For my PCA Brethren, the WCF and BCO on your Phone
When I posted to Twitter yesterday that I loved my editable Evernote version of the Westminster Confession of Faith I didn't realize I would get so much feedback. And to answer the first question, "No, I'm not amending the WCF." What I meant was that I have a copy on my iPhone (that syncs with my desktop) in which I can bold, italic, underline, and make personal notes.
How did I do it? It's actually pretty easy. All you need is...Let's start with a quick overview of Evernote. Think of it as a synced storage receptacle for everything. You know those moleskine notebooks that you keep but struggle to fill and catalog, well Evernote is your online moleskine. You can put everything into it. A new note can contain text. You can add a file to it, like a pdf or an mp3. You can even add pictures. I have a "notebook" of all the drawing my kids make for me. You can use it to store everything. And it is all synced on your phone, online, and on your desktop (Mac and Windows). All of your files are also searchable, including pdf's and legible jpgs. So if I search all 420 of my notes for "Jesus" I'm going to get sermon notes, articles, the WCF, and the BCO all throwing back results. Pretty cool, huh? I'll let you experiment more with Evernote on your own.
So how do you get the Westminster Confession onto Evernote? Easier than you think.
Open your desktop version of Evernote and your favorite web browser. Go to this or another copy of the WCF. I chose this one for two reasons. One, its the OPC and if anyone is going to have a good copy of the WCF its the sons of Machen. Secondly, it has a print version. Evernote is great for copying html versions of documents but if you want something you can edit easily—especially on a phone—choose the simplest text version you can find—usually labeled "printer friendly". Now that you have your text version of the WCF, select all the text. Then, if you can copy and paste it into a new note in your Evernote software. If you have the Evernote add-on in Firefox you can right click your selected text and select "Add to Evernote". Now that its in Evernote, simply press the sync button and its automatically on your Phone too. Because its a text file you can add your notes or any kind of highlighting, underlining, bolding, etc (but no amending without a 2/3rds majority in subsequent General Assemblies!). It's also, of course, searchable. So if you search all your notes for say, "general equity", then your going to get chapter 19 of the WCF. Neat, huh! What about the blessed BCO?The process is virtually the same. The only difference is that you're going to add the pdf version of the BCO to a new Evernote note instead of text. Since a good text-only copy of the BCO is hard to come by I just use the pdf version. It doesn't let me edit it but hey, who really wants to take notes in the BCO? Download your pdf version of the BCO to your desktop. Go to Evernote and create a new blank note. Literally drag the BCO pdf file into the new note pane and voila!, the BCO is in your Evernote system—phone, desktop, online, etc. And again, its searchable. So if you're sitting in Presbytery and want to know what in the world an evangelist is, you can simply search all your notes for "evangelist" and low and behold, there are the parts of the BCO that talk about evangelists. Pretty simple, hopefully. Let me know if you have any trouble.
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