and highlights are not kept in the version’s folder, so deleting a version removes none of them.

How to build a version’s zip

Any Bible text you have in Markdown can become an installable version. The zip only needs the shape below.

1. A folder named for the version’s abbreviation

The folder’s name is the abbreviation — the version’s identity in the app and the name of the folder it will take in your vault. Use only letters and digits, no slashes or colons, and do not use footnotes, which is reserved.

BSB/
  version.md
  01. Gênesis/
    Gn 01.md
    Gn 02.md
    …
  19. Salmos/
    Sl 001.md
    …
  66. Apocalipse/
    Ap 22.md

2. The version.md

At the top of the folder, a version.md file says what the version is called:

---
name: Berean Standard Bible
id: BSB
version: 1.0.0
language: en
copyright: Public domain.
---

• name is what the list of versions shows;
• id is the abbreviation shown in the reader’s header (the same as the folder’s);
• version is your own numbering — change it when you correct the text;
• language and copyright are for information.

3. A folder per book, a file per chapter

• Book folders: NN. Name, numbered in the order of the Protestant canon, from 01. Gênesis to 66. Apocalipse. What identifies the book is the number at the start. The names are in Portuguese whatever the language of the text — that is the shape every version in the app shares.
• Chapter files: Abbreviation NN.md — Gn 01.md, Mt 05.md. What identifies the chapter are the digits at the end of the name. Psalms uses three digits (Sl 001.md to Sl 150.md).
• A version does not need every book: a New Testament with only 40. Mateus to 66. Apocalipse works, and the app shows only what the version has. Chapters beyond the canon (such as Psalm 151) are read too.

The book folders and their abbreviations, in order:

4. Inside each chapter

Each verse is a level-6 heading with its number, followed by the text:

###### 1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
###### 2
Now the earth was formless and void…

A translator’s footnotes can stay in the text (…void[^1], with [^1]: the note at the end of the file): the app shows them as the verse’s marginal notes. Frontmatter at the top of the file is allowed and ignored.

5. Zip it

Zip the folder (not what is inside it), as an ordinary zip:

• Windows: right-click the BSB folder → Compress to ZIP file (or Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder). In PowerShell: Compress-Archive -Path BSB -DestinationPath BSB.zip
• macOS: right-click the folder → Compress “BSB”. (The __MACOSX folder Finder adds is ignored.)
• Linux: zip -r BSB.zip BSB

Zipping only the folder’s contents, with version.md at the top of the zip, works too: the abbreviation then comes from the id in version.md. Files that are not .md and hidden files are ignored. A zip with more than one version inside is refused — make one zip per version.

Tip: is the version already in your vault?

If you use MdBible with an Obsidian vault, you need no zip at all: copy the version’s folder, in this same shape, into the vault’s Bible folder (bible/, or the one you chose in Settings). The next time the app reads the vault, the version appears in the list.

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