Option for different Greek and Hebrew fonts

[andyburgess]

I would like to be able to change the default fonts for Greek and Hebrew texts in Accordance.

 

I have heard from someone at Accordance who says that this is difficult to do technically because it means switching to Unicode.

 

However, technical issues aside, from the users perspective it is really very strange that the Hebrew and Greek fonts are not customisable. I had imagined this would be in the basic feature set for electronic Bible software. And there are a plethora of options for customising the font for English texts.

 

On a personal level I really like the SBL fonts that can be found here: https://www.sbl-site.org/educational/biblicalfonts.aspx

 

Would others appreciate being able to switch the default Greek and Hebrew typefaces?

 

Thanks,

 

Andy

Edited June 15, 2018 by andyburgess

[Donald Cobb]

+++ 1 !

[Michel Gilbert]

+1000¹⁰⁰⁰

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi,

 

In my experience, Unicode Hebrew fonts, rtl word wrapping, and paragraph mode are the last frontier in Bible Software.

 

When you look at just the basics of a Unicode Hebrew font and readability in paragraph mode, here is what you have:

 

     Unicode Fonts: only L lets you customize, on the desktop version

 

     Paragraph Mode: only in Acc; the other two have separate verse view; it is also an option in Acc

 

     (Rtl: is also an issue in all three when pasting into some programs. Too complicated to get into)

 

I think the majority from my generation, who were present at the dawn of the personal computer age, and who were raised on BHS, still prefer a font like SIL's EzraSIL, or Linguist's Software's NewJerusalemU. That is why, after taking stock of all the options, I prefer to read in Acc, either on the desktop or on my iPad - its font is quite similar to BHS' font, and I can read in paragraph mode. (If only I could get my user lex into Acc; I'm still working on it).

 

I think Acc is moving towards Unicode, so all will get their wish one day.

 

Regards,

 

 

Michel

[Alistair]

I believe this has been discussed before and the answer was no, because the fonts are hard coded or something like that, so you cannot just change the font as you would in your preferred word processor of choice.

[Michel Gilbert]

Yes, true, and it is probably best to not get our hopes up for the short term. But there have been a few hints that Acc will change to Unicode completely one day, so perhaps there is hope for the long term.

[Fabian]

Yes, true, and it is probably best to not get our hopes up for the short term. But there have been a few hints that Acc will change to Unicode completely one day, so perhaps there is hope for the long term.

Yes I hope it too, but I see also unicode is slower. So in a few years when the speed of computers are significant higher the speed issue will be obsolet.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[Darryl]

I've seen this topic pop up throughout the years and I'm curious: Will adopting unicode still allow the ability to search for individual pointing in Hebrew or accents in Greek? I may be wrong, but my understating of unicode is that the diacritics are "built in" to the characters. Does anyone know?

 

Although I don't want to be a naysayer, if we would loose the ability to search for individual diacritics, I would add a +1 to actually keep Helena (which I actually really like) or at least remain available.

 

Darryl

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi Darryl,

 

In Hebrew Unicode you can have separate consonants, including sin and shin with their own dots =  two characters each, consonants with a dagesh =  two characters each, separate vowels, accents, etc., i.e., every single consonant and everything else, one Unicode value, so yes, every character would be searchable. I think it is the same for Greek.

 

If you are on a Mac, check the Unicode Hex Input Keyboard > Show Emoji and Symbols, or in Windows, the Character Map (pick a Unicode font and scroll to the Hebrew and Greek sections).

 

Of course, Unicode includes "built-in" characters as you say, but that is optional. To preserve the search feature you mention, they wouldn't use those characters.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

by the way, while you can't change the font to view biblical language texts in Accordance, you can change the font used to export biblical language texts in Accordance (to a word processor). By default it's the "Accordance" font, but changing to SBL Greek and SBL Hebrew is simple. 

[Ιακοβ]

I've seen this topic pop up throughout the years and I'm curious: Will adopting unicode still allow the ability to search for individual pointing in Hebrew or accents in Greek? I may be wrong, but my understating of unicode is that the diacritics are "built in" to the characters. Does anyone know?

 

Although I don't want to be a naysayer, if we would loose the ability to search for individual diacritics, I would add a +1 to actually keep Helena (which I actually really like) or at least remain available.

 

Darryl

How the text is stored internally shouldn't make any difference to the ability to search it. The key issue here is that the world has moved to a standardised way to encode text (Unicode), and older software will take time to catch up. (The real problem here is that updating the way that text is stored on disk is time consuming, and invisible to the end users, so its a whole lot of work for no visible benefit for the users—for example, would people rather have improved journal searches, or an invisible change to how the characters are stored on disk?)

Edited June 18, 2018 by Ιακοβ

[andyburgess]

Dear everyone, thanks for your helpful comments.

 

I'm hoping that Accordance are working on unicode support, and therefore will allow us to choose from a selection of different typefaces in the future.

 

Best wishes,

 

Andy