Freely-Given.org OSIS Bibles

Picture of the FG Logo

More than you wanted to know about OSIS Bibles

OSIS (Open Scripture Information Standard) Bibles are usually created by hand or by converting from another format. OSIS files use XML and Unicode (and particularly UTF-8) international standards. They might either consist of one XML file per book, or else might contain the entire Bible in one file. They might be organised in chapter containers containing verses, or in paragraph containers with milestones marking chapters and verses (i.e., there's at least two vastly different ways to organise OSIS XML files). They only contain the Bible text and a few extras like book titles and introductions, but some other necessary information (metadata) is not currently defined or included in the specification, thus they are not usually sufficient for typesetting from directly.

Unfortunately, the OSIS standard is not currently being maintained, and requested fixes and improvements to both the standard and the documentation go unfulfilled. (The latest OSIS documentation is dated March 2006 but you might have to get it from the web archive here.)

Sample OSIS files

You can view our Matigsalug demo OSIS files here and our demo WEB OSIS files here, or better still from the source here.

Submitting OSIS files to the Bible Drop Box

Many people find the Bible Drop Box to be a useful OSIS to USFM converter (as well as converting to MANY other different formats at the same time).

You should compress your OSIS XML file or files into a zip archive. The filename must have a .zip extension. Take careful note of which folder you are saving your zip file into, because you will need that information in order to submit the file.

Test data: If you are able to provide any kinds of Bible files for automated testing purposes, please contact us and let us know the details so we can improve the internationalisation and ruggedness of the software for everyone’s benefit.