Logos Desktop

Desktop Logo showing two books - click for larger image

This page describes Logos running on a Desktop.

It is based on Logos 8 with Logos 9 updates. Note this page also covers the Verbum Catholic version Desktop which differs in the included sample books, a Catholic emphasis, and links to the Verbum web site and store.

Introduction

Logos Desktop, of course, could also run on a laptop so long as it can run Windows or MacOS and has enough disk space. You will also need Internet access to access your database for downloading purpose. The desktop works best if all your books are downloaded. The Internet is too slow to do any searching of data in the books and database.

This article expects that you are already somewhat familiar with the Logos and the Logos Mobile app. You may want to read that page first. Note that mobile apps work fine with an Internet connection without downloading apps, but the desktop version requires the download of the eBooks to get the full features. It builds an index database of most of your books.

The Logos Desktop App is said, by some, as being too complicated. This page is intended to help make it simpler to use. However, even if you plan to solely use the Logos Mobile app, you should download this app if you own a Desktop or laptop platform. Once you use the Mobile app for a while you will find this one to be a bit easier. In fact they both offer similar features but use a different but similar model except that the desktop version has additional features not available on the mobile devices and the Desktop uses separate and several windows that can be on the screen at the same time. This can complicate things a bit but opens the door to additional study options. Web links for help and store are to the https://www.logos.com/ web site. There is also a Logos web app that mimics the look and feel of the Desktop version.

Changes

The software is updated from time to time. You should allow the updates. Upgrades are also available which will include sets of books. Initially you can download the program itself without books and then download the books later. Upgrades may even be for versions older than the version you are running but may have some books that you want. It is ok to download older sets as the program will always keep the latest version of the software but may upgrade some features based on the set you bought. The books will not be effected by these changes. They are upgraded separately.

Viewing changes

One good reason to use the desktop app and to visit it fairly often is that this app will show recent new books, changes to books and other resources in one list and potentially data sets in a second list that may be important for you to know about. It will also tell you about changes to the software itself in a third section. Right next to the "drag shortcut" tag you will see a "blue circle" with a number in it followed by a some busy arrows that move while updates are in process. Clicking this blue number will reveal any late changes that have been done to any eBooks or new books you purchased (Logos calls them resources). If the busy arrows are moving you can see why by tapping the same number. It will reduce itself to 1, 2 or 3 when the program is idle.

This entry can be cleared while viewing the content which will remove the blue dot from the screen. If it is cleared it will start over completely with new entries, such as books you buy or program upgrades. It will often have a 1 in the box if you clear it frequently. If you choose to just leave it on the screen it will collect data until you clear it. Each section can be cleared separately or all at once. At the bottom of the list there is a entry that will bring up the library view showing the new or changed books (resources) up to 7 days. This library view will stay in its own window until you dismiss it so it can also be used to view the regular library by clearing the 7 day entry. Selecting the 30 day window will show changes in the last 30 days and the 10, 7 views will correct numbers for their views.

Right next to information blue circle is a sync symbol that will turn when the program is syncing the various tools you own together. This will update your database.

Finding News

A second reason for loading the desktop version is the Home screen (The starting screen for this app.) will show you new tips and sales including free eBooks. By default the Home screen will be shown when you start but this can be changed if you wish.

The Window

When you start the application it will take a few minutes to gather information about your library and new changes that may have been made by Logos. When it appears it will have a HOME, LIBRARY, and FACTBOOK tab similar to the Home, Library, and Factbook entries that are in the Mobile app. This app starts by displaying the HOME screen. (This can be changed with a setting if you wish.) The top edge of the Logos Desktop is called the tool bar. All of the entries there are command icons to open special features. (Note: Factbook entries at the top line is new with Logos Version 9.)

HOME

The HOME screen contains a long page with information connected to the application for things you are working on, the store for offers, or other Logos web sites. Clicking on things will likely bring up a page in your web browser. You can also generate entries you want to keep track of by creating "cards" related to certain tasks. Tapping the Home button itself will toggle between the Home function and any books or items that you may have open or empty if there are no open books.

