• Printing and Distributing God’s Own Sacred Word
    Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom

    • First, in 1981, came a regular-sized edition in English with a concordance and other helpful appendix features. This was the first edition to be printed by the Watch Tower Society on a web offset press. After the benefits of revision had been incorporated into the text stored in the computer, a large-print edition in English was issued in 1984; this included many valuable features for research. A regular-size English edition of that same revision was also made available that year; cross-references and a concordance were included, but not footnotes; and its appendix was designed for field ministry instead of for deeper study. Then, for the benefit of those who wanted a very small pocket edition, this was published in English in 1987. All these editions were quickly published in other languages too.

      In addition, attention was given to assisting those with special needs. To help those who could see but who needed very large print, the complete English-language New World Translation in four large volumes was published in 1985. Soon that same edition was printed in German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. Before that, in 1983, the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, in four volumes, had been made available in grade-two English Braille. Within another five years, the complete New World Translation had been produced in English Braille in 18 volumes.

      Would some people be helped if they could listen to a recording of the Bible? Definitely. So the Watch Tower Society undertook the production of this too. The first audiocassette recording was The Good News According to John, in English, released in 1978. In time the entire New World Translation in English was made available on 75 audiocassettes. What began as a small operation soon mushroomed into a major project. Quickly, it became available in other languages. By 1992 the New World Translation, the whole or part, was available on audiocassettes in 14 languages.