how to type holem-waw

I have a question about the best way to use the Logos Biblical Hebrew Keyboard to produce a holem-waw. I know that holem is shift-o and that waw can be produced by typing either "v" or "w". However the two marks look like they have too much space between them. When I see other Hebrew text on my computer that someone else typed, it looks like there might be a special character especially for the holem-waw combination. Does anyone know the key strokes to produce it?

Scott

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Brian Davidson

To get a holem-waw as seen below I do the following:

- switch my keyboard to hebrew

- hit "v" (a waw appears)

-hit shift + "o" (the holem appears directly above the waw as seen below)

Rosie Perera

Hi Scott, I assume you're talking about typing these letters into Word, since that's the only time when I could see what you're describing of the two marks having too much space between them (when I type shift-o, w into Logos with the Hebrew keyboard they overlay just fine).

In Word, you can find out what the keyboard shortcut for any character is by looking inside the Insert Symbol dialog box:

Ironically, that shortcut will only work when you're in English keyboard, not in Hebrew. But you'll also notice that you can click the "Shortcut Key..." button and then choose any unassigned keystroke to assign to this special character.

UPDATE: Never mind. Brian's answer was better, and it works in Word, too. But this is still a useful trick to know about Word's Insert Symbol dialog box, so I won't delete the content of my post.

Brian Davidson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/120736#Comment_120736

In Word, when I use the same key stroke pattern I mentioned above, I get a holem-waw to appear just as it should (i.e. with the holem directly above the waw)

UPDATE :-) my and Rosie's last post apparently were being written at the same time.

Vincent Setterholm

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/120740#Comment_120740

I don't recommend using the alphabetic presentation forms (the combined glyphs shown in the Insert Symbols dialog). They don't always work like you'd expect compared to using the normal Unicode Hebrew code points. Typing a waw + holem should produce the exact same glyph. For backwards compatibility, the SBL Hebrew font attempts (fairly successfully) to support typing the holem before the waw, but this isn't the current practice for proper encoding order and you might run into some issues searching for things in the software if you get in the habit of typing those marks out of order.

Scott Edgren

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/120784#Comment_120784

Thank you all very much. Yes, Rosie, I was indeed referring to inputing text in Word or other programs. My problem was the order of typing. I was typing the holem first and had not tried reversing the order. That definitely makes a difference in how it looks, at least in some fonts. Thank you all for your help.

Scott

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/120784#Comment_120784

I don't recommend using the alphabetic presentation forms (the combined glyphs shown in the Insert Symbols dialog). They don't always work like you'd expect compared to using the normal Unicode Hebrew code points. Typing a waw + holem should produce the exact same glyph. For backwards compatibility, the SBL Hebrew font attempts (fairly successfully) to support typing the holem before the waw, but this isn't the current practice for proper encoding order and you might run into some issues searching for things in the software if you get in the habit of typing those marks out of order.

Thanks for that explanation, Vincent. Do you know if that applies to all accented characters in any font, or are you just referring to Hebrew? I've been typing accented characters such as é and ñ into Word for years by typing the Ctrl-key combination (Ctrl+' or Ctrl+~) before the letter. Is that now problematic? I've never experienced any problems with it, but I'm just curious whether you know something I'm not aware of in this regard. This is something I get asked how to do frequently, and I've been planning to make a video showing people how to do it. I don't want to lead people astray if it's no longer the recommended way of entering accented characters.

Vincent Setterholm

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/120892#Comment_120892

Hello, Rosie. In the Unicode world the base letter should always be encoded first, and then any combining marks that go with it. However, the entry method from Word that you are mentioning is just fine, because even though you are typing Control+~ you'll notice you don't see an accent mark in your document until you type the following 'n'. This method of input is called 'dead key', and the code that results is a proper Unicode character (or characters in the right order). But in the case of the holem-waw, when you type the holem it appears in the document - it is not a dead key. So even if the font displays something that looks ok once the waw is typed after, lOw is going to index differently than lwO, so it's better to put things in the right order when possible.

If you need to get multiple combining marks on a single letter, then the dead key method is really a pain - you need a unique dead key for each combination of diacritical marks you want to see (which is why no one uses it for biblical Hebrew - think of all the combinations of dagesh, sin/shin dots, vowels, cantillations and Masora markers you'd need to have to use dead keys to reproduce the Biblical text - Microsoft has a dead key approach to polytonic Greek and that is hard enough, with only 3 accents, 2 breathing marks and an iota subscript). I prefer just typing a letter and then typing the appropriate accents so I only have to remember a few keystrokes. But I have found some applications and fonts that play better with the pre-composed glyphs that come out of the dead key approach. I'll probably make a new version of the Logos Transliteration keyboard that uses deadkeys at some point.