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The Buddha's Words works well on a tablet or PC but is a bit difficult to read on smaller smart phone-sized screens. It has been tested on a range of browsers but has been developed and maintained on Google Chrome. The Buddha's Words relies on javascript to load pages, toggle Pali on and off and to do the Pali lookup etc.

The site works online as a normal web site and, if it is installed as a Progressive Web App (PWA) (see below), it is available offline with full functionality. The Buddha's Words PWA makes it simple to install, ensures the content is available offline and automatically updates the content when you are connected to the internet. The technology which makes installation and updating easy is found now in most browsers such as Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari and Firefox for Android (but not the desktop version). If you'd like to access the site content while offline, it needs to either be installed as a PWA from one of the supported browsers or to download the archived site, extract it and copy the site to your device.

1: To Install as a Progressive Web App (PWA).

Open https://thebuddhaswords.net in either Chrome or Microsoft Edge (other browsers we've tested don't have the support yet for PWA's). If you haven't already installed it, an installation icon should be showing in the top right hand corner of the Chrome browser.

installation icon

Click on the installation icon to install the PWA to your device.

In Microsoft Edge, click the three dots at the top right hand corner of the browser and choose Apps | Install the Buddha's Words

Allow about ten minutes for it to fully install. (The whole site takes up around 130Mb of disk space)

Installing onto a Mac OSX Device.

Install the PWA from either Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

Installing onto an iPad or iPhone.

Install the PWA from Safari.

2: Installing From an Archived Version of the Site

You may be in a situation where internet connectivity is poor or, you can't get the PWA to work or you just want a working version of The Buddha's Words on your USB drive, computer or Android device. In such circumstances you'll need to download the latest version, extract the files from the either the Winzip or 7-zip archive then copy it to the computer or device.

 The latest version can be downloaded:  from this link. (If you need to type the location for some reason, here's a shortened version of the URL:  https://tinyurl.com/2p8kcfrr

We've provided both zip and 7-zip archives with identical content. The 7-zip archiving is more efficient but not as easy to use (or as ubiquitous) as zip archives.

Installing onto a Windows Computer or USB drive.

If you're installing it to a Windows computer create a folder somewhere and extract the files into it. For this example, we'll assume you are creating a folder called bw on your C drive. i.e. C:\bw. Once the files are extracted into the folder, navigate to the home folder (in this example C:\bw\home\) and click on index.html to open it in your default browser (depending upon your Windows Explorer settings, you may not see the .html ... that's OK). The browser will need to support running java - for example Chrome and Firefox work well. Once the Home Page of the Buddha's Words opens, it might be a good idea to bookmark it so that you can come back to it without going through the previous steps.

The process is the same if you're installing onto a USB drive however bookmarking will probably not be consistent because the drive letters of USB drives can change.

3. Installing onto an Android Device.

Venerable Nyanamagga has kindly shared a method to access The Buddha's Words on an Android device using Kiwix, a full offline app dedicated to providing offline access to free educational content (To learn more see here: kiwix.org/en/about_us/")

1. Download the ZIM file of thebuddhaswords.net from here. (Where you will also see the .zip and .7z archived versions of the site)

2. Download the full version of the kiwix app for android from their official site or, if you are confident with this process, download the apk from here. Note that the Play Store version is limited to scanning and opening ZIM files from reserved app directories while the full version can load ZIM files from any storage location using the file picker.

3. Install the Kiwix app, allow access to read from local storage and then load your downloaded Zim file in the app. Kiwix works across devices so you can use it on IOS, Windows, Mac, etc..

4. Installing onto a Mac OSX Device.


5. Installing onto an iPad or iPhone.

You will need:

Once you have the .zip file of The Buddha's Words downloaded to your iPad/iPhone:

Mac only using AirDrop.

6. Using The Buddha's Words on your IOS device.

If it doesn't work ...

If ...
you've followed the instructions above and
you're using one of the recommended browsers

... and it still doesn't work, please email the Buddha's Words team detailing the problem you're having and we'll do our best to help. Please see the Contact Page for our contact details.

If it does work ...

Please let us know if you come up with anything that you found works well. Please also send us your suggestions. Thanks!