Desktop Logos showing the Library screen for V9 (click twice for full size view)

LIBRARY

The LIBRARY button is beside the HOME button. It opens a temporary window containing the library contents (shown on the right). The fact that this window is temporary can be annoying. It can go away if you temporarily want to look at another window or even tap another location in the Logos window. If you want to keep this from happening you can turn this entry into a regular window. Move over to the right edge and find the icon that says "Open in a floating window". Tapping this will convert the library window into one that won't close until you close it or shut down the App. (The Blue button with a number in it will also offer an actual library view at the bottom of its menu.) At this point the window can be moved around, resized and treated like any other window on your display.

Right click on the mouse to bring up a menu on the library button. "Open" will open a regular window, "Open in a new tab" will open the library view as if it were a book, and finally "open in a floating window" will do what it says. These three choice are also available on the fact button.

This window can have one to three columns turned on. (The main display is similar to the one in the Mobile app.) The row of commands at the top has an icon on the left, called the sidebar, that can be tapped to turn on or off the Filter list in a new column on the left (See below for more on the #Filter. This is followed with a type in search field called "Find resources". You can use this field to search for the books you want. Then there that are two buttons called "Yours" and "Store". These control the display of books field. "Yours" show what you own and "Store" shows the Store entry based on the same search. This can be helpful if your search failed to find the book you wanted. Tapping store will show the exact same search but inside the store. Next there is a box selection than can change the sorting of your library. Choices include Title, Author, Most recent, or most used.

The next icon allows you to change the viewing of your library from a detailed list, a tile view, or a cover view (see details below). In all but the cover view you can move your cursor over a book and an info box will open up. It contains information about the book. The description can end in ... which means there is more to see but you can't see it here. This can be a bit annoying if you are scrolling through the books. In the cover view placing a cursor over a cover will reveal the name of the book and if you hesitate over the cover the description will show up.

If you want a bit of control over the information description you can tap the (i) icon which is labeled information. Tapping this will turn on (or off) the right column with the description appearing in this column. At this point you can right click on any of the books in the display and the description will appear in this column and remain until you right click another book. (Note that you can also use the left button to click near the title but be careful, if you click the title text itself the book will open.) Once the information item is showing you can use the up/down arrow keys on the keyboard to change books in the list and automatically change the description at the same time. The information data contains the full description and additional data about the books.

If you want to read the book the left button on the mouse can be used to read it. If it has been downloaded it will appear in the main app screen, covering a portion of that window. If it is not downloaded it will show a preview which will offer to open the book in a browser window using the Logos web app.

Detail mode

The detail mode, mentioned above, provides a lot of extra features on how you can add information to view and sort it differently. You can use the right mouse over any of the labels at the top of the view to bring up a list of things you want to view. Clicking any of the top labels will sort the list based on that entry. Clicking a second time will reverse the order of the entries.

Filter

The Filter column begins with a Type entry. It looks the most like the WordSearch Bible Categories library listing. The filter will still work with this list. The entry will only appear if you have books of that type. See Logos_Mobile_app#Filtering for comparison on Filter use. They are more powerful the desktop version due to the ability to remove a single subject afterwards to change the sort and numbers. Filters are sorted by most books by that filter and then alphabetically if the list has the same number of entries. If you know the name you want you can type it in. Click the magnify icon to the right of the word Filter. The Word will be searched in all types and displayed for your choice.

Filters include:

