Adam's Home Page: Wordsearch7

Wordsearch 7

I received my Wordsearch 7 Upgrade about a month ago. So far I am very impressed.

I ordered the upgrade CD online and received it six days later. I didn't think that was bad only a few days before Christmas.

The installation went pretty smoothly. It starts out installing the program from the Wordsearch 7 CD. Once WS7 starts, it flags in its library list those books I had before in Wordsearch 5 that are not yet installed. One can either download them or install them from the Cross Library CD's included. I chose the CD's. Everyting seems to have transferred over just fine. (One interesting note about the installation -- it did not remove Wordsearch 5. It, and all its books and resources, are still there. Both Wordsearch 5 and Lessonmaker work just as before. I probably won't remove them right away. I may still use the LessonMaker software, though all the lessons I have are available in WS7, and LM integrates with WS5.We will see.)

The bookshelf metaphor is gone. In its place is a file tree similar to that in Windows Explorer. I think this is a big improvement. No more 3-letter abbreviations. It lists all my books, plus those I don't own, but which I have access to for 30 days. The books are listed in very logical categories, like Bibles, Commentaries, Dictionaries, Maps, and Lessons. Everything was easy to find. The only one I missed the first time I looked for it was the Life Application Study Notes. They don't show up under Commentaries like they use to, but under "Study Notes."

The program includes an integrated word processor. You can write your notes and save them right in the Wordsearch library. All the standard formatting options are available, like bold,italics, and underlining. The files are saved in html, not a proprietary format. The note files then show up listed in the library like the other documents and books. This is a big improvement over the Desktop Notes. I never did get the hang of that. One can also attach notes to each verse as before. Display or hide them with one click of a button at the top of the Bible window. Cool.

Multiple open books and documents are listed in tabs at the bottom of the screen, even if only one is visible. That will help keep me from Loosing windows when I had too many open at once. Windows may also be tiled of course.

One has easy access to cross referenced verses and notes through pop up windows. You don't have to jump to the cross reference to read it. One can also open the cross references, of course.

I have not done a lot of work with searches, but I like it so far. Search results are displayed in a separate window, and one can select the books or Bibles to search. It seems pretty quick, but I have not yet compared the speed or search results to WS5 or another Bible program.

That is enough for now. I will post additional observations as things strike me. In the mean time, my first impressions are very positive. I am quite impressed. To be honest, I never really cared for Wordsearch 5. It came with my ESV Bible and the LessonMaker lessons I bought, so I used it anyway. This version I really like. I would definately recommend WS5 users consider upgrading, and encourage others to check it out as well.

Last updated on 01/20/05.