|
Add-on font packages allow Microsoft Windows
programs to use Greek and Hebrew. This allows many programs, such as
word processors, to include passages of the Bible in the original language and
to perform basic multilingual word processing. Due to the design of
Windows, however, Hebrew words generally will not wrap around properly
to the next line. This capability requires a dedicated multilingual word
processor.
TrueType and Adobe Type 1 Fonts.
Windows allows the user to easily add fonts which support accented Greek and
pointed Hebrew.
Greek and Hebrew as well as many other non-Roman character sets combine
accents, breathing marks, pointings and other diacritical marks with
alphabetic characters. There are several ways to represent characters with
diacritical marks:
- Distinct Characters: A distinct ASCII value is assigned
to every possible character combination. For example, when one types o + ) + /
together in WinGreek's Greek Mode, the character with value 212 is
inserted, which is omicron with a smooth breathing and a acute accent in Greek.
- Overstrike Characters: Complex characters are created
through the overstrike feature of a software program. This involves the
automatic insertion of hidden codes into the text. WinGreek uses this
method for entering pointed Hebrew.
- "Zero-width" Characters: This involves a "sticky
cursor", which superimposes one character (e.g., a Greek rough breathing) over
another character (e.g., the Greek letter rho). While similar to the
overstrike method, no hidden codes or overstrike features are used. Both
BibleScript and Silver Fonts employ this technique.
While each technique works relatively well, they all present minor problems
for editing. Distinct characters must be completely deleted even when only an
accent needs to be corrected. Overstrike characters invoke a potentially
cumbersome overstrike feature and litter the document with hidden codes.
Finally, it is awkward to delete zero-width characters (unless one enters a
display mode that shows superimposed characters separately).
Using Unicode Characters with
Windows.
A more sophisticated solution to non-Roman character support uses the Unicode
character standard. Unicode is a 16 bit character set standard,
which allows up to 65535 possible characters, rather
than the 256 characters possible with the normal 8 bit character sets. This
standard handles the characters of most ancient and modern languages.
However, most Windows programs cannot use Unicode without additions to
the operating system.
Gamma UniType enables most
font-aware Windows programs to support over
175 modern and ancient languages. It also includes advanced options, which are
not available with simple font sets: precise placement of diacritics,
automatic reshaping of letters as required by context (such as mem and sigma),
right-to-left text entry and optional multilingual spell checkers.
Updated June 24, 1997
Copyright © 1995-1997 Glenn Wooden and Harry Hahne
|
|
» Full review available
» Program summary available
» Non-review material or subsection
Commercial Font Packages:
»BibleScript
»Silver Fonts
Shareware/Public Domain Font Packages:
»WinGreek
»Scholars Press Fonts
Unicode System Extension:
»UniType
Quick Summary:
All of these packages are adequate for scholarly writing. Both
WinGreek and Silver Fonts are good choices for Greek, but
Silver Fonts offers higher quality output and greater ease of editing.
These two sets also provide economical Hebrew fonts, although editing is easier with
Silver Fonts. BibleScript provides a more
polished Hebrew text with cantillations, easy Roman transliteration
of Hebrew and Greek, and a wide range of Hebrew typefaces.
The public domain fonts from Scholars Press
are a good choice for displaying biblical and classical texts which use the
TLG and Michigan-Claremont text encoding schemes or for those on a limited
budget.
|
