Exporting Hebrew Words

I am writing a dissertation that includes both Hebrew and Greek terms (LXX and NT). Exporting the Greek is no problem. However, exporting the Hebrew words has been an interesting adventure!

Per Logos tech instructions, I have highlighted the word in the MT (Biblia Hebraica) and either hit Ctrl P or the pull-down menu and told the program to export the word into an open or new document. Regardless which I choose--open or new--I have two problems. First, the SBL Hebrew font is 20 pt. I need 11. When I try to reduce the font, I get circles for consonants and the vowel points underneath the circles. Second, if I export into the open document, I get a conglomeration of my paragraph going single spaced, the sentences becoming right justified without the right-justified icon being lit, and the word plopping into the middle of that mess.

I have tried to copy the lemma or manuscript form and paste that form into the document without using the exporting tool. I get the Hebrew letters in reverse order. Sometimes cutting and pasting the letters in proper order works better than using the exporting tool, but I prefer the tech method if possible.

I have spent more time trying to insert the Hebrew terms this morning than writing text for the dissertation. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!!

Sharon Gresham

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Graham Criddle

Hi Sharon - and welcome to the forums

Couple of question:

are you using Windows or Mac OS?
which word processor are you using and which version?

Graham

Veli Voipio

I tried to copy from Logos BHS5 to Word 2007 for Windows, just using the ordinary Crtl C and then changed the size to 11 and it seems to work.

I use Times New Roman font in Word.

Then I tried the Crtl P and then "copy to clipboard" and it works too, and gives the citation as a bonus, but does notgive the book, chapter nor verse Esther 3:9:

אִם־עַל־הַמֶּ֣לֶךְ ט֔וֹב יִכָּתֵ֖ב לְאַבְּדָ֑ם וַעֲשֶׂ֨רֶת אֲלָפִ֜ים כִּכַּר־כֶּ֗סֶף אֶשְׁקוֹל֙ עַל־יְדֵי֙ עֹשֵׂ֣י הַמְּלָאכָ֔ה לְהָבִ֖יא אֶל־גִּנְזֵ֥י הַמֶּֽלֶךְ

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: with Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit Morphology; Bible. O.T. Hebrew. Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit. (2006). Logos Bible Software.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 19:13 December 9, 2014.

Chad M. Foster

Sharon,

Graham's questions are going to be critical. If you are using a Mac you are going to need to use a program like LibreOffice or Mellel. Word and Pages on Mac are almost useless for working with Hebrew. It struggles with the consonants (like you mentioned) but then gets really buggy when vowels come into play.

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/672968#Comment_672968

Graham, thanks for asking. I use Windows 7 and Office 2013.

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/672983#Comment_672983

Chad,

Good point. I am on a PC with Word, Windows 7, and Office 2013.

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/672974#Comment_672974

Veli,

I just tried to use the Ctrl C or just copy and paste, and I also tried the Ctrl P, and once again, I got the mess. I have not had trouble with verses, just words. Thanks for your input.

Graham Criddle

Hi Sharon

First, the SBL Hebrew font is 20 pt

Looking into this a bit further it appears that the resources use 20pt font as per https://community.logos.com/forums/p/70925/493728.aspx#493728

And when I copy a Hebrew word it also comes across in 20pt

But I am able to reduce it to 11 without any problem - this is using Office 365 (which includes Word 2013) on Windows 8.1

What font are you using? I am using SBL Hebrew

Graham

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/673239#Comment_673239

Graham,

I am using whatever the Logos program has, generally SBL font. It does come with the 20 font. However, most of the time, when I try to reduce it to 11, it gives me circles with vowel points under them.

Thanks,

Sharon

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/673616#Comment_673616

It should not be doing that at all. I don't know what the problem is because it works on my system.

As a workaround, paste into a blank Notepad document, then copy and paste from the Notepad document. This has the effect of stripping all metadata.

Alan Palmer (Logos)

Sharon, like many other users here, I was not able to reproduce your problem when I tried. Perhaps you could post a screencast or something to help us visualize what you're seeing.

