The Bible Tab

Downloading a Bible

The first time you select the bible tab in JW Library it will prompt: "Select a Bible" as a heading at the top of the screen.

After that is a "later" button, but do yourself a favor and download the Bible right away.

Double tap the "English Study Bible" button. When the Study Bible is downloaded it will open.

I'm not discouraging getting other Bibles, but you are reading this in English, and this guide is about the NWT Study Bible. Later you can find and add other versions and languages. You can download as many as you'd like and learn how to compare them.

On an iPad the Language button that you would use to access other Bible versions or languages will be at the top of the screen to the left of the More button. On an iPhone the same Language feature is present but the Language button is inside the More menu that is accessed by double tapping the More button in the top right corner of the screen.

There will be a list of over 300 Bibles. You can swipe right through all of them, but double tapping the Search Languages field and typing in part of the Bible name or language you want is probably a better plan.

When finished typing part of the name or language Activate the Search button on the right side of the on-screen keyboard where Return usually is found.

The search results will be shown, and you can double tap any Bibles you want.

Activate Cancel if you want to try the search again. Activate Done to close the Language menu and return to your currently selected Bible.

Inside the Language menu at the top of the list will be your already downloaded Bibles. Double tapping a downloaded Bible will switch to it as your default Bible.

Listening for whether or not VoiceOver says "Action Menu" after a Bible name is the only method I have found for determining which of them has already been downloaded, because Bibles that aren't downloaded won't have an Actions Menu. Swipe down on one of them to find delete, then double tap to remove it from your device.

To look up a scripture:

Find and double tab the Bible tab which is the 2nd tab from the left at the bottom of the screen in JW Library. VoiceOver doesn't say anything, but if you touch the Bible tab again VoiceOver will say "Selected, Bible, Tab 2 of 5."

At the top of the screen is a heading that says which Bible version is being shown. Most likely, you will want it to be the Study Bible.

Below that heading is a group of tabs. In the Study Bible they will be: Introduction, Books, Index, Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C.

You could double tap the Books tab if it is not already selected, but there is a more efficient method. Instead, you can double tap the Bible tab again. Double tapping the already selected Bible tab will always open the list of Bible books no matter where you were before.

Next time you switch to the Bible tab you can turn the VoiceOver Rotor to headings. Then swipe up with 1 finger to find where the list of Greek or Hebrew scriptures begin.

The Bible books are in a grid. So for example, Exodus is to the right of Genesis. On my iPhone all 66 books take up 2 pages, but on my iPad they only take up 1 page.

If you want to look up something in James in JW Library on an iPhone. It is most efficient to swipe up with 3 fingers to scroll to the 2nd page of Bible books before hunting for James.

It is also important to know that switching from portrait to landscape orientation will change the display of the Bible books. Obviously they will be in the same order, but in portrait orientation Isaiah may be below Job, but in landscape Joel may be below Job instead.

When looking for a book later in the Hebrew scriptures remember that it is likely more efficient to swipe up/down to the Greek scriptures heading, and then swipe left from there to go backwards through the books.

It can also be useful to have Vertical navigation on your VoiceOver rotor, and turn to it to be able to not only swipe left and right but also up and down.

Unless you can use VoiceOver's Find command on a keyboard or Braille display, The only thing to do is work on memorizing the order and location of the Bible books as they are shown on your device's screen.

When you have found the Bible book you want double tap it. VoiceOver will say "Study Bible, back button" when the list of chapters is showing.

They are also in a grid and may or may not take up more than 1 page. For a book like Psalms you will need to swipe up with 3 fingers several times to scroll to the end of the list.

You can quickly jump to the 1st chapter number by turning the VoiceOver rotor to containers and swiping up or down depending on your current location.

On an iPhone only the list of chapters will be on the screen. On an iPad the chapter numbers will be on the left side of the screen, and the Outline of Contents of that Bible book will be shown on the right side.

Double tap the chapter you want. VoiceOver will say: Name of book "back button" when the text of the chapter is showing.

If a HID braille display (or keyboard pretending to be a braille display) is connected it will usually conveniently place VoiceOver focus at the beginning of the chapter's text instead.

Again you can swipe down with 1 finger to find the beginning of the text if the Voiceover rotor is on containers.

Note that on an iPhone only the chapter will be on the screen. On an iPad the chapter text will be on the left and the Study Pain may or may not be open on the right side.

Without a hardware keyboard, a braille display, or a VoiceOver custom gesture, there is no quick and easy way to find the verse you want. You will just have to swipe and scroll and swipe until you find the number.

When looking up something like Psalms 83:18 or Matthew 6:33 you may want to jump to the last item with a 4 finger tap at the bottom of the screen. From there swipe left until you find the last verse of the chapter. The scrollbar on the right edge of the screen can also be used to scroll by 10%. That is really only more efficient in really long chapters.

I don't provide this information for finding scriptures as efficiently as possible in the mistaken impression that these methods can be used to follow along during Meetings. That would likely just be a frustrating pointless exercise. It is much better to hear what the speaker is saying without distractions.

