David Cox's Installing the E-Sword Program

 Overview

First of all let's say that e-Sword is a great program. But to back up that statement we need to explain why it is a great program. First of all e-Sword is totally free. This is not that somebody bought the program and then pirated it by putting it out free, the programmer (Rick Meyers) wrote the program and made it from the beginning a free program. In the start up splash screen, it says to report any selling of this program.

Next its versatility. It has Bibles, commentaries, and dictionaries, and best of all it allows the user to make his own commentaries and Bible notes. Perhaps one of the best things e-Sword has opened to the world is the ability to put other people's notes in a window so you can study as references other people's work as you study the Bible. These books are called "topic notes". There are a lot of good material out there in this format.

 Downloading e-Sword

Here you need to go directly to the e-Sword website http://www.e-sword.net/ and select Downloads, and then e-Sword (in the drop down box below the e-Sword logo. Look down the page and select "e-Sword v7.8.5 application installation". The 7.8.5 is the current version when I wrote this page, so it may be a different number (more recent).

 Installing the e-Sword program

Once the program has downloaded, then run it (it is an installation program). This should be normal, but the one important thing is to note where you install e-Sword. The default folder is C:\programs\e-Sword. You need to remember that for other parts like module installation.

 Orientation to the program

Open e-Sword and you should see something similar to the graphic at the left. Note how I have named each section. The Bible navigation bar is to the far left, the Bible next over, to access maps (an icon on the menu bar), then on the far right the Commentary-Topics panel. At the bottom is the dictionary panel. Across the top are two lines, the topmost line is the main menu, and under that there is a secondary menu line with graphical icons. We will go through each area of the e-Sword interface step by step in these help files.