Adding Bible Search Engines to the Opera Browser

Michael Ballai on his Theologica site describes steps one can take to add Bible search engines to the Opera browser. This provides a quick way to access online Bible resources like the ESV or NET Bible text or link to sites like Bible Study Tools. If you use Opera, check it out!

Hebrew Legacy Fonts Converters

Hebrew Legacy Fonts Converters

I have previously tried to list "Greek Legacy Fonts to Unicode Converters." Here are the Hebrew legacy fonts converters of which I am aware. If you know of others, please add a comment, and I will update this post.

Ken Penner's SPTiberian (SBL legacy TrueType) to Unicode (Word macro)

• This is a MS Word macro from Ken Penner, author of Flash! Pro Vocabulary Memorization Software
• You need to understand how to paste text into the Word Macro editor. This is a text file of coding to paste in.
• Thanks to Ken for sharing this!

Galaxie BibleScript (Word macro/template)

• Use the Windows Installer to install Galaxie Greek/Hebrew fonts and Word template
• Involves a two-step process converting legacy fonts to Galaxie fonts and then to Unicode
• Hebrew fonts handled: Hebraica/II,
  Bwhebb (BibleWorks), SuperHebrew, SHebrew (Bibloi)
• Greek fonts handled: Alexandria,
  Koine, Gideon, Mounce, Bwgrkl, SymbolGreekP, Graeca, WinGreek, GraecaII, SuperGreek, Sgreek

SHebrew (from Silver Mountain; used in BibleWindows and Bibloi)

• Bibloi 8.0 includes a Unicode Type Assistant for SHebrew to Unicode

SIL  (Word template and standalone SILConverters 3.1)

• This package provides tools through which you can change the encoding, font, and/or script of text in Microsoft Word and other Office documents, XML documents, and SFM text and lexicon documents. It also installs a system-wide repository to manage your encoding converters and transliterators.
• Among many others, it contains encoding converter map(s) for the following encoding/fonts:
  
  
  • SIL Ezra to/from Unicode
  • Hebrew Unicode 4.0 to/from Hebrew Unicode 5.0

Greek and Hebrew Encoding Converter (Ken Penner - online: copy/paste textbox)

• From: SPTiberian, Linguist HebraicaII, B-Hebrew transliteration, Unicode, SPIonic, Greek BETA, SGreek, LaserGreek, AG, Greek Unicode NFD, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Code Page
• To: Unicode, Code Page 1255 (Hebrew Windows), SPTiberian, B-Hebrew transliteration, SuperHebrew, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Unicode NFD, Greek BETA, Unaccented B-Greek,

JBLC (paid conversion service for RTF files)

• Transforms texts with legacy fonts like SuperHebrew, SPIonic, SuperGreek, Bwgrkl, and others to any Unicode font

LaserHebrew Converter

• $79.95 available for Win or Mac from Linguist's Software
• LaserHebrew and LaserHebrew II to LaserHebrew in Unicode
• Note that the Jerusalem font uses the same key mapping as LaserHebrew.

Accordit from Accordance Bible Software (look for it near the bottom of the page)

• Check AccordIt 2.0 User's Guide
• Converts LaserHebrew (Linguist's) or Jerusalem (MacBible-Zondervan) to Yehudit (both are non-Unicode)
• Converts Hebrew to Hebraica II

BibleWorks BWHEBB to Unicode

• Section 59 on "OLE and DDE" in the BibleWorks8 Help file provides the MSWord macro text to conduct the conversion

Review of Thomas Naef's Holy Bits: A Guide for Using Computers in Biblical Scholarship

I've just completed a somewhat lengthy review of Thomas Naef's Holy Bits: A Guide for Using Computers in Biblical Scholarship. Instead of posting it all here, you can read/download the PDF. Though it is a review, I actually write more as a dialogue partner with Naef and suggest some alternatives to his suggestions. The title hints at the rather wide range of the topic, so I suspect you will discover some sites or applications of which you are now not aware. If you have other suggestions, leave a comment here or go to the book's site and leave a note for Naef himself.

