Hebrew fonts?

He did not, and I have already mentioned this in this thread, program the font.

That might be the heter, even if there was Shabbat desecration. Its a stretch though, because the ikar is the design.

Zvika drew the Koren font based on the original drawings that we have in the office.

It might be good then.

However, Tzvika drew very poorly before. Look at his David Aleph, in either regular or bold. A ridiculous fat right upper side. Unless he intentionally defigured the aleph so as avoid paying Itamar David, who could have sued the hell out him and destroyed Masterfont. Or he was sloppy.

I would scan his Koren and match it letter by letter to the original drawing to confirm there are no discrepencies.

>3. if we cant do 1. and 2. (ie it would have to be a large amount), then we dont move the nikud at all and we move the trop.
>I disagree from a design standpoint, and it teaches the reader an incorrect message, overemphasizing the trop.
>The trop stands now, for no good reason.
>I think I don't understand you, because the above should be obvious.
>Either I misunderstand, or Koren made repeated blunders.

Firstly, lets always assume a misunderstanding rather than putting down others.

My point is that its okay to move the trop downwards. If you are going to move the trop down, then put the nikud back in the correct position if possible. If not, then move the trop down and move the nikud. However, I never move the nikud by much and certainly dont want a nikud in the middle of the resh instead of the foot. Remember that by design, the trop is thinner than the nikud (and the nikud thinner than the letters) therefore it will never stand out.

>John is working on a way to automatically rearrange nikkud taam and/or meteg in the font.

when you say automatically, what do you mean? Do you mean that the font can examine to see the shape of the nikud and team and then adjust accordingly, or do you have to tell it all the combinations?

>In fact, I believe eventually if I had Rabbi Farkash of Yerushalayim in a database, the font would automatically switch shva nas to shva plus the appropriate symbol above, and kometz to komatz gadol etc. and thereby encourage children to learn these important grammatical rules.

Well thats a little more complicated because there are many different opinions. For example, using Israeli pronunciation, do you say tzahorayim (according to Sefardi masora) or tzohorayim (according to ashkenazi masora) again when I say ashkenazi masora, that means Shabbat and Chochma, but it means that the first kamatz becomes a kamatz katan.

Also, within tefilla, different parts of tefilla follow different rules, some parts follow the grammatical rules of the tanakh, some follow that of the rishonim and some follow that of modern hebrew. We have a team of rabbinical grammarians doing this for the new Koren Siddur for the USA, where the siddur has kamatz katan, shva na and metegs throughout the siddur.

3. if we cant do 1. and 2. (ie it would have to be a large amount), then we dont move the nikud at all and we move the trop.

I disagree from a design standpoint, and it teaches the reader an incorrect message, overemphasizing the trop.

The trop stands now, for no good reason.

I think I don't understand you, because the above should be obvious.

Either I misunderstand, or Koren made repeated blunders.

Then we have to deal with collisions. The Koren system goes as follows:
1. can we nudge the nikud by a small amount to solve the problem. If we can, then great and that is what is done.
2. can we nudge the nikud on the letter and then the nikud on the following letter by a small amount to solve the problem?

I try to do this, too. It makes good sense.

>What do you mean? Why can't an Israeli business do font work at home on Shabbat. And then, on Yom Reeshon, take the font to the business.

Why do you assume somebody will mechalel shabbos. Thats not very generous of you.

Look I dont know what Zvika did in the past nor do I know if his computers date was correct when he created fonts in the past. I only know what he has done for me and I know that he didnt work on Shabbat in the creation of the Koren font. I have follow the principle of assuming that if he did any averos in the past, he has done tshuva now. I think Artscroll must obviously follow the same principle.

Im not sure Im quite so holy as you. I have a problem in shul when davening and following the leyning because of course its all in the Koren font (our shul only allows Koren Chumashim and siddurim) and of course Im there going, oy, the mercha should have been put lower (yes, Im serious).

I know that Mr Koren was famous for his Thursday evening tactic. In Israel Friday isnt a workday and we work Sunday instead. At the end of the day on Thursday, he would collect all the work from every employee and take it home, only to return it on Sunday morning, lest anybody should accidentally come to work on Shabbat and work on the Koren Tanakh. I wonder that happened when they printed Bibles in the past. Probably not.

Anyway, Koren is a shomer shabbat religious company, so dont worry, you dont need to burn our siddurim and chumashim (unless you dont like the mizrachi component).

how do you position a mercha under the foot of the resh when there is no nikud?

Exactly? Under the bottom tip. Where else?

The way that it works is as follows:
1. The nikud is first correctly positioned under the letter.
2. The trop is then correctly positioned with respect to the nikud.

I generally do that, but if things are tight, like under a yuhd vov etc. then I rather arrange things to fit without overlap.

John is working on a way to automatically rearrange nikkud taam and/or meteg in the font.

I think with his database, this can be done automatically whenever a user type a word from Tanach.

In fact, I believe eventually if I had Rabbi Farkash of Yerushalayim in a database, the font would automatically switch shva nas to shva plus the appropriate symbol above, and kometz to komatz gadol etc. and thereby encourage children to learn these important grammatical rules.