• Type - Category of books, more specific than the Subject choices. There is entry called "Monograph" which means a book with one subject but in practice this is the left over Category for everything other than the ones listed below it. For additional Types see the list at Logos Mobile app#Categories (Types)
• Factbook - Groups: Bible (Books), Belief System, People (Names, groups), Places, Systematic Theology, and Other with actual filters inside these groups.
• Subject - related to categories but are focused on NT, OT, Full Bible, etc. Note that there can be more than one subject for a particular book. If so and you select one it will show how many have the selected subject and also will list other subjects for that type with how many that also apply. These may also be tapped to add an additional filter. It is also possible to search for one of those secondary entries first if you know their name. You can even filter more using this technique. To search this way type in the entries with the name subject first. For example you might want to find - subject: Baptist, sermons. On the Desktop version the various subjects can be removed independently so the first choice could be removed thereby making a secondary entry the main subject for sorting purposes. All of you books are accounted for but there is a [None] category which is not likely to be your favorite since it has no subject. When you work down to the smaller numbers you will find repeats. I think this is a bug. I have a bunch of Bibles that all have 1 for the quantity. If you tap it all of them show up. This may be due to the secondary subjects but it is a bug, none the less.
• Tags - 2 Groups: My tags includes None, readLater and manually added; Community Tags which includes anyone, companies, for any purpose. Can be none but normally multiple tags on one book.
• Ratings - two groups, yours and community sorted by number of stars
• Language - English, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, etc.
• Author - Usually one or more persons but can also be a named group, or a Publisher.
• Collection - Could also be called sets, typically generated by a user although there are some from the publisher such as "Media Collection".
• Series - Can be none, could also be called sets. User can make these.
• Publisher - Name of publisher, useful to find all the books from a given publisher.
• License - Permanent or Temporary (came in a set or platform)
• Edition - type of book, Logos Research, eBooks, and Logos Reader.
• Reading Status - Unread, Reading, and Finished. Reading progress is shown in a circle that appears beside the title. The approximate amount read is shown using a heavy line shown on the circle. It also shows the portion of the book that was read clockwise around the circle. A better view of the total read is to select the book and view the information column. It will show the exact percentage read beside a second circle. A left key mouse click on the circle will show a menu that can be used to mark the resource as read or to reset the reading status for that book.
• Devices - A list of every installation of Logos and counts the local books on each device as well as the number of books not on the device.
• Last Updated - See Added
• Added - Shows last added for 7 days, 14 Days, 30 Days, each includes the other.

Making a List

Getting a handle on all your books can be a problem when you have a couple thousand books and no automatic arrangement or grouping. The easy method is to use the Print command on the menu (...). A CTRL-P on windows will also bring up this menu. It has been disabled for printing but it can be used to generate an xml file that can be used in Excel or equivalent tool if you own one.

A second method is aimed a providing a way to list your books for use in a printout, a word processor, or other tool. I received most of this from a question I asked to LOGOS support.

Before I start the instructions there are some caveats. You can only create a list from books that are loaded on your desktop. The method makes use of the Bibliography feature which needs data that is not listed in the standard Library view. Now on to the method:

1. Make a collection of all your books. Click the tools button at the top of the Desktop app and find the Collections command. Look below all the icons and scroll down the Library entry. Expand that entry and select Collections. A Window will open up that you can fill out.
2. Notice the Title, give it a name you will remember such as "All my books" for example.
3. The next box wants a rule. Give it this one: "rating:>=0" without the quotes. A list of all your books will be created instantly. The top of the list shows you the number of books you have.
4. Now you need to save the list: tap the 3 dots in the upper corner and select "save as bibliography".
5. You now have a file to work with. It will be shown on the screen and you can adjust the presentation by changing the style if you wish. Note that some changes will affect the order so you may want to sort the list to keep it in alphabetical order.
6. Tap the 3 dots again and you can select print/export the file. You can visit this menu lots of time to change the file you might want to export. Any time you want this file just select "Docs" at the top of the app.

But there is more

You can go to Docs and open the collection to directly print/save it in a variety of uses. For example you can save it as a word document or even as an excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will have lots more data in it than the Bibliography. You can manipulate the entire collection by sorting and removing columns to suit your desires. For example you can choose the series and collect the books all together. A feature that is not present in the current naming conventions.

If you don't want the document in Logos proper you can just use the print/export command menu (CTRL P) on the list of files window and select XLS as the output and it will generate a file and if you prefer it can start up the spreadsheet program with the data inside.

Correcting Titles

You can change the titles of your books, make corrections, or make the titles more consistent so that similar books are close together when you look at the list. These changes will be filtered down to your mobile apps as well. This is done in the about the book entry called "information". You can also create a short name or modify the one that is there.

In addition you can add or correct the series name. This is lower down on the information screen. The series name is something you can filter for to collect the entire series together. There are also tags identifying things that can be used in filtering content. You can add your own tags and see tags others have added.