Cambridge University Digitization Project

In case you had not already heard...
Cambridge University Library has announced plans to become a digital library for the world... The first collections to be digitised will be entitled The Foundations of Faith and The Foundations of Science. The goal for both is that they become ‘living libraries’ with the capacity to grow and evolve... The library also holds the world’s largest and most important collection of Jewish Genizah materials, including the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection – 193,000 fragments of manuscripts as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its Christian holdings include the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, one of the most important Greek New Testament manuscripts, the Book of Deer and the Book of Cerne. [ChristianToday]  
Very nice... [HT: TW at ETC]

Quick Notes: Greek Flashcards and Glo Bible

Danny Zacharias over on Deinde has compiled a great list of Greek flashcard vocabulary options. (Previously discussed here with further info.) So I had to make a link to this Flashcard Scholarship opportunity posted HERE where you have the chance to win $500 by posting a video of you destroying your paper flashcards! (I suspect many students would be happy to do this for free...)


The Washington Post has an article today on: "Glo digital Bible designed to reach a younger generation". It provides some background and describes some applications of it in church settings. Founder of Glo's Immersion Digital, Nelson Saba, is quoted as saying that "it is currently available only for personal computers and laptops, but the intent from its inception was that it would be applicable to mobile devices." (I've posted my own reviews of the Glo Bible HERE and HERE.)

Typing Biblical Hebrew

What are the best ways to type biblical Hebrew? Personally, while I have strong preferences about how my polytonic Greek keyboard is laid out, I haven't typed frequently enough in Hebrew to have clear preferences. For example, 

• Do you want to use an English keyboard which matches the Hebrew phonetically? Or do you prefer an Israeli keyboard?
• Should the shift state serve to provide final forms or doubled forms? 
• Where do the vowel points go? Try to match them with English phonetically? Or put them all on special keys (123...)?
• Where is the aleph key? (I'm always searching for it if it's not on the "a".) Or the vav/waw? Or the het or tet?

That's only one set of issues related to the keyboards. You also have to consider whether/how Hebrew with its right-to-left typing is handled in your word processor. Or maybe you want to compose all your Hebrew in your Bible software and copy/paste it into your documents. Or do you want a system-wide switch so you can type in Hebrew in your word processor, email, web page...

I'll try to sort out some of the options, but in all cases I will assume that you are wanting to end up with Unicode Hebrew using a font like Cardo or SBL Hebrew. Even if you go with transliteration, you will need some help to get the special characters... I'm also providing screenshots of keyboard layouts where possible so you have a better idea of the layout philosophy of the various options. (Click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

System-wide Hebrew Keyboard

The idea here is that your operating system understands that you want to type in Hebrew and switches to a Hebrew keyboard and a Unicode Hebrew font using right-to-left formatting. (For Windows users, at least, this is going to mean enabling a buried regional parameter to allow the right-to-left typing.) Do note that most English users are not going to want to use an Israeli keyboard but rather one that is laid out for an English keyboard and optimized for biblical Hebrew needs. An advantage in using a Windows system keyboard is that you also can use the onscreen keyboard which is included for free. (It is part of the accessibility options in Windows. For WinXP see here or here and for Win7 see here. [HT: bkMitchell]) What about Macs? I don't have much experience with Macs, but I have noted some solutions below. 

TYNDALE UNICODE FONT KIT

One of the easiest ways to get started typing in Hebrew is to use the Tyndale Unicode Font Kit. It provides clear instructions for installing everything, the fine Cardo font, and an installer. It's available for WinXP, WinVista (& 7, I presume), and Mac. For the Hebrew keyboard, it uses a combination of sound-alike and look-alike positions. (E.g., note that the aleph is on the "x", shin is on the "w", and vowels go with their sound-alikes.) Cf. the graphic above. (A transliteration keyboard is included in the Greek keyboard using the Cardo font and activated by turning on caps lock.)

TAVULTESOFT KEYMAN

Another excellent way to type in Hebrew (and other languages) is Tavultesoft's Keyman program. (Pricing is $19 for 2 keyboards. Windows only) Once you have the program, then get Galaxie's BibleScript Greek and Hebrew Keyboard. (Here is a PDF of the installation manual and keyboard layouts.) As you can see in the graphic above, the shift state is used for doubling and most of the vowels are on the shifted number row. It's a bit of a trick finding the final form. A nice feature is that it does include a pop-up keyboard if you need help.

SBL HEBREW SIL KEYBOARD

In addition to the fine SBL Hebrew font, SBL also provides Hebrew keyboards. Here is the SIL keyboard manual. It's mainly phonetically based, but the aleph and ayin are on the shifted angle brackets, and you'll find the het on the "x" and the tet on the "v".

SBL HEBREW TIRO KEYBOARD

SBL also provides a Tiro Hebrew keyboard. Here is the Tiro keyboard manual. It's mainly based on the Israeli standard keyboard, so it is probably not a preferred keyboard for those not familiar with that layout.

