Technology Inquiry: Easy Production of Side-By-Side English Translation with Greek or Latin?

We are now requiring that new registrants confirm their request for an account by email.  Once you complete the "Sign Up" process to set up your user name and password, please send an email to the New Accounts Administator to obtain new account approval.

Regularly Checking In On A Small Screen Device? Bookmark THIS page!

    We are regularly running into the need for easy production of html pages which allow the side-by-side display of English translation with the original Greek or Latin.

    I think the target probably needs to be two or three column - probably two so that it will be usable on portrait size portable devices.

    It also probably needs to be somehow divisible by "cells," in that the English translation is frequently longer than the Greek or Latin, and so to keep the passages of text together it's necessary to be able to have the end result look almost like a "spreadsheet" so that the English and original passages stay together. It's possible that links or tags could be used to jump from place to place, but ultimately side-by-side is probably the most usable.

    Optimum would be the ability to easily change out the columns, so that for example the first column could be Latin, then the second switchable between Bailey, Munro, etc., with the switching function not causing you to lose your place in the text.

    Since we're talking wish-list here, what we need is a system wherein the texts can be prepared and edited either locally or on the internet version, and then the result easily convertible to an html page for posting.

    Currently one system I am using is Emacs org-mode, where I can prepare a text and then export the result to an html page like so. It's possible that emacs could do what we want but it has a steep learning curve.

    I'd like to employ such as system to deploy side-by-side versions of Lucretius, rather than individually as we currently have it.

    I made an early effort in the direction of multi-column pages here. This is somewhat usable, but it's not by any means optimum. The columns don't stay together and the system I used was not user friendly.

    I know others would probably find suggestions useful, as Don (for one) is thinking about side-by side versions of his letter to Menoeceus.

    I don't have any illusions that this will be easy to do, but if we start the thread now then maybe over time people will come across examples of other sites that are usable for such a project and we can explore how they are made.

    If you're looking for something like that:

    Side By Side viewer

    you may want to follow the link to the source code given in 'About' section. I didn't investigate it closely but it looks like there are some instructions how to create similar projects. There are also author's contact details there, if needed.

    Ok I have a short section of Book One of Lucretius running as an example of what the software can do and its usability by someone who is not a programming expert (me).

    This will require much more effort to implement the full book, but it is definitely doable, and being based in github, it can be set up to work on as a joint project:

    Side By Side viewer

    One particularly nice thing about the software is that you once you find a section in the text that you want to reference somewhere else, you can copy the URL and share it and that url will take you to the specific section - kind of like the artchive.org link to a pdf will take you to a particular page. I haven't previously had a good way to link to specific sections of a text version of Lucretius or other texts so using a system like this would be a good way to provide that.


    Side By Side viewer

    For those who don't want to post anything online but want to use this software for personal projects where side by side texts comparison is needed, here's the easiest way to do it.

    Step 1: Download the zip file and unpack it where you want it. It's basically a webpage template that allows you to display the texts side by side.

    https://github.com/tasuki/sbs/archive/gh-pages.zip

    Step 2: Create a local HTTP server. This will create a local environment for your webpage. There are different way to do it but the simplest is to run below command in the directory where index.html is. (Make sure Python is installed and you run the command in the correct directory)

    python -m http.server

    Step 3: Edit index.html to make sure base href is set to current directory: <base href="/"> or simply remove this line as default is current directory anyway.

    Step 4: Copy of the files from tests/the_raven folder into the folder where index.html is. These files are the example to show you how things are done. For your own projects, modify these files or create your own.

    Step 5: Open your web browser with this address: http://localhost:8000/. This is how you access the local server where your newly created website is.

    That's it. Now the world is your oyster. You can put your own texts, compare, re-arrange or even change how things look like by modifying all_min.css file in styles directory. (The file is obfuscated but there are ways to deobfuscate it so it's easy to modify to your liking). After you're happy with the results, you can print as pdf in the browser and you have a nice looking document. Have fun.

Unread Threads

    1. Title
    2. Replies
    3. Last Reply

    2. Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources 20

      • Cassius
      • July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
    3. Replies
      20
      Views
      7.3k
      20

    4. Kalosyni

      July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM

    2. Mocking Epithets 3

      • Bryan
      • July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
    3. Replies
      3
      Views
      547
      3

    4. Bryan

      July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM

    2. Best Lucretius translation? 12

      • Rolf
      • July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM
    3. Replies
      12
      Views
      1.4k
      12

    4. Eikadistes

      July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM

Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com

What's the best strategy for finding things on EpicureanFriends.com? Here's a suggested search strategy:

  • First, familiarize yourself with the list of forums. The best way to find threads related to a particular topic is to look in the relevant forum. Over the years most people have tried to start threads according to forum topic, and we regularly move threads from our "general discussion" area over to forums with more descriptive titles.
  • Use the "Search" facility at the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere." Also check the "Search Assistance" page.
  • Use the "Tag" facility, starting with the "Key Tags By Topic" in the right hand navigation pane, or using the "Search By Tag" page, or the "Tag Overview" page which contains a list of all tags alphabetically. We curate the available tags to keep them to a manageable number that is descriptive of frequently-searched topics.