Scripture App Builder is developed by SIL Global and is free to use by language communities around the world for digital Scripture publishing.

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The challenge to build this tool came from a meeting of partner organisations working across the Sahel region of Africa. With the increase in smartphone availability, they saw the need for a simple app which could be customized for local contexts and which could be distributed without the need for Internet access. To facilitate literacy in local languages, there was the desire for the app to integrate text and audio, highlighting each phrase as it is read.

Development began in January 2014, with most of the initial work carried out by SIL in Mali, West Africa. Rather than a single app, the result was an App Builder which can be used to create any number of apps. It soon become an international effort: with development work in the United States and Thailand, and technical support provided from Australia, the United States, Ghana and Senegal. Testing has been carried out across the world. Special mention must go to language teams in Papua New Guinea and South Asia who led the way in making sure that early versions of Scripture App Builder met the needs of local users. The first public release was in April 2015, producing Android apps, with the possibility of creating iOS apps added in 2017.

SIL is a global, faith-based nonprofit that works with local communities around the world to develop language solutions that expand possibilities for a better life. SIL’s core contribution areas are Scripture translation, literacy, education, development, linguistic research and language tools.

SIL Language Technology supports these activities by developing software, fonts and keyboards. To find out more about our work follow the links at the bottom of this page.

Get Involved

Scripture App Builder is developed and maintained by a small team of developers distributed around the world. The development team welcomes your suggestions for improvements and enhancements.

We hope to see the following features in future versions of the software:

  • allow user to download multiple audio files from the internet;
  • allow user to share audio files (e.g. by Bluetooth) to a neighboring device;
  • improved search speed;
  • the possibility of updating or adding to app content from the internet or a local server.

If you would like to make suggestions, please share them at the Scripture Software Community.