HEBREW QWERTY KEYBOARD

Based on a Hebrew keyboard for the Mac, this Hebrew QWERTY keyboard has been made available for Windows. (Link is to a ZIP file. Extract all files and run the .msi file. [HT: Mikhtav]) There a few 'qwirks' to this layout, but it may work for you...

LOGOS KEYBOARDS

Logos provides a Hebrew keyboard for use in Windows. The placement is  largely phonetic (but the aleph on ") and the shift state is used for finals and for related letters. (E.g., t is tav, and Shift+t is tet. A transliteration keyboard is also available on that page.)

MULTIKEY

MultiKey by Stefan Hagel is a free program that supports Unicode input in many Windows programs. (I.e., it isn't exactly a system keyboard like the ones listed above.) It includes keyboard tables for Hebrew and 17 other languages using Unicode and 3 older Hebrew keyboard tables. (WL Hebrew, WinGreek Hebrew, BWHEBB) You can customize your keyboards, but it will take some work since it's primarily geared for modern Hebrew. (E.g., I can't find the final forms...) 

DO IT YOURSELF (OR MODIFY EXISTING ONES)

Don't like a keyboard layout? Tyndale provides some instructions for changing the layout using SIL's Ukelele program for the Mac or the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator for Windows. Basically these allow you to assign Unicode characters to keystrokes, but matters are complicated with Hebrew (and Greek) because you will want to add vowels and accents and such and have the keyboard reference the proper precombined character. You will probably want to get familiar with BabelMap which is a great free Unicode character mapping program for Windows.

... and for Macs
TYNDALE UNICODE FONT KIT 
Cf. the description above.

HEBREW QWERTY KEYBOARD

Here is a good place to start for some basic information on installing and using a Hebrew keyboard. Info is given on how to activate the Keyboard Viewer. Instead of using the standard Hebrew keyboard layout, it is recommended that you use the Hebrew QWERTY keyboard displayed above.

SBL HEBREW KEYBOARD DRIVERS

SBL provides Hebrew keyboard Drivers for SIL and Tiro (OS X) Cf. graphics above for these keyboards.


HEBREW-ZC KEYBOARD

Bill / Ze'ev Clementson provides his own well-considered Hebrew-ZC Keyboard. It's well-considered, because he has tried to incorporate the best of both the SIL and Tiro keyboards as well as frequency of Hebrew character and vowel stats. The keyboard download, installation instructions, and layout diagrams are on that page.

Independent Hebrew Typing Aids

SHIBBOLETH

Shibboleth is a great free tool from Logos I have previously mentioned for entering text in 10 languages as well as a transliteration mode. Logos states:

Shibboleth is a tool for typing Unicode text in ancient scripts. It was designed to help people unfamiliar with a script easily enter the correct characters, and then copy text to the clipboard in Unicode or another format.
While a keyboard layout is provided for several scripts, the emphasis is on helping the user recognize and select the proper characters. To that end, user input is shown in both typed and rendered format, with multiple font options, and all of the characters for each script are selectable from a well organized palette on the right side of the application window.

You can enter text using your keyboard or pointing/clicking on the characters you want. This is particularly helpful if you need to include cantillation marks and have trouble remembering where to locate them on a keyboard. Do note that the output is actually in XML, so when you paste your text you will see the XML Hebrew encoding indicators. In a word processing document, you will probably want to delete those. It works great in a web page since you will only see the text, as I am demonstrating here: בּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִם. (In a word processor you would see angle brackets enclosing "he" and "/he" codes.)
Note also that Shibboleth does require Microsoft's .NET Framework 4 Client to run. Also available on the download page are other fonts you can install to use your output in other applications.

KEYMAN WEB

Keyman Web is a free, online notepad from Tavultesoft for typing in just about any language and then copy/paste into your document. For Hebrew, you can choose to use the Galaxie Hebrew keyboard described above as part of the Tavultesoft Keyman program. As you can see in the graphic, you can activate an onscreen keyboard. (But it won't show you all the vowels on the shift state.) You can see that the אֱלֹהִים doesn't look correctly spaced, but when you paste it into your word processor, it will be fine.

HEBREW KEYBOARD BOOKMARKLETS
Here's a clever idea if you are needing to input Hebrew on a web page, and you are not using your own computer. Hebrew Keyboard Bookmarklets from Bill (Ze'ev) Clementson provides your choice of four Hebrew keyboards (Tiro, SIL, QWERTY, or his own ZC--cf. above) that you can activate (using javascript) as a bookmarklet. You are also provided bookmarklets to turn off the Hebrew keyboard and adjust LtR or RtL text direction.

