Jump to content

Unicode Hebrew in Mac versions of Accordance 11, Scrivener 2, and Word 2011


Michel Gilbert

Recommended Posts

Hi,

 

I upgraded my lowly 2006 MacBook to 2 gb ram and its latest supported OS - Snow Leopard. The first thing that has to work for me is Hebrew Unicode word processing. Here are my findings.

 

 

1. It was easy to install my favorite Ezra SIL font and keyboard from http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/BiblicalFonts_SBLHebrew.aspx . Download the SBL Hebrew keyboard Drivers, SIL and Tiro (OS X).

 

 

2. Typing Hebrew in Accordance User Notes

 

- worked perfectly, with one minor bug: if I start in Eng, go to Heb, then back to Eng, it remains in rtl mode; I have to move the cursor to the appropriate position to continue in English

- btw, it does this in Acc for Windows also

 

 

 3. Hebrew in Scrivener

 

- I've read a few posts that say Heb doesn't work in Scrivener; I'm not sure what version they are using, but it does work in Scrivener 2; unfortunately though, it just doesn't paste Heb well from Acc or Logos.

 

- Heb works in Mac version of Scrivener:

 

a) - typing works perfectly

 

B) - pasting is a mixed bag; in order of best to worst pasting:

 

i) - pasting from Mechon Mamre at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/t/t0.htm works perfectly; start in Eng, paste Heb, change to Hebrew kbd to edit if want to, continue in Eng or any ltr language

 

ii) - pasting from BibleWorks works if you edit the pasted Hebrew  -  select the pasted text,  then format > text > writing direction > right to left, edit it, then select again and format > text > writing direction > left to right, and you can continue typing in English

 

iii) - pasting Hebrew from Accordance doesn't work in Scrivener for Mac like it does in the Windows version

 

- you can start in Eng, paste Heb from Acc, but can't continue in Eng ltr

- I may have found the reason - Hebrew acts like it does in Acc notes, i.e., there appears to be a format > paragraph > rtl command at the end of pasted Heb text that makes the following Eng go rtl

- you can move the cursor to the correct position in the Acc Notes, but not in Scrivener; I don't know if this is an Acc or Scrivener issue

- e.g., pasting Heb from Acc into Mellel works perfectly, but typing Heb in the Acc notes is followed by rtl English unless you move the cursor

 

- btw, pasting from Acc to Scrivener Windows versions works perfectly; sometimes within a complicated multi-lingual document you have to select the pasted Hebrew and change the direction to ltr

 

iv) - Logos works like BW, but dageshes in Logos don't appear correctly in Acc or Mellel, and I would assume other Mac programs

 

 

4. Hebrew Word for Mac 2011

 

- I can type Heb correctly with the querty Hebrew kbd, and I assume the Israeli one, but I have to move the cursor and be creative with dummy letters to start new words, and then clean up

–it pastes Hebrew from Accordance and Logos perfectly (but not from BW or MM), but can't combine Eng and Heb on same lines, it will all be rtl

 

 

5, Hebrew in Office 365 Online

 

- when I signed into Office 365, I could type Heb correctly, with the Ezra Sil kbd, but I couldn't copy and paste Heb from any source

 

 

Finally, I want to offer a simple tip for beginners - in multilingual lines, after you paste Hebrew, press "End" to get to the end of the line before you enter English, etc.; it's easier than trying to place the cursor sometimes.

 

I hope I got this all right. And, so far, so good with my Mac adventure.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

- edit regarding the Mechon Mamre site: most users would probably prefer their HB at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/c/ct/c0.htm

 

- btw, I can't find the edit button, even with Find on this page, etc. - where did it go?

 

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

- edit regarding the Mechon Mamre site: most users would probably prefer their HB at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/c/ct/c0.htm

 

- btw, I can't find the edit button, even with Find on this page, etc. - where did it go?

 

Thanks.

 

Hi Michel

They changed the rules about editing recently. I can't remember when exactly, though. Anyway, when you submit a post, you then have up to 60 minutes to make the changes you want. After an hour has passed, the button will no longer be available.

 

With kind regards

 

Peter

Edited by Pchris
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Michel,

 

Thanks for this. One of my tricks when I want Hebrew within an English sentence is to use a word like "bob" as a placeholder, finish the sentence, and then paste the Hebrew over the placeholder word. That way I don't have to worry about moving a cursor around to the right spot.