Updates

Library updates are enabled each time you open the App. There are two entries that are updated, resources and datasets. Note that your changes, such as title and sets, that you make are included in resources update. Click the blue number to bring up the list. At the bottom there is an additional line showing "updates in the last seven days". I find when the synchronization completes it is useful to quickly check the last seven days update for new entries. Unlike the normal Library command this one stays put. You can just clear the list to "all" and see your entire library.

The resources and datasets can be cleared when you are viewing them. If they are not cleared they will continue to increase. If you clear them both then the blue number will go away and will not return until new updates are available from Logos. This is also where the information on upgrades to the software itself will appear.

Hiding some books

You are likely to have some books that you don't use. For example: you may have some Spanish books but you don't know Spanish. There is a way to hide these books. When hidden they won't be updated, show up in you library list, or used in any way. To hide the books proceed as follows:

1. Open Logos desktop software an Open your library and make it stick.
2. Find and select the File name or File names you want to Hide
3. Hold down the Ctrl key (Option key on a Mac) and right click the mouse.
4. Select hide this resource from the menu.
5. Repeat as needed.

If you ever want them back you can:

1. tap the main menu (3 dots) and tap "program settings"
2. scroll down to the very bottom and select "hidden resources"
3. select and tap the X or right click and choose unhide.

Note this procedure is for version 9.

Store

A new feature in version 9 is that appearance of the store within the Library view. In the upper right there is a button marked "yours" and a button marked "store". Yours will view your library as always but the store button will mimic you library view except it will be showing the complete store view (minus the books that you own). This allows you to look at the store books using the familiar library features. You can scroll through books; you can use the same filters you use to find your own books except they are now in the store. The (i) information button will show you a description of the book, similar to what it always does. If you select a book by clicking the title you will find an offer to purchase the book with the price and you will also get an excerpt from the book to read. Simple purchases can be accomplished without even using your browser. You can tap the "yours" button at any time to return to your own library.

For more Library information

See https://wiki.logos.com/Library for more information.

FACTBOOK

Version 9 add a new icon just to the right of the library icon on the tool bar. The factbook command has been elevated to be a major starting point for study. It still also resides in the Tools menu. Clicking it opens a window with a topic field at the top and a three dots menu. If you have used it before it will show the data prefilled in. It keeps track of a list of topics you have used and you can click the box to see the menu or you can type in a new one. You can also have additional windows using the arrow at the right in the box. It will also accept a Bible reference, book, chapter and verse.

To find more information on Factbook press F1 in windows while in factbook for help. Factbook has been really expanded for version 9. Factbook sections include:

• Key Article for a summary of items in the user's library
• Biblical Senses for alternate meaning for Greek or Hebrew
• Bookstore for books on the topic that you don't own
• Dictionaries for terms in the user's library
• Events for timelines and links to Event navigator if you own it.
• Journals for articles you have in your library
• Media for images about the article.
• Passages for event, theme, or topic based on the entry.
• Person Letters for link and excerpts from Personal letter resource.
• Preaching Resources for theme or topic preaching
• Referred to As for original language words
• Sermons for sermons you might own on subject
• See Also for links to further tools or locations for more information.

Factbook is not available for all packages, it's only available on Desktop from Basic upwards, and on mobile from Starter upwards.

Shortcuts

There are several shortcuts that are very useful (substitute CMD on a Mac)

• CTRL A is used with the library list and the information window showing. Tap to show a books information and then CTRL A will select but not open all of the library elements that are listed and display the group information. You can use it to clear some data such as tags you no longer need or to save the selection for another purpose.
• CTRL F find will work for searches if the window has that.
• CTRL H brings up a clickable history screen of your actions.
• CTRL L will bring up your library in a window that won't go away until you want it to.
• CTRL P will print the contents of the window or you can also use it to save as a file or even as a spreadsheet which is very useful for your library screen.
• CTRL W will bring up the Home screen.
• F1 brings up a help screen in Windows.
• CTRL F4 will close an active window.

Reading in Logos Desktop

Generally you will be in the library and a left button click on the text or image will open the book in Logos. You can also use a right click and choose to make it open in its own window in you wish (similar to the library view itself).