AM HA-ARETZ

Now only available on Internet Archive, Am ha-Aretz is another notepad type of online app that allows you to type / copy / paste. There is an Internet Explorer version that works well and an "other browser" version that works with Firefox but not very well.

Integrated English-Hebrew Word Processors

Another option is to use a word processor that is designed for scholarly work that requires a variety of  fonts including a mix of left-to-right and right-to-left languages.

NOTA BENE LINGUA

Nota Bene Lingua is much more than a word processor, but it is incredibly easy to use for typing in Hebrew and handles mixing typing direction well. It has popup keyboards and smart characters that automatically convert to final forms as you type where appropriate. It uses a largely phonetic layout, but vowels are accessed through using F6 and then selecting the one you want.

DAVKAWRITER

DavkaWriter is "the world's most innovative Hebrew / English Word Processor." I personally have never used it, but I have only heard positive comments from people who do. (It appears to be Windows only.)

MELLEL

"Mellel is the leading word processor for Mac OS X designed especially for creative and technical writing, scholars and anyone who wants a reliable word processor." "If right-to-left languages, or languages related to biblical studies are important to your work, Mellel is probably what you need."

CLASSICAL TEXT EDITOR

Classical Text Editor is "the word-processor for critical editions, commentaries and parallel texts..." Allows for any number of notes and apparatus, bidirectional text. Created by Stefan Hagel. (Cf. MultiKey above) For Windows and Macintosh with emulated Windows.


MICROSOFT WORD

You can actually do quite well in MSWord using a system keyboard as described above. The graphic shows how I can type in Hebrew mixed in with English and Greek. I have activated the on-screen keyboard (also described above) and am using the Logos Hebrew keyboard which I activated by using the ALT-SHIFT strike to toggle through my available keyboards. (Cf. the "HE" for Hebrew in my system bar at the bottom near the right.)

OTHER WORD PROCESSORS [UPDATED]
As indicated in the comments, Nisus Writer Pro (Mac) reportedly does well with right to left fonts and NeoOffice (Mac) is also usable. OpenOffice (Windows, Mac, Linux) is also an excellent choice.

UNITYPE

I have no experience with Unitype, but you can buy this program (starting at $150USD) as part of either the standalone Global Writer or Global Office which integrates with MS Word.

ANTIOCH

Antioch "is a utility which allows you to type classical Greek and Hebrew in Word. It includes fully programmable Greek and Hebrew keyboards, a uniquely simple and flexible system for handling diacritics and vowel points, an elegant font with all necessary characters, and converters for documents in many other formats." It works with all versions of MS Word (including 2010) for Windows. Vowels are on the number row and also on the keypad. It allows for personalization of the characters. Cost is US$50.

Bible Software Editors

If you have one of the major Bible software programs, you can use their built-in editors and then copy/paste into other applications or documents.

Accordance

Accordance provides a good explanation of font usage in this PDF file. The font used for Hebrew is Yehudit. Keyboard diagrams are provided. Accordance does not actually use Unicode, but it can export Unicode.

BibleWorks

BibleWorks has a rather robust editor that allows for typing either in its own BWHEBB font (shown above) or in Unicode. (When using the Unicode Hebrew, it actually uses the Hebrew system keyboard you have installed.) The 'busy' buttonbar shown can be simplified, and the editing works for both the editor and chapter/verse notes entries. The files are actually RTF files, so you could do your work in the editor and then open the file in your word processor.

LOGOS

Logos works entirely with Unicode, so anything you type will use the system keyboard you have installed (cf. the choices above), and you can easily copy/paste text into documents outside Logos in full Unicode beauty.

BOTTOM LINE
Well... pulling this info together took way longer than I anticipated, but I am gearing up for a writing project that does involve a lot of Hebrew, and so I wanted to get myself properly situated. For that project, I may try to do everything in Nota Bene. For now, I've been using the Logos Hebrew keyboard in MSWord and also in the BibleWorks editor. When I've gotten frustrated with finding vowels or other markings, I've pulled up Shibboleth. Keyman Web is another quick option, and I am considering whether I should go ahead and buy the Keyman Desktop program, since it really does the best job with polytonic Greek. I've provided graphics of the keyboard layouts, because that really is the most important factor.

At least now you know many of your choices, but I have to suppose I've missed other options out there. Please post a comment on your preferred way of typing Hebrew, and I will try to update this entry. Thanks.