pasting Hebrew from Accordance into Nota Bene

[BenSommer]

     I just switched over from Bible Works into Accordance. I tried copying and pasting a vocalized Hebrew text from Accordance into the word processor I use every day, Nota Bene, and pasting doesn't work. Random letters and sometimes whole words are not showing up in the NB document.

    Incidentally, I can paste from Accordance into Word without a problem, so it seems to be something specifically in the way Accordance interacts with NB. Also, the problem is specific to vocalized Hebrew. Copying from Accordance in English or Greek and then pasting into NB works fine, and when I set the default for Export from Accordance under "Hebrew export" to "Strip Characters: All Marks," the unvocalized text I paste appears in NB just fine. But for both my research and my teaching, I often need to paste vocalized texts.

     I've attached a file with some samples. (The attachment icon didn't let me attach an .nb file, so I just attached a pdf I printed from the NB file.)

     Does anyone know of a solution?

 

Thanks,

 

Ben Sommer

copying from Accordance into NB.pdf

[R. Mansfield]

The issue has to do with NB not accepting Unicode fonts. I’ve got NB installed. Give me some time this afternoon, and I’ll get back to you with a possible solution.

By the way, I believe this is why BibleWorks probably worked with NB because BibleWorks was not using Unicode with most of its fonts.

[BenSommer]

Thank you, Richard. If it would be helpful, I could send you that sample file via email (for some reason I couldn't upload the .nb file to the Forum page). If you'd like me to, please email me at besommer@jtsa.edu.  Thanks!

[Fabian]

I don't have NB, but is it not possible to export in the BW font?

 

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[R. Mansfield]

Thank you, Richard. If it would be helpful, I could send you that sample file via email (for some reason I couldn't upload the .nb file to the Forum page). If you'd like me to, please email me at besommer@jtsa.edu.  Thanks!

 

 

I’ve not come up with a solution yet. Even though NB 12 has some unicode support, I don’t think it’s fully implemented and that’s the issue.

 

I reached out to another Accordance user who also uses NotaBene. I’m hoping someone can come up with a workable solution.

 

By chance do you have the biblical texts that used to be sold with NB? That’s a good solution for straight importing of biblical texts, and of course, NB supports typing in Hebrew. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I was able to get this to work at one time by selecting "SBL Hebrew" as the export font in Accordance, then going into Nota Bene, pasting the Hebrew text in, then afterwards, selecting the text and using the keystroke command to set the language of the font to Hebrew. When mixing it with English, I just needed to add a space before and after the pasted Hebrew text.

 

I need to re-test it and try to remember the keystroke I used to set the language of the font to Hebrew, as well as see if this still works. I sent the instructions to Anne at Nota Bene a while back, so I may have to re-ask her for what I figured out. :-) 

 

I still use Nota Bene regularly, although I haven't had any academic papers lately since I've been in the reading seminar portion of the program, and I need to re-think how I handled my Nota Bene workflow with Accordance.

 

One of these days I plan to put it all on video screencasts and share the videos with Nota Bene and the Bible software community, I just need some time to come up for air long enough to do it.

Good news. I found the instructions I sent to Anne. Try this and let me know how it goes:

 

I nailed down the best way to copy/paste biblical language text
from Logos or Accordance into Nota Bene (I can produce a tutorial on
this if you need it for other users). I’ve found the most seamless way
to do it is to type in English, press the spacebar, go to Logos or
Accordance, copy the biblical language text, go to Nota Bene, select
Edit>Paste Special, select Unformatted Unicode Text, select Paste, hit a
space, keep typing one’s English text, then when finished, select just
the biblical language text and change the language to Hebrew or Greek
respectively. Everything formats cleanly this way, RTL Hebrew formats
correctly, and the text matches the font/size of the English text
perfectly.

[BenSommer]

Thank you Nathan. I tried what you suggest, but I still have the same problem: various consonants just don't show up. (Weirdly, the vowels and cantillation do show up, so the vowels on the missing letters will all bunch up on the last consonant that is present.) I tried following your directions with various configurations: I copied both with the regular copy command and the "Copy Citation" command in Accordance; I set the font in Accordances "Preferences: Export: Unicode Export" to several possibilities: Accordance, SBL Fonts, BWHeba, BWHebb, and BWHebl. But none of them worked. Strange that it worked for you back in the day, but it's not working now with NB 12.0.7.

 

Also, the problem is only with vocalized Hebrew. With Greek (including breathing marks and accents) all I need to do is hit control+V in NB and everything pastes in just fine.

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi,

 

FWIW:

 

You can, and I always did, set BW Hebrew and Greek export to Unicode, and it always worked in NB, that is, when NB was working in version 11.5 on my Mac, and in version 12.x for a short time. Other than that, Logos, which switched to Unicode for all resources around 2006 or so, exported Hebrew almost as well as BW; I just had to change a few anomalies here and there. But Accordance, even with Hebrew and Greek export set to Unicode, always looked off, with many anomalies, and looked similar to Ben's screenshots. I don't think it is a problem with NB or Accordance. I am not a programmer, but it seems to me that Windows and Mac OSX handle Unicode and kerning differently, so it is always hit and miss when you use a program first developed for Windows together with a program first developed for Mac. In fact, the problem has been/is so severe at times that I'm considering going back to Windows. I will buy a Surface Go to replace my iPad instead of an iPad Pro. And, I might also go back to Linux with a Windows VM, just because of Hebrew Unicode issues across the board in programs first developed for Windows and Mac, including opening decades of .doc and .docx files in various Windows and Mac programs. 

