2011
In the News
September 2011


“In the News,” Liahona, Sept. 2011, 77

In the News

Liahona Expanding Online Offerings

The Church is working to improve online access to materials translated into languages other than English, most notably the Liahona, the Church’s international magazine.

The goal is that by the end of 2011, each month the Liahona is printed in a specific language, Church members will be able to access the entire issue online in PDF format as well as the individual sections of the magazine in text-only format. This will apply only to magazines published in April 2011 and beyond.

The Church is also working to regularly publish the First Presidency and Visiting Teaching Messages online in 80 languages. These messages are traditionally included in the Liahona or published as a separate item for languages in which the Liahona is not yet available.

Beginning with the June 2011 issue, audio of all of the material printed in the Liahona will be recorded and posted online in Spanish and Portuguese. In addition, the first four issues of 2011 will be recorded retroactively. Audio versions of the Liahona in other languages are coming soon.

The amount of translated general conference material available online is also growing. For the April 2011 general conference, talks were translated into 92 languages. Audio versions of all are posted at conference.lds.org. The Liahona publishes a printed version in 33 of those languages. These are available from the contents page of the May 2011 Liahona at liahona.lds.org.

A project to publish online general conference materials from 1990 to the present in 25 languages is also under way. From 1990 on, if a session of general conference was published in the Church magazines in one of those 25 languages, it will be scanned and placed online in PDF and HTML formats.

Church Logo Published in 100 Languages

With the recent releases of the Church logo in Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Persian, Tshiluba, and Yapese, the Church identifier has now been published in more than 100 languages.

The project began in December 1995, when President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) directed that a new Church logo be adopted. The logo was designed so that the name of the Savior was the most prominent feature in the Church’s official name, and it has been translated and typeset into various languages since.

Because the Church’s name and logotype are important identifiers—and because they are registered trademarks or otherwise protected worldwide—the Church has created guidelines for appropriately using the name and logotype of the Church.

Local units may use the written name of the Church (not the logotype) when all of the following conditions are met:

  • The activity or function with which the name is associated is officially sponsored by the unit—for example, a sacrament meeting program.

  • The name of the local unit is used as a prelude to the name of the Church.

  • The typeface does not imitate or resemble that of the official Church logotype.

The Church’s official logotype is to be used only for items approved by the Correlation Department at Church headquarters, such as the following:

  • Official Church publications and stationery

  • Missionary name tags

  • Meetinghouse exterior signs

The logotype may not be used as a decorative element or a computer screensaver. It also cannot be used in any personal, commercial, or promotional way.