MS Word and Hebrew

[kcjimmyk]

Hi

 

I know that MS Word does not support RTL languages in the Mac version. However, I used to be able to cut and past a single Hebrew word (using export in unicode) and it did fine. Lately I haven't been able to do even that. Has anyone else noticed this or am I doing something wrong?

 

TIA

 

Jim

[Helen Brown]

Be sure that in Accordance Preferences: Greek & Hebrew you are exporting as Unicode and stripping the Cantillation marks at least. Then try Paste Special: Unformatted text in Word.

[kcjimmyk]

Thanks for the quick reply Helen! (don't you ever sleep?)

 

However I have already tried that.

 

Jim

[Helen Brown]

What do you get when you paste?

[kcjimmyk]

Thanks again Helen

 

When I paste I get the last letter of the word in Hebrew and a bunch of empty spaces. or, if I past with no formatting I get a gobblydegook of Hebrew letters and symbols.

 

I started a new document and it seems to be working again. I am adding my styles to the new document and testing after each one. The styles are quite complex. I think the problem lies in the document layout itself.

 

Thank you so much for your time. I will keep experimenting to see if I can get it to work.

 

If I can't I may post back.

 

Thanks again Helen.

 

Jim

[T. David Gordon]

I do a little better than gobbledygook; I can get a nice triliteral root, or the consonants to the entire Hebrew word, in their correct order. But on the right side, a little bent arrow is inserted (a command to MS Word to go in the other direction?). When I attempt to delete it, I ordinarily lose one of the other characters (while retaining the offending arrow). I did not have this problem with non-unicode fonts. Is there any way I can cut-and-paste even unpointed Hebrew into a document? The only workaround I've currently found is from AcCordance, to save the passage as an RTF file, then open that file from within Word, and cut-and-paste from there. That seems to be too many unnecessary steps.

 

Solutions?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Dr. T. David Gordon

Professor of Religion and Greek

Grove City College

[kcjimmyk]

I do a little better than gobbledygook; I can get a nice triliteral root, or the consonants to the entire Hebrew word, in their correct order. But on the right side, a little bent arrow is inserted (a command to MS Word to go in the other direction?). When I attempt to delete it, I ordinarily lose one of the other characters (while retaining the offending arrow). I did not have this problem with non-unicode fonts. Is there any way I can cut-and-paste even unpointed Hebrew into a document? The only workaround I've currently found is from AcCordance, to save the passage as an RTF file, then open that file from within Word, and cut-and-paste from there. That seems to be too many unnecessary steps.

 

Solutions?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Dr. T. David Gordon

Professor of Religion and Greek

Grove City College

 

The little bent arrow is an indication to change directions (I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere), but Word for Mac doesn't understand it. I was having the same problem with Mellel. Switching Hebrew unicode fonts from Cardo to New Peninim solved the problem there.

 

As far as Word is concerned I have given it up and switched to Pages. I am having much better success there in cut and paste. I hadn't realized what a nice program it is until I was almost forced to use it. Of course Mellel handles RTL seamlessly but I was getting worried about their lack of support lately. Their forum shows that I am not the only one.

 

Jim

[T. David Gordon]

Jim,

 

Thanks for the tip; at least I know it's not "user error" (at least not THIS time...). Unfortunately, publishers aren't too crazy (nor are my current or former students) about non-standard files. Of course, I could probably work in another word processor then save in MS Word. But, for all its faults, I've worked with Word since 1984, and it shouldn't have been that difficult for it to have handled unicode. Of course, I can go back to using AcCordance's own fonts, but then when I send files to anyone else, I must first convert them to .pdf files (as I often do on my website) so that they can read them.

 

BTW, I've got the two-week free trial of Nisus Writer Express, and it appears to be equally confused.

 

At any rate, I'm at least relieved to know that the little arrow is a) not demonic, and not my own doing!

 

Thanks again.

 

T. David Gordon

Professor of Religion and Greek

Grove City College

www.tdgordon.net

[Ron Webber]

If you want a word processor that can handle English, Hebrew, and Greek (an other languages) in one document ... and you want beautiful character spacing and all the formatting tools with full support for unicode ... and you want integration of bibliographic database tools (BookEnds X, EndNote) ... and you want indexes, then look no further than Mellel. It's an absolutely fantastic little word processor -- I use it for all my documents now; it never disappoints.

 

http://www.redlers.com/index.html

 

Best regards,

Ron

[kcjimmyk]

If you want a word processor that can handle English, Hebrew, and Greek (an other languages) in one document ... and you want beautiful character spacing and all the formatting tools with full support for unicode ... and you want integration of bibliographic database tools (BookEnds X, EndNote) ... and you want indexes, then look no further than Mellel. It's an absolutely fantastic little word processor -- I use it for all my documents now; it never disappoints.

 

http://www.redlers.com/index.html

 

Best regards,

Ron

 

Ron

 

I have used Mellel for the last year. It is as you say the "ne plus ultra" of multilingual word processors. But the file format is proprietary (even though it is XML it is undocumented) which leaves no recourse if they (G*d forbid) should stop development. At the next major system upgrade from Apple, the program would not work and the files would be useless. I save everything to RTF and PDF (fine for looking, but the RTF doesn't support the list levels). I got burned by a program called MindWrite early on in my Mac days (using a Mac SE) and I am afraid for the future of Mellel. Their forum shows that I am not the only one. You can view my post there ("In case of emergency").

 

Jim