Everything Under the Moon

Does anyone know of a computer BOS? I have one but I don't really like it.

I have been using Scrivener for my Book of Shadows. It is designed for writing novels, so it readily handles document fragments in all manner of sorting and arrangement, as well as supporting imports like images or other media files.

staticsan wrote:I have been using Scrivener for my Book of Shadows. It is designed for writing novels, so it readily handles document fragments in all manner of sorting and arrangement, as well as supporting imports like images or other media files.

Thank you I will check it out.

Greetings everyone. I'd like to ask you one interesting question. You see, I personally think that it doesn't really matter what form of book we have. After all ,this is digital age, it's nothing bad to make your own book in digital form if you know how to. Friend of mine claims it's disrespect towards Magick. I thought about this very carefully and found no logical reason not to have digital book of shadow. All around is part of nature, computer, even man made(shaped) is a as well part of nature. Book itself can be made in any form. People in medieval period didn't had computer, but today, why not?

I like to have my bound copy hand written. I process information best through writing it. I also like to have it on back up as well. So I have some stuff in digital form (posted on forums as spells and rituals for people or in my actual computer). The energy and time put into either one is still going to be the same. I do think there is something about having a hand written document but that may also be the classic writer in me.

Mostly I've always been curious about how to organize a digital Book of Shadows. While I still prefer the handwritten kind myself (I love calligraphy, which is something you can't do on a computer!), there are undeniable benefits to having a computer backup of all your magical information. What would work, though? Something about just having a Pinterest Board or a folder on your PC with Word Documents doesn't seem to sit right with me, both from a logistical, organizational standpoint as well as just symbolically (I like pretty things, haha). The only thing I can think of (though, granted, I haven't thoroughly explored this) is a Microsoft OneNote notebook, which is pretty handy for having a lot of tabs and subdividers for your BoS and stuff ...

Xiao Rong wrote:Mostly I've always been curious about how to organize a digital Book of Shadows. While I still prefer the handwritten kind myself (I love calligraphy, which is something you can't do on a computer!), there are undeniable benefits to having a computer backup of all your magical information. What would work, though? Something about just having a Pinterest Board or a folder on your PC with Word Documents doesn't seem to sit right with me, both from a logistical, organizational standpoint as well as just symbolically (I like pretty things, haha). The only thing I can think of (though, granted, I haven't thoroughly explored this) is a Microsoft OneNote notebook, which is pretty handy for having a lot of tabs and subdividers for your BoS and stuff ...

You can create one document folder (BOS) and in that folder have several different folders for different topics. You could even post Memes you find here as well if they are inspiring or helpful.

Xiao Rong wrote:Mostly I've always been curious about how to organize a digital Book of Shadows. While I still prefer the handwritten kind myself (I love calligraphy, which is something you can't do on a computer!), there are undeniable benefits to having a computer backup of all your magical information. What would work, though? Something about just having a Pinterest Board or a folder on your PC with Word Documents doesn't seem to sit right with me, both from a logistical, organizational standpoint as well as just symbolically (I like pretty things, haha). The only thing I can think of (though, granted, I haven't thoroughly explored this) is a Microsoft OneNote notebook, which is pretty handy for having a lot of tabs and subdividers for your BoS and stuff ...

There can be hand written digital book with tools that allow you to use pen and write down and it will pop up on computer screen. After all, book is always with me, PDF file on my mobile?

I like having a digital Book of Shadows on my computer, but accidental deletion has lead to tears for me. I've also "lost" physical copies of my Book of Shadows. It's kind of a no win situation for me.

I've been toying with the idea of using Microsoft Evernote for my BOS. I use it at work and have grown to love it! You can create different folders, in each folder you create a new "note" every time that you want to add something new. You can add PDFs, emails, charts, pictures, clippings from the internet so quickly and easily. It has a nifty little bar at the bottom that shows what other notes you have stored that relate to the one that you are reading! For example, you could be reading a note you've made about rose quartz, and at the bottom it will suggest a few notes you have on spells which require rose quartz!

Sorry that was a bit of a long post, I guess I am more passionate about Evernote than I had realised!

Well thank you all for answers. It's fine to have digital book since it's quite easy to make one and to store infromations and images as well even if you don't know to draw. But I started "offline" book of shadows because I think it's more important to have one.

I keep much of my info in a folder in my gmail. This way, if my computer crashes, I still have it and can access it anywhere.
I also dig the idea of having online and offline books. I type really fast though so that lends me to keep a lot of info online. If I were to create a new B.O.S. I would probably want to use calligraphy and make it all pretty, but that could take a century!

I personally prefer a physical BOS versus a digital one but I do not see anything wrong with having digital at all.

Alatoru wrote:Well thank you all for answers. It's fine to have digital book since it's quite easy to make one and to store infromations and images as well even if you don't know to draw. But I started "offline" book of shadows because I think it's more important to have one.

I'm working on having both. For me the process of scribing them to the computer or websites is just as sacred as it is to write them by hand. For me the processing experience is the same. I like both versions. I have stuff I've found online I write out by hand into my BOS and anything I have written by hand gets retyped into my digital book. I can see reasons for both. I see no reason to not try and work with both mediums until you find the exact one that works the best for you.

You can always type everything up on a computer and print it off and have both that way.

All of my information is digital, but it's helpful to have it that way since I may want to add a spell to the website or email it to someone who needs help. I do have an old folder that I started when I first become interested in Wicca. It contains printouts of things from the web that I wanted to keep. I wouldn't call it a BoS though. It was the start of one that never got finished.

I use OneNote for most of my personal writings and things I save from the web (it's similar to EverNote Lunar Rose mentioned), but it can be very scary if you have compatibility issues due to upgrading your software. I thought I was going to lose all my documents and never be able to open them again. It was almost enough to make me go back to using Notepads for everything, but I'm still using OneNote currently.