There is also no way to read only the text without numbers or marginal reference letters without using a bluetooth keyboard, a braille display, or a VoiceOver custom gesture. You can learn how to customize VoiceOver to make reading the Study Bible easier using the directions I've provided on the following pages.

Navigation Tips Under the headings "Move by verse number" and "Reading Scriptures" there are directions for both quickly moving through the chapter by verse number, and reading verses without verse numbers or marginal reference letters.

Custom Punctuation dictionary The directions you need to stop VoiceOver from saying middle dot and modifier letter prime in the middle of names will be under the heading "Add a new rule." Unfortunately, the pronunciation dictionary Voiceover has doesn't work for actually making it say the names correctly. That is because the middle dot and prime are considered punctuation, which programmers know makes them in to multiple words according to most software, VoiceOver included.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to make reading those names with the pronunciation diacritics possible on a braille display. 12 characters of gibberish indicating the modifier letter prime really blows any chance of making sense of it, and iOS does not have a feature for customizing braille tables.

Study Bible features

Read the section on Audio to learn how to listen to the NWT 2013 Bible read aloud. It can be started from the beginning of a chapter or from a specific verse within the chapter. The great thing is that it is read by multiple people, so it is easy to follow conversations and know who is saying what.

Read the Search page that follows this one to learn about the Search Button at the top of the screen in the Bible and other publications to learn about that very useful feature.

Study Pane

Can we resist making a joke about the Study Pane? That's spelled "P A N E." It is an incredibly useful feature, but I won't deny that you may sometimes find using it with VoiceOver can be a bit of a pain (P A I N). It is about 100 times easier to use the Study pane in the Study Bible after the changes made in 2024. I am currently using Version 14.3.2. If you are using an earlier version, try to update it.

The update will give this message the first time you open it.

"What's New in JW Library Animation: Tapping the Bible verse displays the context menu. Then, tapping the gem icon on the context menu opens the study pane. All study content displays, including Research Guide references. In the Bible, use the gem icon on the context menu to view all study content for a single verse, including Research Guide references."

This statement is really confusing for VoiceOver users because there is no such thing as a Gem icon indicated. Instead double tap on the Study Pane button that is announced after you have double tapped on any verse number in the Bible.

The Study Pane wil open showing all the information about the verse. There is no longer any hassle caused by having to find the heading at the beginning of the information about the specific verse you wanted. Everything is just there and easy to access without irrelevant clutter.

The existence of the Study Pane is one of the main reasons to use the NWT Study Bible.

On iPads the Study Pane is shown on the right side of the screen. It is often opened automatically.

On iPhones the Study Pane takes up the entire screen, so it is only opened when you need it.

The information for each verse may include:

• Study Notes providing some highly researched information about the entire verse or a detail within it.

• Footnotes giving a definition or alternative wording for a word or phrase in the verse.

• Links to similar verses found elsewhere in the Bible, which are called marginal references.

• Links to relevant articles found in the Research Guide. If you haven't already downloaded the Research Guide you will be prompted to do so.

• Links to the Glossary for important words found in the verse.

• JPG images that may be helpful for understanding something in the verse.

The JPG images do not have alt text to label or describe them, but there will be words providing a caption for the image right after. Often double tapping the image causes a heading to appear with the name of the image and you can swipe right to a Play button, which will play a video with more information. Swipe right again to find the Close button.

Another pain point of the Study Pane is that often when you close it VoiceOver focus is back at the beginning of the chapter, so you have to repeat the effort of finding your place again. This problem is made worse by having a keyboard connected.

If not using a keyboard it is often possible to touch the approximate middle of the iPhone screen to be close to the verse you were researching.

On an iPad you'll want to touch the vertical middle of the screen, but on the left side.

Footnotes

In the text of the Study Bible there are symbols that are spoken as "A" by VoiceOver, but actually look like stars. There is no way to fix this. The fake A's are used to indicate the existence of an alternative word or very short definition of the preceding word. That information is presented in the Study pane.

If there is more than one footnote the subsequent footnotes in the verse will be labeled B and C for VoiceOver. They will look like a pound symbol and a triangle. I explain this so you will know what someone is talking about if they say something like, "Click on the triangle in verse ..."

Look up Psalm 16:10 to see an example.

Double tapping the A that looks like a star and is plane text instead of an italicized letter will open the Study pane if it is not already open, but it is only the usual display of the Study Pane, not specific to what you tapped. .

Swiping back to the verse number and double tapping it, then double tapping the Open Study pane button when the Context Menu appears is a much better idea, because you won't have to find the information about that verse lost in all the information about all the other verses in the chapter.

If there are footnotes for the verse you have opened the study pane, then they will be shown near the top of the information for that verse. They wil be labeled with the same symbols as in the verse itself.

