Software for converting BC/BCE dates in texts

This is a list of all date converters that are currently available to you.

Desktop

For browsing web on desktop use this Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-era-ancient-date-conv/pempolhchcmklhmhghjbmiepkamocddn

By default it only works on Wikipedia, but you can turn it on on other websites as well. If you encounter a BC date that isn’t being converted, you can fix that yourself. The extension has built-in tools for that. I will create tutorials on how to use those tools later.

Mobile

If you want to convert dates on your mobile device, on Android you just need to use a web browser that allows Chrome extensions. I recommend Kiwi browser. Install it and then install the extension into it.

On iOS a Safari web extension is needed. It’s not developed yet. I will create it soon. It shouldn’t be a lot of work, because I can simply copy and paste the code of my existing Chrome extension. What holds me back is the need to finalize the code of my extension. It still has some bugs that I want to fix before I reuse its code.

There is also a Wikipedia user script.

This script has some limitations. It only works on Wikipedia. And it isn’t allowed to make requests to a server. Because of that it can’t translate all BC dates, only those that have ‘BC’ labels. It won’t be a problem once we add special markup on Wikipedia as described in my white paper, but it will probably be a long time before that happens.

Also, the script is a bit out of date compared to the Chrome extension. It only uses one starting point (10,000 BC) while the extension allows you to specify any starting point you want. The script only converts BC dates, while the extension allows you to also translate dates AD/CE (only those that have actual ‘AD’ or ‘CE’ labels).

It may make sense for you to temporarily use the user script on iOS devices until I create a Safari web extension. You can create an account on Wikipedia that you will use only on your Apple mobile devices. Add the script to that account.

Once the Safari web extension is ready, the Wikipedia user script will become obsolete.

E-Books

Another converter that is yet to be developed is a book reader app. It will be used for converting dates in ebooks. I will create it at some point.

I will update this page when I publish new converters.