Olive Tree Bible (iPhone)

• The Olive Tree Bible is a great Bible study tool, that is handy to use on a phone. In this user guide, we’re going to learn how to use it on the iPhone, but it is available on pretty much any operating system you pick up, except for Linux. Getting setup when you first download load the app is very easy. But, we’re going to skip all of that. At its most basic, you can just use the app like that. Just download and start studying your Bible.
• I have downloaded the app on several devices over the last couple of years, and the first thing I always do is turn off the notifications (three-bar icon > Messages > Settings, top right corner). I don’t like notifications, as a general rule.
• The app syncs your notes and Bibles across devices. So the next thing, which we could have done on downloading, is sign into your account (three-bar icon > Sign In). If you don’t already have an account, you can create one (Create Account, bottom of screen). I have an account, so I am just going to login, and the app syncs my account immediately. This brings back all your annotations, and notes.
• So, this is where you get your account details (three-bar icon > Account Details). On the three-dots icon (top right), you can delete your account (Delete Account), which I definitely do not want to do. Tapping on your account email will let you login to another account. The default Bible version you get is the ESV.

Library

• Once your account is ready, you want to work on your library (book-stack icon). You have three tabs: Cloud, Device, and Recommended. The books under the Cloud tab sync across your devices. You can filter them (Add Filter) to focus on specific types of books. At the moment, I want to start downloading (download icon) my Bibles.
• In your Library, you can also remove books you don’t want (long-press > Offload). Now, I am able to see the Bibles on my phone. I can access these offline (Device tab) because I have downloaded them.
• When you have nothing in your Library, you can check out the Recommended tab. This has books and resources that you can download for free or buy. For more resources, you can go to the store in the app (cart icon, top right). Here, you can shop all kinds of resources; Bibles, Audio Bibles, Study Tools, etc. For now, let’s focus on the Bibles. Any resource that is ready for Download is either free or you already bought it. When you’ve already downloaded it, it is ready for opening (Open).
• Now, back in the app’s workspace, our ESV bible is no longer available because we offloaded it. We now need to find another Bible that we can use (book-stack icon).
• In the Library, you can also check out your notifications (bell icon). Under the three-dots icon you can change how you view your documents. At the moment we were using thumbnails, but you can view them as a list instead (Enable List/Grid View).
• Library Settings (book-stack icon > three-dots icon) has a few options that allow for automatic resource download (Automatically Download Books). I always have this turned off because I don’t always want the same resources on all my devices. I use the Olive Tree Bible app on my phone, iPad, and computer; each has different resources. 
• You can also turn on Cellular Data Usage.
• See, even though we offloaded the ESV Bible, we can still see it in the Library. It is available for download. Hiding items means you have fewer resources to sieve through. So, under the three-dots icon > Hide. You can also long-press the resource you want to hide. Bringing them back is quite easy (three-dots icon > Library Settings > Hidden Resources > Unhide).
• The last tidying up for your documents comes by sorting them according to: Title, Author, or Recent. Recent makes sure you quickly find what you’re working on, so that’s the one we’ll use.

Basic settings

• By default, your Bible uses horizontal scrolling. You can change this to vertical (settings icon > turn on Vertical Scrolling). That’s the one I prefer. Under the settings icon you can also change the following:
  • Font Size to make it bigger or smaller
  • Theme (Select Theme) to choose how your app looks. On Default, the app follows your iPhone settings when you switch between light and dark mode. Black and Dark both give you a dark background, regardless of what mode your iPhone is using.
  • Font (Font Face), and the app supports a lot of fonts (View All Fonts).
• Advanced Settings give you more control over how your Bible looks in the Olive Tree Bible. There is one there I want us to focus on: Colors. Let’s change the words of Jesus Christ (Words of Jesus Color). I prefer them red. The app has some presets, but you can also customise the colours to make them exactly what you want. I want this on all the windows in the app. I also want to change the Hyperlink Color.
• So, my hyperlinks are now Blue, but I want Jesus’ words brighter. My colour is not bright enough. I am now happy with that. These basic settings should get you started. We’ll cover the most complex settings throughout this course.

Table of Contents

• The table of contents navigates through the Bible (tap the verse, lower toolbar, left or Select Verse). You then get the books of the Bible that you can select, after which you have to pick a chapter, and verse. When you’re already on the book you want, you can go to the chapter or verse directly.
• There are two ways to view your contents table (three-dots icon), at the moment, I was using the compact grid layout (Use Compact Grid Layout). But you can also use the list layout (Use List Layout) whose navigation is kind of similar to the grid one. Scrolling means you take a bit of time to get to your verses. That is why I prefer the grid version, because you won’t have to scroll anywhere. The app also has a full grid layout, which is more spacious but still fits on a single screen.
• Lastly, you can add some colour to your table of contents (three-dots icon > Enable Shading). It only affects the first level of your contents page, not the chapters, or verses.