Hebrew fonts?

He has ME. The problem is that he doesnt have opentype Hebrew fonts with trop. There arent very many of these.

Dear Mr. Freeman,

I will be very grateful if you could explain how to work with trop (taamei haMikra) on Hebrew text with InDesign for Mac.

My text is in Davka Writer 5 [on a PC Win XP system, Hebrew] (but I can copy it to Word XP), but my grapic designer does not manage to work with it prperly with InDesigen [Mac].

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Zeev
(You can write back also directly to zkainan at gmail dot com)

Yes, with the latest version of DavkaWriter you can cut and paste directly into InDesign including teamey mikra! You don't need Word.

In terms of intuitivity, I think that both Windows and the Mac have developed so much that I'm not sure you can say that any more. Case in point, I used to work on the Mac from OS6 to OS9, I then migrated to PC. I'm now using Vista on the PC. We have a couple of Macs in the office running OSX and everytime I have to use it I curse. Why? coz I'm no longer use to it and do the most simple of operations like moving files or accessing things on the network (something that I always found easier on the Mac) I now find much much harder simply because I don't know it any more.

Doing things on Vista is incredibly intuitive for me, but that's because I've been on Windows for years now and I think that's the main point. If you want Hebrew on Vista (or Chinese) it's the same easy procedure, hit the Windows key, type control panel, type language, select Change keyboards or other input methods, and I'm the right place along with a help dialogue the whole way through.

Don't get me wrong, the Mac is great, but try doing Hebrew in Word on the Mac and you are stuck, since Word on the Mac (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't support full Hebrew which for typesetters like myself who use Word for preparing text before typesetting in InDesign CS 3 ME, is a bit of a problem. And of course great programs like DavkaWriter don't work on the Mac either.

So for us guys typesetting in Hebrew, whereas once upon a time, the Mac was supreme with Hebrew versions (of sorts) of PageMaker, Quark, and Freehand (not to mention Rav Daf), with NisusWriter and Kesherim. Today, however, your best platform for Hebrew is of course Windows mainly because of the support software around Adobe ME products which are biplatform (ie Word, DavkaWriter etc).

I guess what Mr. Freeman refers to as "enabling" and I is really the same thing.

Its a set of simple steps you must do to make Windows or Vista function in Hebrew. Its siumple, but not as intuitive as on the Mac, which requires a single click of a box. I really don't know why Windows or Vista is not so easy as this on or off precedure.

Raphael, I thought I needed to paste DavkaWriter text first to Word and afterwards to InDesign. You are saying to just skip the Word stage. Right?

Can I export DavkaWrite text, and then paste it into InDesign or even import it?

Firstly every copy of Windows 2000, XP and Vista is fully enabled for Hebrew whether you buy it in Israel, America or China. You simply have to tell the computer that. Not only that, but once you switch on the Hebrew support from the control panel, then Word (at least the recent versions) will automatically have full right-to-left Hebrew support (try that on the Mac!)

Vis-a-vis the keyboard, typing nikud with the default Hebrew keyboard is a pain. You have to type the letter, then hit CAPS LOCK, then SHIFT-number key. This is indeed silly. There are 2 sensible options. 1) simply create a new keyboard using Microsoft's free keyboard utility. The Vista utility is easier. I have made a teamey mikra keyboard too in this way (Windows supports that too). You are welcome to my keyboard if you like, just e-mail me offline to raphael at korenpub dot com. Incidentally this will work with non-opentype fonts as well. All opentype fonts will give you is correct positioning of the nikud under the letter in software such as InDesign ME, but has nothing to do with the typing of the Hebrew.

Another good solution is to buy a program such as DavkaWriter (www.davka.com) and copy and paste the text into InDesign. This is particularly useful if you have teamey mikra to do.

The issue is really not Word, but the keyboard driver for Hebrew included with Windows and Vista. Word has been 'smart' or compatible with typing nikkud since Word 2000.

I use a Mac which is little more intutive than Windows or Vista, like doing most things. On Windows or Vista, I think you simply type in your Hebrew text after choosing a TrueType or OpenType with Unicode Hebrew with Nikkud font, and the Hebrew keyboard .dll driver. Then, you go back to add the nikkud, bt pressing down the capslock key, and typing different number keys from the top level of your keyboard. Really stupid. Likely, a non-Hebrew programmer created this; as they say, "Goyishe kupp."

If you have a non-Unicode Hebrew font, it won't work, and most commercial Hebrew fonts are non-Unicode. :)

If that wasn't bad enough, most Windows and Vista computers are noy enabled for Hzebrew. :)

If this is the case, call GoHebrew or www.GoHebrew.com.

How do you type nekudot in Word 2007 - Vista?

The sequence of characters is for Hebrew. Most text editors are only for left to right languages such as English, but not for Hebrew which is right to left.

The sample was created in Adobe InDesign ME (Middle East), a special version which supports both left-to-right and right-to-left languages.

Just had a look at the sample page and found that while the font will be OK for typesetting (as in: visual presentation) the way it is put onto the page does not very well support its textual representation (at least with regard to the masoretic punctuation) - the character sequence is somehow mixed up, and searching for strings in Hebrew may fail in at least a number of cases. I have no idea whether that's due to the font or due the way the page was created.

An easy way to find out what I mean is to save the PDF as let's say HTML, or to just select all the text and copy it, then paste it into a text editor supporting Unicode.

Olaf Drümmer

A sample was posted at www.gohebrew.com