www.sil.org
This is the kind of Hebrew font I've been looking for all along. It's
design is based on the typography of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
which gives it an air of familiarity.
While the key-to-letter mapping isn't the most logical, at least to
my mind, what makes this font good is how it treats vowels and other
markings. When you type a vowel it appears above or beneath the previous
consonant, the way it should be. No clumsy and tiresome overlaying of
letters here.
Fonts
There are three (3) fonts available. One Hebrew and two Roman text
transliteration fonts (one lowercase and one uppercase). There is now
also a Unicode version of the SIL Ezra font
.
SIL Ezra
This is a sample of the SIL Ezra Hebrew font. You
will, of course, recognise this as the beginning (pun intended!) of
Genesis 1:1.
SIL Heb Trans
Here is a sample of the lowercase SIL Heb Trans transliteration
font; a transliteration of the three words above. The other font is
the same, albeit in uppercase.
I wish that there was a transliteration font which included both lower-
and uppercase letters rather than having to change font each time you
want a capital letter.
About SIL
SIL International (SIL) is an organization of linguists dedicated to
the study and promotion of the thousands of languages around the world.
SIL's International Publishing Services serves SIL by developing products
to assist in the publication of linguistic texts.
As a service to the general academic community, they have made available
a number of freeware tools for download on their website, besides the
SIL Hebrew fonts.
Downloads
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Wingreek / Son of Wingreek
www.loveintruth.com/wingreek/
WinGreek homepage
Son of WinGreek
download from here
WinGreek
W3.x (349 Kb zip) £20/US$35
WinGreek 32
W9x | NT | Me | 2k | XP (60 Kb zip) £20/US$35
WinGreek is a package for the 16-bit Windows 3.x that contains both
Coptic, Greek and Hebrew fonts (in both PostScript and TrueType formats),
and a utility called 'Beta' to help you enter Greek and Hebrew text
in your word processor.
The current version of WinGreek at the time of writing (December 2002)
is WinGreek 1.9a, and WinGreek32 is WinGreek 2.01 Beta. WinGreek is
shareware and costs £20/US$35 to register.
If you simply require the fonts, or still use Windows 3.x then you
can simply download this version of WinGreek to use. If you want to
use Beta under a 32-bit version of Windows then you'll need to use either
WinGreek 32 or Son of WinGreek. (WinGreek32 at the moment
supports only Greek.)
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Son of WinGreek 32
W9x / NT / Me / 2k / XP (420 Kb) US$28
Son of WinGreek 32 is a replacement for the 'Beta' Greek keyboard controller
originally supplied as part of the original WinGreek package, which
does not work in Windows 95 or later, or in Windows NT. It will allow
WinGreek users to go on reading and writing documents in standard WinGreek
coding, using most standard Windows word processors.
The current version of Son of WinGreek 32 (SOWG32) at the time of writing
was version 2.4. Son of WinGreek is also shareware.
Son of WinGreek 32 does not work in Windows 3.1 or 3.11. Users of these
versions of Windows who should use the original version of Son of WinGreek,
which runs in Win 3.1, 3.11, 95 and 98 only.
Son of WinGreek works only with the Greek fonts provided, and not with
Hebrew unlike its father!
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WinGreek's Hebrew Font
Until I discovered the SIL Ezra font (see above) I loved this Hebrew
font. It is a clean, easy to read and classic-looking font which is
mapped to the keyboard very well. If you know the Hebrew language then
you will find this mapping very intuitive.
Here is a sample of the same text from Genesis 1:1, created in Lotus
WordPro.
You will notice that not all the additional textual markings are available
in this font.
The only downside to this font is the Masoretic pointing (that's vowels
to the uninitiated). Unlike the SIL Ezra font above which 'intelligently'
places the vowel beneath the previous consonant this Hebrew font acts
like an ordinary font giving the new character a space of its own.
If you do want to point your text you will need to use a word processor
that will overstrike one character with another, so that you are layering
one character on top of another (vowel over a consonant). Here is how
to do it in:
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Overstrike in Lotus WordPro
In Lotus WordPro (I am using the Millennium edition v.9.0, and have
also used this method in the 16-bit Lotus AmiPro 3.0) you can easily
overtype one character on top of another. It is rather time consuming.
I am using MS Word 2000, though I am sure that this method
will work in other versions of Word. Search Help for, or ask Clippy about
'EQ'.
To overstrike characters you must use an EQ field with the
Overstrike switch. Of course! I hear you say. Here's how to do it.
You
may get some unexpected results with some vowels repeating (such as the
example on the right). To correct this adjust the kerning setting in the
Advanced Options dialog box. A value of -1% or 1%