One thing to try in Word is to paste using various options such as "Keep text only", "Merge formatting", or "Keep formatting". These change the way Word tries to handle differences in the source content that is on the clipboard and the document you are pasting into. It would be interesting to know if one of those options give you different results.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/672983#Comment_672983

If you are using a Mac you are going to need to use a program like LibreOffice or Mellel. Word and Pages on Mac are almost useless for working with Hebrew. It struggles with the consonants (like you mentioned) but then gets really buggy when vowels come into play.

I am able to paste Hebrew text into Word for Mac 2011, but it does take a good bit of patience and planning to mix Hebrew and English on the same line. Can't evaluate typing in Hebrew as I could not do that in any case [:D] However, I must mention that Word for Mac does not recognize SBL Hebrew as a legitimate font.

David Paul

I don't know who is "in charge" of things like this, but in my opinion, Hebrew fonts are woefully misattributed when it comes to point sizes. Typical English point sizes like 10 or 12 make the consonants nearly unrecognizable blobs, and the vowel points are so small they barely constitute a pixel. I nearly always bump Hebrew fonts at least 10 points when I insert them into my English text, but this inevitably causes the problem of expanded distance between lines, even though the actual Hebrew text ends up being about the same size as the English text size-wise.

This is a constitutional design failure, and I don't see how it could ever get fixed. If I were king, I would just change the attribution of what constitutes Hebrew text point sizes. What is called 20 would now be 10, or thereabouts. Problem solved...only, it never will be.

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/674031#Comment_674031

Alan,

Thank you for your input. I confess, in trying to find your suggestions,"Keep text only"; "Merge formatting"; or "Keep formatting," I did not see where you got those. Where may I find them, please?

Per your suggestion to visualize my problem, I have attached this document: 3817.HEBREW FONT ISSUES.docx to show my consternation. While this piece is not a full text, it shows what happened when I tried to export the Hebrew text for double heart from Psalm 12:2. The page says the line is left justified, but it looks right justified. The Hebrew words cause difficulty in trying to place them in the text where I need them. Sooo, your help is appreciated!

Alan Palmer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/674957#Comment_674957

Sharon, what you are describing, and indeed what is present in your document, has to do with some of the issues that come with bi-directional text (that is content with mixed left-to-right and right-to-left flowing words).

In addition to individual words have directionality, paragraphs do as well. In the document you provided, your paragraphs which were aligned to the right had their direction set to RTL (right to left). See screenshot from Word:

I may be wrong, but I believe these formatting options are only visible to you if you have Hebrew (or some other RTL language) set up as an available keyboard layout in your system language preferences.

When I change the paragraph direction in Word to LTR I get the following layout (which may be closer to what you are looking for):

I'm not an expert in Word but I do hope this helps at least move you in the right direction (pun intended).

Alan Palmer (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/674960#Comment_674960

Oops, I posted that from my personal account instead of work account. [:$] Rest assured, it's still me. [:D]

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/673640#Comment_673640

Lee,

I tried the NotePad and did not get good results there, either. Thank you for the suggestion, though!

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/674960#Comment_674960

Alan,

Your idea helped. I will have to work with it, but at least the Hebrew words are in parentheses! [:)] Hopefully, I can tweak the document whenever I need more Hebrew--and I need to use a lot more!!

I appreciate your time and information,

Sharon

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/672968#Comment_672968

Graham,

I never thanked you for your welcome to the forum. Thank you!! I appreciate all that everyone has done to try to help.

Sharon L. Gresham

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/674961#Comment_674961

[Y]

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/674981#Comment_674981

Try copying and pasting from this page. Do you have problem with left-to-right order?

If you get the same problems, something is not quite right with your system. I would try these steps (one at a time):

(1) Installing the Hebrew keyboard. See here for instructions.

(2) If that doesn't work, I'd try reinstalling Windows 7 and Office 2013 from scratch. This can be complicated. You may want to enlist the help of a computer-savvy friend.

(3) If even that doesn't work, I'd try getting the Hebrew Language Pack from here.