The Bialystoker Synagogue Online Library--Displaying Hebrew

Nadav Caine at Stanford University in his home page, http://www.stanford.edu/~nadav/hebrew.html, has an excellent, step-by-step explanation of how to configure Netscape to display Hebrew. It presupposes that you are using Netscape 1.1 or greater. His web page offers pointers to the appropriate Hebrew fonts and his explanation of how to install them follows below :

In order to enable Netscape to display Hebrew, follow these steps.

1. Shift-click to download the self-extracting archive "webfont.exe" of two Hebrew fonts that work well with Netscape. When your browser prompts you for the directory in which to put this file, choose the Windows System directory, which is normally c:\windows\system\.

2. Now, minimize this webrowser window, and from the main Windows screen (the Program Manager), select "Run" from under "File". Click on "Browse", and then open the Windows System folder (again, it's usually c:\windows\system\). Click on "webfont.exe" and then "OK", and then "OK" again. This will turn the one file into the necessary font files automatically. (There will be a "readme" file, too, added into your Windows system directory, if you want to read it.)

3. Click on "Control Panel" (usually in the "Accessories" group), and then on the "Fonts" icon. Click on "Add" and then scroll all the way down and add both Web Hebrew AD and Web Hebrew Monospace. Your PC is now Hebrew ready. (Note that different Hebrew fonts work with different applications, depending on how they are "mapped" on to the Keyboard. In addition, there are other factors involved in Netscape's use of fonts.) Thus, if you already have some Hebrew fonts, they may or may not work with the web sites listed below. Conversely, these Hebrew fonts may not work with other Hebrew programs such as Dagesh you may already have installed on your PC. The important thing is that the fonts offered here will not interfere with any other fonts or applications you are using, don't worry!)

4. Go back here to Netscape (i.e. maximize this window). Now select "Preferences" under "Options" above. Choose "Fonts and Colors." Click on "Browse" for the Proportional font, and find "Web Hebrew AD" from the list, and choose it. Then click on "Browse" for the Fixed font, and find "Web Hebrew Monospace" and choose that. Close the windows and you're all set to go. Now you will have both Hebrew and English on Netscape.

READING HEBREW ON THE WEB WITH WINDOWS AND INTERNET EXPLORER

1. Follow steps one through three above.

2. Having installed the Hebrew fonts on your computer, you now have to tell Internet Explorer how to use them. Go to the "Tools" menu and choose "Internet Options" from the list. At the bottom of the general page there is a section on fonts. When you click on the fonts section, you will see "Language Script." Keep that as Latin-based. For the "web page font" choose "Web Hebrew AD." For the "plain text font" choose "Web Hebrew monospace." Click O.K. when finished, and you should be ready to search the web.

3. With Internet Explorer 5 you are often asked to download "Hebrew Text Display Support" and "Uniscribe," both of which are provided by Microsoft on a CD-ROM that is often shipped with the Windows operating system. If you do not have the necessary files, just choose Cancel when asked to perform the download, and the page should appear anyway. Uniscribe is Microsoft's proposed way of displaying non-Latin characters and should be the future solution for the difficulties in reading Hebrew online.

4. If you see gibberish on the page, go up to the main menu and choose View-->Character Encoding-->More Encodings. From the Middle Eastern collection, you will see a variety of Hebrew encoding formats. Try each and see if one works.

READING HEBREW ON FIREFOX

1. Firefox is a wonderful browser that you can download for free from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

2. You can find the fonts section for Firefox under Tools-->Options.

READING HEBREW ON A MACINTOSH

1. Download a file containing the Ariela font from http://www.israweb.co.il/hebrew/mac.html

2. The font is compressed so you must expand it using Stuffit Expander. Drop Ariela.hqx on Stuffit Expander to create a font suitcase.

3. Drop the Ariela suitcase on your system folder.

4. Quit your browser and open it up again so that it will recognize the newly added font.

5. Tell your browser to use these fonts. In Netscape go to Options->Preferences->Fonts and Colors and choose Ariela as both your fixed and your proportional fonts. In Internet Explorer choose it for both the web page font and the plain text font.

READING HEBREW ON AMERICA ONLINE

As of this writing, America Online's browser does not display Hebrew fonts. Even if you have downloaded Hebrew fonts onto your machine, America Online does not offer you the opportunity to install them on their browser. Perhaps this situation will change once AOL fully integrates Netscape into its system. For now, however, the only solution is to install Hebrew fonts into Netscape or Internet Explorer, following the directions above. Then log onto the Internet using America Online, minimize the AOL display, and view the Hebrew site through Netscape or Internet Explorer.