When you open a book it will open a window that will take up 1/2 the width of the window devoted to Logos. It can, of course, be resized and moved like any window. Opening a second book will place it beside the one you previously opened. Any more open books will shown as a tab containing the name at the top of the window. You can change books you see by tapping the tabs and the Tab can be dragged to rearrange the books.

The HOME page continues to work as it always has but you can tap a second time on the HOME button to return to reading page. There will be a tab at the top showing the name of the book. Below this there is a top bar for the book. The side bar icon on the left size can be used to open the TOC. The rest of that bar contains a search field and other useful icons. The line below will show chapter titles and contain up and down arrows to traverse to the next or previous chapters. The full chapter is available by scrolling the page very much like a web browser.

The top right bar has an icon called layouts. It can be used to arrange all of the windows inside the app. It does not change the screens that were made into separate windows. Next to the layout bar s a icon labeled "close all panels" it will close every reading window and the library window whether they inside the Logos window or separate.

Retrieving your reading

If you exit Logos the books you were reading are identified in the layout icon. When you start the program again you can tap the layout icon to retrieve the books. They will be as you left them, and you can begin reading. This is also true if you close all the panels and need to restore them later.

The layout icon is also the way to set up a special study. For example if you want to study a particular book in the Bible you can collect all the books and arrange them as you want and then you can save the layout under a name that you can retrieve later. Saving the study in this way allows you to use the tools for unrelated things and then go back to that study later. You can have many such layouts recorded and saved by name.

Looking up scripture

Unlike the mobile apps, you don't need to tap on the screen (or click the mouse) to display the scripture. Just placing the cursor over the link is enough. If you actual tap a Bible reference Logos will open your default Bible in a window of its own and then selects and displays the scripture you wanted to see. The first time this may take a little longer since it has to open the Bible first. This advantage is that you can read as far as you want in the area of the scripture reference.

Default Bible

You will likely want to set up a default Bible version for looking up scripture. The easy way is to type in (without quotes) "Set the preferred Bible to ..." into the GO box in the tool bar using the abbreviation for the Bible you want, such as NASB.

The default Bible will be at the top of a preference list. Here is another way to set it up and set multiple Bibles in a priority list.

1. In the Library view show the Bible you want.
2. Right click in the open space beside the Bible Name.
3. Select "Prioritize this resource"
4. The Bible you want will be in the list, probably at the bottom.
5. Drag the Bible name to the top of the list.

Either way will set the priority (default) Bible. You can also edit this list and move things around. This full list will be used with text comparison command.

The Tool Bar

The tool bar extends fully across the top of the app. It contains commands besides the HOME and LIBRARY that are not found in the mobile app or are in very different locations. Some of them have been talked about already. Some may not be functional depending or which Logos Desktop you purchased.

Search and Go - The way the graphic is drawn it could seem like the search and go functions are connected with each other but this is not the case. The search button is independent from the text field and if you tap it, it will open up its own text field.

Search

Tapping this provides a type in field and set of choices which defaults to the last entry, and some instructions on how to use this field. Generally this is regular search that you can normally have set to Bible to look up things in the default Bible and otherwise you can set it to Basic to search for things in the rest of you text documents. The other entries are Media and Morph. Media is specific to search for audio/visual resources while Morph helps with Greek and Hebrew searches.

You can limit the search using some keywords followed by a colon. Things like author:, title: can help to restrict the search.

A menu is on the left. Tapping it opens more powerful searches using templates. The list include matches that are restricted to Both terms, Either terms, All terms, any of the terms, etc. Tapping one brings up a fill in box to enter the terms. There is also choices using References and Milestones.

You also have choices to search everything or specific items based on clicking the "everything"entry. You can even limit the searches to a specific collection or series. More powerful searches are covered using Logos Help.

For a full set of instructions for searching see: https://wiki.logos.com/detailed_search_help

Go

Go is intended to supplement or replace all of the menu items to do commands just by typing them in. When you enter text in the field just to the left of GO the program will immediately start a search, even as you type. When you quit typing it will offer a set of results that you can choose from. However if you know what the first item will be you don't need to even wait you can just hit the Go button. For example Bibles have a unique short name as in KJV for King James Version. You can simply type in KJV and hit go to bring up that Bible.