 

If you use Word on the Mac a lot, you may find this macro helpful. It could be edited easily enough to change Hebrew to Ezra SIL instead of SBL BibLit. I find it rather annoying that Word for Mac doesn't have the complex script options that Word for Windows has! This saves me heaps of time switching fonts back and forth.

 

Tony

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Tony,

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I actually used to do things like that in the 90's before XP Office almost got rtl to work perfectly, and Office 2003 did.

 

I know I said so far, so good with my Mac adventure, particularly re to Hebrew word processing. But, I made the assumption that the Ezra SIL Hebrew keyboard would be available in every program like it is in Windows. That isn't the case in Snow Leopard at least. So I've run into a few issues, which I won't bore everyone with.

 

Since Hebrew works better in the Windows versions of Acc and BW in concert with Word and Scrivener, the main productivity programs I use, I've decided I'll stick with Windows for Hebrew. You said, "Some word processors will automatically switch fonts when you switch input keyboards," and you mentioned Word. With Keyman Desktop, I can associate the Ezra SIL keyboard with the Hebrew language, etc. Then switching requires two clicks, like on the Mac. But, I can do the same with one click in Word and BW. You can record a simple macro in Word to do this. BW requires you to change the settings in the Editor. See the following screen shots:

 

post-32543-0-04305700-1434984529_thumb.png

 

 

post-32543-0-31161800-1434984555_thumb.png

 

The single click in BW is the α and א with the circles above them.

 

I like Mac, and if money were not [edit] object, I'd buy a Mac for working in Acc, and buy Windows 10 for $119 for word processing in Word in a virtual machine.

 

One final note. If I was starting out, I'd buy Nota Bene. Among the numerous advantages of NB, you would probably love the three levels of footnotes for text critical work. I also know that they are working on adding full Unicode support, and it might even be added to the current version this year. The reason I hesitate to buy it is that I have decades invested in Word. I can see now that if I migrated to Mac and possibly to NB, I'd have to change 10,000+ files to rtf and not be dependent on Word. I've found that the best rtf converter for Word files is Word itself, so it would be a long and tedious journey.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

Edited by Michel Gilbert
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW, I have produced two textbooks, four books, and multiple articles in LibreOffice for the Mac. Great unicode support and pretty good export to .doc and .docx for publishers.

 

The best keyboard is one that I received free with the purchase of some Hebrew fonts years ago (Linguist's Software, I believe) -- once you choose it above in the keyboard drop-down menu, it toggles to Hebrew using the Caps Lock. It's wonderfully easy. I recommend it, "English-HebrewLS". 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Robert,

 

I've used Libre Office in Windows, and it types, copies, and pastes Unicode Hebrew perfectly. If I could have loaded 4.x (which added better .docx compatibility) on Snow Leopard, I would have included it in the discussion. But alas, it wouldn't load.

 

I used LO in Windows before I got Office 365 through my wife's work. Libre Office worked well, except there were a few issues opening .docx files, and many more saving them in docx. If I didn't have 365, I'd still be using Libre.

 

I'm glad you mentioned it for those interested. Thanks.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Michel and Robert,

 

LibreOffice sounds very interesting, but I also heard this morning that Mellel is now out for iPad. Hmm… I must say that I've been happiest writing multilingual documents in Mellel, but most unhappy any time I've needed to move something from Mellel to Word.

 

Scrivener has behaved well enough for me, and works wonderfully for preparing courses, but I have trouble with it, too, when I need to move something to Word. I probably just need to spend more time ironing out export options, but I find I spend more time playing with word processing and citation software than I do writing and revising…

 

What I like about Word for Windows and Mellel is that (provided I've turned on complex script settings in the former) when I change keyboards the word processor takes care of changing the font for me, and automatically changes back when I switch back to a US keyboard input. As far as I can tell, Word for Mac isn't smart enough to do that. I'm sure I could set up some macros with keyboard shortcuts to quickly switch back and forth, it's just more keystrokes to bother with. It might be worth it, though—I've noticed that my macro above leaves the combining overline for nomina sacra unchanged (with some interesting visual results).