 

I never got Hebrew from Accordance to work in NB 11.5 or 12.x. I really wanted to use some of the features of NB so I was highly motivated and tried everything, including what Nathan suggested. The problems were even worse when I pasted more than a single verse. My consistent experience was that BW Hebrew, set to Unicode export, was the only Hebrew export that worked in NB. 

 

I did post some of my experiences at https://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/23869-nota-bene-word-processor/?p=121822, including a screenshot of pasting Hebrew from Accordance. 

 

Regards,

 

Michel

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

@BenSommer What module and what reference are you copy/pasting? Let me run a new test (since it's been a while since I've tried it) and see if it works or if I have issues.

 

I'm on Nota Bene's "Friends" beta test team where I can report issues for future Nota Bene updates, so if this issue is occurring, I'll make sure to report it.

 

@Michel I had major issues with my Surface that drove me back to Mac. Microsoft just doesn't "get" hardware/firmware/OS integration yet. All of my woes with it have been archived on AskWoody.com (where I now contribute Mac knowledge over there after going back to Mac).

 

I wonder if you could run a Windows VM on your Mac with a shared Accordance folder for modules/files, then run a copy of Accordance on both Windows and Mac, using the Mac version when you're just working with Accordance, then use the Windows version when you need to dip into Nota Bene (and move Nota Bene from WINE to the Windows VM).

 

Although since I'm on their "Friends" team, any issues with Nota Bene that are ongoing I will definitely report directly to them so they can look into them.

[Unix]

Nice of Toy, Nathan! I'm not a NB user (too expensive for me and I keep short document sizes), but I know some who are wanting to use it just waiting for this functionality:

I'm on Nota Bene's "Friends" beta test team where I can report issues for future Nota Bene updates, so if this issue is occurring, I'll make sure to report it.
any issues with Nota Bene that are ongoing I will definitely report directly to them so they can look into them.

Michel switched to tablet for the most part, like 2 Years ago, correct, being able to type very fast that way? It's very reasonable with the kind of sky-high-intelligence-results to do that switch. Now in regards to OS, find a Linux-AMD-Windows 10 Pro -setup that really is a bug free installation! The extra time to find the setup will pay, it's enjoyable to work on a high performance computer with 12-16 GB DDR4 RAM, external keyboard (trulyergonomic.com which You'kl afford with the hardware cost savings), and two mouses, one for each hand i.e. on both sides so one mouse has to be left-handed. Just treat Yourself a bag too!
https://www.easypcmod.com/5-best-amd-processor-gaming-2019-204
Latest AMD CPU:s and graphics completely new and not based on preceding architectures, process everything You do like a dream. It's (the CPU) even so power efficient that I do better in conbination with HDD and two rather tiny batteries, compared to the Intel Core i3 3rd generation machine when I had SSD and enormous batteries. Well, to be honest I've offloaded some of the chatting with someone at some distance, and of the liking of Accordance forums posts and comments, to this my very first and last smartphone (somewhat large for a phone, still about nothing installed, but I'll edit this comment and upload a photo of my battery life here, and when it was on 98% it showed 159 hours)
EDIT: Here's the photo:
… in the lower corner WhatsApp:

@Michel I had major issues with my Surface that drove me back to Mac. Microsoft just doesn't "get" hardware/firmware/OS integration yet. [...]
I wonder if you could run a Windows VM on your Mac with a shared Accordance folder for modules/files, then run a copy of Accordance on both Windows and Mac, using the Mac version when you're just working with Accordance, then use the Windows version when you need to dip into Nota Bene (and move Nota Bene from WINE to the Windows VM).

Edited May 31, 2019 by Unix

[BenSommer]

Hi Nathan. Thanks for following up. I am copying from the basic Hebrew Bible window in Accordance ("Hebrew Bible  (Biblia Hebraica) Tagged." I am just pasting into an NB document. I'm running NB 12.0.7 running on Windows 10. The results I am getting are similar to those in the screenshot Michel posted (at https://www.accordan...essor/?p=121822).

 

Based on what Michel wrote, I am beginning to think this is not a solvable problem. But I am thinking that I might download NB's CCAT biblical texts, which I used to use years ago before I starting using BibleWorks. Then I will be able to paste from Accordance when I want a text without vowels or cantillation, and when I need the vowels I can bring them in from NB's biblical texts, which will require a few extra key strokes just to bring them up and to find the right text but will have the advantage of being completely seamless once I paste, since I'll be copying from an NB doc to begin with.

 

My other option would just be to cancel my Accordance order (I have 30 days to decide), go back to BibleWorks, and hope for the best, but Accordance really does have a lot of features I like, plus the advantage of being supported by the Accordance company going forward.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Thanks for the info. I'll run some additional tests so I can send them some files with the issue, and I'll report this to Nota Bene so they can look into what's going on. I'd recommend for now either keeping NB's CCAT biblical text (which I can't test since they've discontinued it before I purchased NB) or BibleWorks on hand when you need vocalized Hebrew, then keep running with Accordance for everything else. Accordance is a solid program and will be better for your future needs. In the meantime, I'll get a hold of Nota Bene and see if we can figure out where the disconnect is between the two,

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I reported this to Accordance tonight, and I'm also asking other Accordance users who are "Friends" to see if there are any other workarounds I'm missing or if this is indeed simply an issue that needs addressing.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I heard back from Nota Bene. Nota Bene and Accordance are working on this issue, and from what they told me, it sounds like it will be addressed on the Accordance side in a future Accordance update. So it does sound solvable, and those of you new to Accordance should be able to continue using Accordance and should be able to have seamless Hebrew copy/pasting between Accordance and Nota Bene coming up.