Docs, Guides, Tools

The next group on the tool bar has three words. We have already used a portion of this commands when generating the list of all of your books. Any of the working items in these three entries can be dragged to the area just to the right on the tool bar. This can make them easier to find and use. You can also delete them when you no longer need them. They will still show up in the menu list.

Some of the items in the lists may be grayed out. You do not own these commands. Logos withholds some of the features from the basic logos 9 Desktop free software. These extra features are only available in you buy them or most added features make you buy a more powerful program that has many more sets of books as well as extra features. The least expensive is the "Logos 9 Starter" which will set you back more that $150. You can buy bigger ones or add them later. Some of the names are Bronze, Silver, and Gold plus even more advances with thousands of books. In a few cases you can get a particular feature buy itself without books except a manual for how to use the feature. Some features expect you to own certain books that you may already own or can buy separately. View the "Feature Set Resources" buy scrolling down

Notes

This is a list of all of your notes that you have generated, no matter how they came into being. You can make new notes here are well using the note command in tools.

Guides

These are intended to have starting points and guidance on how you might want to study something Biblical. They can guide in devotionals, topics, books in the Bible, etc.

Tools

This is a list of handy tools. Depending on which options you chose when you picked your Logos Desktop tool (The set of Logos goes from free to 100s of dollars and which includes books and features. These may be upgraded.) You may or may not have some of these tools depending on the features you purchased. If you don't have the particular tool it will be grayed out. Some of the items have recognizable icons while they are all also in a drop down list. Some of the tools include:

• Atlas - If you own this, tapping it will display maps you may want to see. If you have Atlas' that you own as regular eBooks they will not show up here. Instead you will use your library to find them.
• Factbook - This is used to find information within your library. When you start up the desktop you typically see a message that the program is indexing new data. The Factbook program makes use of this indexing to help you find items in your personal library. It can be used as a starting point for a new study and a help to provide a list of resources. It seems to be targeted toward Sermons.
• Note - lets you annotate your resources with personal notes.
• Library - here you can find help with your eBook library. One item allows you to build your own collection of books for whatever purpose you might choose.
• Favorites - another tool in the Library section. You can drag this to the top bar to make it readily accessible. It can identify your favorite books but it can also be used to organize your whole library including documents in other formats like PDF's or DOCs that are not in Logos. This area can have its own organization of folders and subfolders to organize anything you wish. You just drag the item to where you want it. Then clicking the item will find and open it using external viewers.
• Text comparison - This tool let you compare a list of Bible versions with a particular Bible verse or selection of verses.
• Timeline - This tool provides dates and timelines for books you own. In the past you would have to purchase an upgrade to Logos itself but recently it is now offered as an addon dataset, which provides a manual as well. Check https://www.logos.com/product/27290/timeline-dataset.

This is only a sample of the tools you have in the list.

Information, Layout, close, menu

The last area on the tool bar has been talked about already in the introduction, the changes section, or in section on reading the eBooks. It is a place to close everything up. At the far end is a drop down list of more menu items should you need them. They include help, and helpful links to other resources.

Installation

The standard installation location in Windows is: C:\Users\(Your name)\AppData\Local\Logos. The books and other resources are stored in the data folder. The data can take tens of Gigabytes which might overflow your C: drive. It is possible to install Logos with the data on a separate drive. Check the Logos web site for instructions on how to do this.

Managing other devices

The Logos desktop shows a area in the library view on the information screen that can help you manage the additional portable devices you may be using. It is possible to cancel any of the devices and you can also manage the downloaded books on these devices. For some reason not all books allow you to do this from the library screen for some reason I don't understand, however most books have a devices display available on the information panel for the book. This is very useful if you want to switch your reading from the desktop to your iPad for example. You can reach the same info screen from the menu for the book, or use the CTRL-Shift I keyboard shortcut.

You can also use this screen to download or remove a download from any of your devices. Unfortunately there is no way to show a collective view of the books you have downloaded on the remote devices. If you want to be able to filter out these downloads I would suggest you create a special tag. Better yet you may prefer to just work with the devices itself.

For Help

• https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/ For Logos Bible Software
• https://wiki.logos.com/ for help and advanced features
• https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-desktop-app/ Provide feedback and suggest changes.