Hello, fellow fontophiles. I need at least one “standard” (see a textbook or prayer book) Hebrew font that will: work in Word; have pinpoint-accurate nikkud-to-letter spacing; include both straight and backward-bent lamed; include both regular and upward-bent ayin; include aleph-lamed ligature; include the nine double-width letters; EXclude the eight letters never taking a dagesh; and always work in right-to-left mode with “move/copy here” instruction.
I have written to Microsoft repeatedly about this, to no avail. The unavailability of at least one actually usable Hebrew font in MSWord is costing me a hundred dollars or more per workday in otherwise potential revenue. I have many song lyrics, religious documents, and other files to print. MS won’t let me. Please tell me that SOMETHING from LibreOffice can provide at least one such font.
Cordially and with thanks in advance for any info,
FontMaven, Toronto.
Have you tried a web search for Hebrew serif fonts? The Open Siddur project listed may, among others, be helpful to you.
Thank you for that tip, robleyd!
I shall indeed try it.
Regards,
Hedy Weiss, Toronto
Unless you have not noticed it, you are not in a M$ Word site. Here you’ll find answers to problems related to LibreOffice Writer. Behaviour of both suites may be different as they don’t use the same font renderer.
A few answers in Unicode context (universal character repertoire):
- regular and bent letter: Unicode defines encoding for glyphs without specifying their exact appearance. Consequently, slant angle is left to font designer, which means regular and oblique shapes live in different fonts. You won’t find “straight and backward-bent lamed” simultaneously in any Unicode compliant font. You must use two different fonts.
- dagesh is a Unicode combining diacritical mark at U+05BC HEBREW POINT DAGESH OR MAPIQ. You type it after any character and it combines with the previous one. It is then up to you not to use it after letters whould should never be so marked.
However you can find many precomposed characters in the Alphabetic Presentation Forms block starting at U+FB40 (Hebrew sub-block), notably letters with dagesh. - the mentioned block also contains 8 (not 9, but I know nothing about Hebrew alphabet) wide letters; you also find there U+FB4F HEBREW LIGATURE ALEF LAMED.
As an example of a Unicode font including the Hebrew block, see Liberation Serif.
Regarding "pin-point accurate niqqud-to-letter spacing, this again depends on the font renderer and font metrics for the marks. It is font designer’s job to correctly position diacritical marks against all possible accented characters. One pitfall to avoid is to take the marks in a different font face than the to-be-accented character because the metrics are likely not to be compatible.
Thank you, Ajlittoz, for that prompt, comprehensive and helpful reply.
I intend to keep it on file and perhaps even print it out for my future reference.
Regards,
Hedy Weiss
I would like to say that I have no experience with Hebrew and its peculiarities. However, you could try Google’s Noto fonts. Noto is a font family of open source fonts that is supposed to include all the font systems included in the Unicode Standard. Noto fonts can be freely downloaded and installed on computers and devices running Windows, macOS and Linux.
Which Noto fonts should I use for the Hebrew script?
Noto has three font families for the Hebrew script:
- Noto Sans Hebrew, an unmodulated design with a “square” skeleton and no stroke modulation, suitable for all uses.
- Noto Serif Hebrew, a modulated design with a “square” skeleton, suitable for longer texts.
- Noto Rashi Hebrew, a modulated design with a semi-cursive skeleton based on 15th-century Sephardic writing. It can be used for emphasis, complementing Noto Serif Hebrew. This type of design was used by early Hebrew typographers to set rabbinic commentary in the Talmud and Tanakh, while the primary text was set in a “square” Serif typeface.
Thanks, Piscatorius.
Sorry, but none of these three are the “traditional” serif font I am seeking. Thanks for your input anyway.
Regards,
Hedy Weiss
You will probably have to buy a professional font if you are so particular.
Thanks, floris_v.
Yes, I am that particular. I have been a typesetter for over twenty-five years. The closest one available in MSWord, Drogolin/Drugulin, does not match the spacing of the nikkud with its letter.
I don’t mind paying, but first I have to FIND one!
Regards, Hedy Weiss.
I don’t know a lot of professional font designers, but you could start with the Linotype fonts, and if they don’t satisfy you, you might ask there where you might be successful.
Thanks, Floris!
Hedy.
The standard Hebrew Unicode font used in academia for publishing is SBL Hebrew SBL Educational Resources It works with various software, and comes with an excellent manual.
Thanks, Jeshkhol!
I’ll try that too.
Regards,
Hedy Weiss