Create a Visual Filter

 

Visual Filters augment the text of a resource to focus your attention on specific features in that resource. You can create custom visual filters to apply to specific resources.

Note: Learn more about the built-in visual filters.

Skip ahead to:

• Visual Filter Types

• Create A Books Visual Filter

• Create a Bible Visual Filter

• Create a Morph Visual Filter

• Example Visual Filters

 

Visual Filter Types

There are three types of Visual Filters. These correspond to three of the types of searches you can perform in Logos. Visual Filters are also constructed in the same manner that you would create a search query using the Search tool.

• Books Visual Filters can be applied to any resource.
• Bible Visual Filters can only be applied to Bible resources.
• Morph Visual Filters can only be applied to morphologically tagged resources.

To create a custom Visual Filter, click Documents > New > Visual Filter.

Note: Visual filters you’ve already created will appear in the main pane of the Documents menu.

Specific Resources vs All Resource Types

When you create a custom visual filter, Logos allows you to be as narrow or broad as you’d like. You can create a filter for a specific chapter in a single resource, or you can create a filter that covers the entirety of multiple resources.

For example, if you wanted to better understand how a particular author speaks of the role of the Holy Spirit in the act of Salvation, you could create a filter that looks specifically for “Holy Spirit” references within a specific chapter in the book. Conversely, you could create a broad visual filter showing any time any resource uses the phrase “Holy Spirit”.

Note: Depending on your specific visual filter, remember that not all resources talk about the Holy Spirit in the same way. Older resources may use “Holy Ghost” or others may simply say, “Spirit”.

Create a Books Visual Filter

1. Select the Books Visual Filter type.
   

   

2. Give your visual filter a name by clicking in the title field and providing a descriptive title.
3. You can leave the search field as All Text, or set the search field for your visual filter by clicking the Search Field drop-down menu and entering a field, or making a selection from the list.
   

   

4. Specify the resource(s) you want to search by opening the Your Books drop-down menu and entering a resource title, or by making a selection from the list. In this example, we will choose to create a ‘Trinitarian’ visual filter identifying when a text uses the word “Father”, “Son”, or “Holy Spirit” within Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology.
   

   

5. Enter the query for your Visual Filter in the Search box.
   

   

6. Select the way your search results will be highlighted by clicking the Formatting drop-down menu and making a selection. You can repeat steps 6 and 7 multiple times to create more complex visual filters. In this case, we will have three search queries and 3 formatting options.
   

   

   Note: Holy Spirit has quotes around it so the filter will highlight that phrase in particular. Without quotation marks, the filter will also show results for ‘holy’ and ‘spirit’. Click here for more information about the search language in Logos Bible Software.

7. Open the resource to which the visual filter applies. Click the Visual Filter icon and select the visual filter you just created.
   

   

8. All of the results from your visual filter will be highlighted in your open resource.

Now, when studying the doctrine of the Trinity, you can make specific elements pop off the page to bring clarity to your study process. In this example, you can quickly see that Berkhof spends more time talking about the Holy Spirit in the Pre-Reformation period than he does the Father or the Son.

 

Create a Bible Visual Filter

A Bible Visual Filter will use information about the biblical text that has been tagged by the team at Faithlife. This allows you to create more specific visual filters for the biblical text. In this example, I will show you how we can use visual filters to explore trinitarian formulations in the Bible.

Note: A member of the Godhead may be simply referred to by a pronoun and not by name. However, because Bibles in Logos have each word tagged with specific information, the visual filter will now include pronouns in the results.

1. Select the Bible Visual Filter type.
   

   

2. Give your visual filter a name by clicking in the title field and providing a descriptive title.
3. Optionally set the search field for your visual filter by clicking the Search Field drop-down menu and entering a field, or making a selection from the list.
   

   

4. Optionally specify the section of the Bible you want to search by clicking the Search Passage drop-down menu and entering a reference or range of verses, or by making a selection from the list.
   

   

5. Optionally specify the Bible you want to search by clicking the Your Bibles drop-down menu and entering the title of a Bible, or by making a selection from the list.
   

   

6. Enter the search term or phrase for your Visual Filter in the Search box.

   

   Note: Searched terms or phrases take the same format as searches in Logos. In this example, to search for all instances of Jesus, add Person: Jesus.

7. Select the way your search results will be highlighted by clicking the Formatting drop-down menu and making a selection.
   

   

8. Open a Bible to which the visual filter applies. Click the Visual Filter icon and select the visual filter you just created.
   

   

9. All of the results from your visual filter will be highlighted in your open Bible.

In this example, notice the full Trinitarian display at work in the giving of spiritual gifts recorded in 1 Corinthians 12.

 

Create a Morph Visual Filter

Morph Visual Filters are constructed based on the morphologically tagged data attributed to each word. In this example, we will create a Morph Visual Filter to highlight verbs in the imperative mood in the original Greek. This filter will identify commands in the morphologically tagged resources of your library.

Note: Biblical Greek has additional ways to indicate a command outside of the imperative mood. Therefore, this filter will not show every command, but only those from verbs in the imperative. Create additional filter queries to cover for other morphological constructions corresponding to commands.

1. Select the Morph visual filter type.
   

   

2. Give your visual filter a name by clicking in the title field and providing a descriptive title.
3. Optionally set the search field for your visual filter by clicking the Search Field drop-down menu and entering a field, or making a selection from the list.
   

   

4. Optionally select the section of the Bible you want to search by clicking the All Passages drop-down menu and entering a reference or range of verses, or by making a selection from the list. Depending on the kind of filter you are creating, you may want to keep All Passages selected.
   

   

5. Select the resource(s) you want to search by opening the Your Books drop-down menu and entering a resource title, or by making a selection from the list. Depending on the kind of filter, you may want to keep Your Books selected.
   

   

6. Select the Morphology system you want to search by clicking the Morphology drop-down menu. We will select Logos Greek Morphology.
   

   

7. Enter your search query into the Search box. You can type your query, or make a selection from the list of suggestions that appear. To open the Morph search dialog box, enter the @ symbol and make a selection in the columns that appear. In this example, we will search for verbs in the imperative mood.

   

   Note: You do not have to make a selection in every column of the Morph search box. The visual filter will highlight everything that matches the criteria that you do specify.

8. Select the way your search results will be highlighted by clicking the Formatting drop-down menu and making a selection.
   

   

9. Open a resource to which the visual filter applies. Click the Visual Filter icon and select the visual filter you just created.
   

   

10. All of the results from your visual filter will be highlighted in your open resource.

    

 

 

Example Visual Filters

The Logos User Education team has created a variety of original language visual filters available to all Logos users. You can add any of these to your personal Logos Documents and customize them to fit your needs.

 

1. Filter all Public Docs by Visual Filters.

Expand the Documents menu and select the Public tab to view all publicly-shared Logos Documents. Select the Visual Filter filter under Type.

Note: If you don’t see the filter menu, click the menu icon to show the filter panel.

2. Filter by author.

Click on User Ed under the Author category to filter all Filter Filters to show only those created by the User Education Team.

3. Filter by User Ed

Select a filter and choose Add to your docs above the docs list.

Note: To add multiple filters at the same time, select multiple filters (hold Shift and select a list of sequential filters or Cmd (macOS) or Ctrl (Windows) and click non-adjacent filters) and click Add to your docs above the menu or right-click on your selection and choose Add to your docs.