Marginal References

The letters that indicate marginal references work as the footnotes aught to have been designed. When you double tap one of those letters the Study pane will open with only the relevant information for that part of the verse shown. There will be one or more scripture citations that have something in common with the current verse. They could be direct quotations, similar wording, references to the same person or place, Etc.

In the case of marginal references it is very useful to double tap their letter instead of double tapping the verse number. This is because it not only opens the Study Pane with only the relevant information displayed, but also because each of the verses referenced will be quoted. There are only links, not quotations, for the marginal references in the normal display of the Study Pane.

I have also encountered a problem where the links for the marginal reference scriptures in the study pane didn't open when double tapped. That happened on a device running an older iOS version.

History

If you'd like to get a list of all the Bible chapters you've recently looked up, triple tap the Bible tab with 1 finger. That will open a History dialog that only contains items from Bibles and not from other publications. It does include different sections of the Study Bible such as The Introduction and appendices. Each item in the list will specify which Bible version was used. Example: Matthew 5, King James Version.

Introduction Videos

each Bible book in the Study Bible has, or will soon have, a video called "Introduction to..." You can play this video by finding the Introduction button that is after the last chapter number button. When you double tap it a page will open with a button like:

Video Introduction to the Book of ...

double tap to start the video.

Below that there may be information about the Bible book like: when it was written and who wrote it, as well as many other details that are likely to be of interest.

Media Gallery

Many Bible books have a Media Gallery button after the Intro button.

As a totally blind person I at first thought I had no personal use for this feature, though I was delighted the buttons were all labeled. Double tapping any of the buttons in the Media Gallery seemed to do nothing. I am happy to report that I was wrong.

After double tapping one of the buttons a heading will appear at the top of the screen with the same words as the button. Swipe right from that heading and you will often find a Play button. Double tapping that button will often play a video that will provide more information about the object pictured.

Sometimes swiping right once will only bring focus to a Close button. That means there is no video to provide more information for that image.

When finished double tap the Close button in order to bring VoiceOver focus back to the button you activated.

There are headings that indicate the chapter the following list of images are about, but sometimes you'll have to scroll before VoiceOver will move to the next heading.

Outline

In the Study Bible after you've found and double tapped a Bible book, by default the list of chapters will be shown. At the top of the screen on an iPhone there will be an Outline button just to the left of the More button. Double tap the Outline button to have it replace the chapter buttons.

The outline has the chapter numbers in bold, so you can move through them with VO+Command+B if you have a hardware keyboard, or have a custom VoiceOver gesture set up for finding bold text.

Under the chapter number will be a little text that summarizes a section of the chapter, then the range of verses described. The verse ranges will be links. If you double tap on the link you will be taken to that place in the chapter. Be careful to touch somewhere in the middle of the screen which will be showing the correct verses. If you swipe from the top where VoiceOver focus is the position will likely be lost.

While the Outline is showing there will be a Chapters button at the top of the screen where the Outline button was before you activated it, so you can easily switch back.

Introduction

The first tab in the Bible Tab of JW Library is called Introduction. It includes the title page/Publisher's page with copyright info, and then "An Introduction to God's Word." It is the Introduction that can be a very useful ministry tool.

The Introduction contains 20 common questions that the Bible answers. The answers are given in the form of a simple list of Bible verses followed by a link to where the text is found.

On the first page that is displayed as soon as you activate the Introduction tab the 20 questions are shown, but the word question and the number are repeated twice before the question is read. It's a minor inconvenience, but it can be avoided.

After activating the Introduction tab swipe right until you find the phrase "An Introduction to God's Word" and activate it. Now those same questions will be links preceded by the number without the word question or any unnecessary repetition. That makes it very easy to swipe through them to find the one you want.

Once you activate a link a page will open with the Question you chose as a heading at the top. Below the question will be the text of the Bible verses that answer the question. VoiceOver reads the scripture text without even saying, "End article," after it. So beautifully uncluttered.

If you activate the scripture reference link after each quote it will open in the Study Pane and show that verse in all the Bible translations you have downloaded.

If you need to quickly return to the Books tab to look up a scripture:

Activate the back button with a 2 finger scrub.

If VoiceOver says, "Back button," do the 2 finger scrub again.

VoiceOver should say, "An Introduction to God's Word."

Then use a 3 finger swipe left to get to the next tab which will be the books of the Bible.

VoiceOver will make the scrolling sound but probably won't say anything, so you will have to touch the screen to confirm where you are.

Index and appendices

The Index tab in the NWT Study Bible provides a key to the abbreviations used for books of the Bible. This can be useful to know which book is referred to in the references in publications. It may also be necessary for sighted people using the Bible in JW library on a phone. That is because although VoiceOver always reads the entire name of the Bible book for each button that opens it, on smaller screens those buttons only display the books' abbreviation.

There is also a screen reader accessible table of the books of the Bible. The Table provides the name of the writer(s) of the Bible book and when and where it was written.

The index tabs provide a lot of information. Much of it will be readable with VoiceOver, but you will find images, maps, and other material that is not accessible. Some timelines have been carefully constructed to be completely accessible.