 

Thanks,

Tony

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, Michel, you mention "clicks." Perhaps you prefer using the mouse, but in case you (or others reading this thread) didn't know: you can assign keyboard shortcuts to quickly change the input keyboard. On a Mac, you would go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Input Sources. The screen shot below is from OSX 10.10 Yosemite, but I believe it was a similar path on Snow Leopard. At one point the shortcut was Cmd + Space Bar, but then OSX assigned that shortcut to the Spotlight search without assigning a new default shortcut for changing input keyboards.

 

There is a similar shortcut for Windows, but I've forgotten; maybe left Alt + Shift?

 

post-29437-0-98888400-1435016179_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mellel is a wonderful looking piece of software and I'm glad they have produced an iPad version. For me the single largest drawback is the poor export features when I need to submit a .doc or .docx file to a publisher. This limits Mellel to course notes and switching between programs for course notes versus publication is just not efficient for me.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

MS Word for Mac (Preview, 15.11) will change languages when the keyboard is switched. It also automatically switches to RTL when one chooses a Hebrew keyboard, but only for a single word.

 

That last part probably needs some further explanation. It is easy to type English, switch to Hebrew to insert a single word, then switch back to English. However, try to type more than a single word and the second and subsequent words are entered to the right of the previous word, not the left (as they should be). It's a little weird, typing letters for a word RTL, but words LTR.

 

There is an East Asian Language control panel for Japanese and Chinese, but as of yet nothing specific for Hebrew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mellel is a wonderful looking piece of software and I'm glad they have produced an iPad version. For me the single largest drawback is the poor export features when I need to submit a .doc or .docx file to a publisher. This limits Mellel to course notes and switching between programs for course notes versus publication is just not efficient for me.

 

Pretty much this - I once wrote an article in Mellel containing Syriac with all kinds of diacritics, but I had major problems exporting it to any other format e.g. .html which the publisher required that I did. When that failed, I tried to export it to .docx, but the diacritics got scrambled there, too. I really, really hope they fix this one of these days as it greatly limits how much I can use Mellel for serious academic work. A pity, considering that it handles Semitic languages incredibly well - much better than Scrivener and Word..

Edited by Pchris
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Peter,

 

I think the only difference in our work flows would be that I substitute hieroglyphs for your cuneiform. So I agree, the problems are magnified when the discussion turns from Hebrew to Semitic word processing.

 

If Libre Office Mac doesn't work for all the Semitic Languages (I can't try on Snow Leopard for you), or if an rtf file from Mellel doesn't save as .html or .docx correctly in Libre Office, I'd suggest the following.

 

If you want to start in Mellel and end in .html or .docx, buy Win 10 in a month, run it free in VirtualBox, etc., and use the free Libre Office or buy Word; I've never had a problem importing an rtf file correctly from any program in either. The only problem I've had is save as .docx in Libre Office.

 

Or, since you are starting out, keep watching the Nota Bene site at https://www.notabene.com/ . I know they are working on full Unicode compliance and greater file compatibility (personal email), so you might want to wait for those. See http://www.notabene.com/macs.html for running it on a Mac. 

 

Regards,

 

Michel

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi again,

 

If you post that article, or parts of it (or anything else) as an .rtf file(s), I'll import them into Word and Scrivener and post the results back as .docx.

 

Then we can see all see the differences.

 

Regards

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Michel!

 

Thank you very much for all the suggestions - I'll have to check them out! As for the article, the Syriac diacritics got scrambled when I tried to export it as an .rtf-file as well, although it was faring somewhat better. But as matters stand, it is only in Mellel that the format doesn't go haywire.

 

With kind regards

 

Peter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've used LibreOffice for Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic -- all were good and exported well to .docx. The only problems I've ever run across is that the formatting in footnotes can be wonky (font and size issues, not unicode issues) and sometimes my graphics (e.g., a semitics family tree as a jpeg) doesn't come out well, so I have to submit a separate jpeg file. 

 

I will also note that some publishers still have problems if they don't have the latest versions of software. I recently saw the Hebrew of an index in our nicely exported .docx file turned all backwards in Adobe InDesign. Go figure, because when I use Photoshop for my illustrated textbook, it handles the Hebrew perfectly. 

 

Basically, the key is to find a decent workflow and prepare for some headaches whichever you choose.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...