Wordsearch, one of the more popular Bible study packages, went the way of Bibleworks when Faithlife bought the company from LifeWay Christian Resources.Whoo. That’s a lot of company names!
Some people may not recognize Faithlife’s name, but they make Logos Bible Software. The company announced on September 18, 2020 that they acquired the software and the rights to the large library of distributed for use in Wordsearch. They also get their large customer base.
What Wordsearch Customers Can Expect
Heading over to the old Wordsearch website directs users to a site on LifeWay.com announcing the transition.
Click the Learn More link at the top to read the FAQ about the transition. Here’s a list of the highlights…Your old Wordsearch/LifeWay account will convert over to a Logos/Faithlife account automatically if you use the same email address for your old Wordsearch account and have one already with Logos.
- If you didn’t already have a Logos account, the company created one using your email address from Wordsearch. If you need help just reach out to Logos Customer Service by email.
- You can set up your new Logos account by adding a password on their account setup site.
- For those who used a different email for their two accounts, contact Logos Customer Service by email to get help merging them.
- Most of your old Wordsearch books will transfer to Logos. In fact many are ready for you to download in Logos right now. However, be patient as they have a huge backlog of people needing help.
- If your books are not yet available it could be for one of a few reasons…
- Logos doesn’t have that book yet set up to work in Logos but will by the end of the year, hopefully. That’s their target at least.
- Some books never will transfer because Wordsearch lost the rights to those books and so when Logos bought them, they didn’t get the rights to distribute them. Sadly, that’s the penalty for using digital books. You might lose them if your software company dies.
- If you just bought Wordsearch and want a refund, they will honor that at LifeWay. This time contact LifeWay Customer Service.
Wordsearch customers will likely experience some frustration from this transition. Your old user created content won’t make the move with you until 2021, according to LifeWay. Some features in Wordsearch may never make the journey. You can find some good alternatives. The Logos user forums will help.
Users of both Wordsearch and Logos might recognize Nathan Parker. He created a great post in the Logos user forums that lists the Wordsearch features and then shows the name of the similar feature in Logos.
Speaking of the user forums, long time Wordsearch customers will remember that Wordsearch used to have a great community of users built into the software. That fell by the wayside a long time ago. Logos still has an incredibly active user forum as well, plus their own social media site. I’ve never really used the social part, but you’ll find me in the user forums occasionally. Ask a question there and you’ll get an answer from at least a few of the knowledgeable user and sometimes the staff at Faithlife chime in too including Bob Pritchett the CEO. You’ll want to go over the Wordsearch sub forum first.
UPDATE: Faithlife added a page that will summarize your migration of books from Wordsearch to Logos. See if your books show up, if they will already show up in your Logos library or if they’re in progress of being created or not yet started. You can also see if the book shows up as a full Logos book or just an eBooks. Faithlife eBooks don’t come with as many custom links or tags. Often books start as simple eBooks and then get converted to full Logos book. Both work in Logos, but eBooks don’t include as many features.
What If I Don’t Want to Use Logos?
My first reaction is this: give it a shot. Take a look. You now own it for free, if you were a Wordsearch customers. Download it and try it out for awhile.
If you’re not happy with Logos, then continue to use Wordsearch while you search for an alternative. When Bibleworks went out of business two years ago, I posted about the best options. Here’s a list of the programs I recommended.
- Accordance Bible Software – powerful and free to try with large library
- Olive Tree Bible Software – not as powerful, but simpler and also a large library
- e-Sword – free and simple to use, but mostly public domain content with a smaller library of premium paid books available from third-parties
- Laridian PocketBible – a simple and useful program that works great on mobile and has a decent library of tools
- Online sites like the ones I published in part one and part two of the best online Bible sites.
Wordsearch Not the Only Buyout
With Bibleworks dying two years ago and Wordsearch this year, it makes users wonder how much longer their favorite Bible study suite will work.
Six years ago Harper Collins bought out Olive Tree Bible Software and ran it until recently. A new company bought them from Harper Collins and plans to continue development. Steven Cummings, who was Vice President of Operations with Olive Tree created Gospel Technologies and bought the company from Harper Collins.
Interesting! WordSearch was sold because Lifeway is over $20 million in debt. WS was the one thing that Lifeway was doing right – so they sold it off. FYI, I was a Logos user for a number of years and then about five years ago converted to WS because it was easier to use and more financially viable. We’ll see how long the “free” part of Logos lasts.
Well the free part will last as long as you don’t post for anything. Theyare aggressive salespeople but that’s fine. You can ignore all that if you prefer.
So I’ve downloaded Logos and been messing with it for a few days… Coming from WordSearch I can confidently say that Logos is garbage!!!!!!!! How over complicated can you make the simplest things and how many common sense things you use everyday as a busy minister don’t exist in Logos. Who do think their customer base is?
Tim, come and see what Accordance can do for you. https://www.accordancebible.com/Wordsearch-Welcome
You should give Accordance a look. It’s a great option too.
Tim I’m so glad to hear someone saying exactly what I have felt. It is so complicated now to do the things that were so easy on WordSearch — I’m really at my wits end. I wished I could sell all my logos stuff and go completely over to Accordance which is somewhat better – but there is no way to determine now how much money I invested into WordSearch over the years plus how to determine what I should sell my Logos for – so I’m stuck. It was like being forced to turn in a Lexus that ran smoothly with no problems to a Hyundai with millions of bells and whistles I don’t need. I’m an average Joe pastor and I’m not a theologian or doctoral student. WordSearch was geared for people like me — Logos seems to be geared to more academic scholarly pastors. — Guess I will just have to pray for divine intervention on this issue – ha!
Logos is certainly not vey user friendly
Indeed it is a complicated program. That also makes it very powerful. But if it’s not for you I understand. The simplest option that I recommend is Olive Tree.