SBLHebrew and color

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Prof_Bob_Stallman
         

When I first started using SBLHebrew, all of the letters, vowels, and other marks were black. If I wanted to change the color of a word, I could do so, provided I changed the color of an enitre word (complete with vowels and accents). I use Microsoft Word 2003 (11.6568.6568) SP2.

 

But awhile ago, I loaded an old document containing SBLHebrew and found that the vowels and accents were in blue. That was a minor surprise, but not of great concern at the time. When I select all of the text in such a document and force the coloration to black, the blue remains. I would like print some teaching aids with Hebrew words in various colors, with letters and vowels all the same color but cannot. Currently, if I type a word in SBLHebrew such as קָֽטְלָה  (qatálta you killed), and select the entire word then format its color to, say, green--then the letters are green but everything else (vowels and the accent) remains blue.

 

While it would be nice to know what is causing this blue behavior in the first place would be nice, the important thing is that I get back to the place where I can make an entire word black, red, green, or whatever.

 

Thoughts, anyone?

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: dyma_o
         

Dear Prof. Bob Stallman,

 

Word has the ability to colorize diacritics with an other color
than the normal text. I do not know the English terms for the menu. In German
Word you can (de)activate this via “Extras > Optionen > Komplexe
Schriftzeichen > andere Farbe�. In English I suppose this to be
“Tools > Options > Complex Script > other color for diacritics�.

 

I hope you can find this.

 

Oliver

 

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         
It is a little more complicated than that. In order to colour diacritic marks differently from base letters (either globally as in the Word option) or individually, the letters and the diacritic marks need to separate glyphs. In the SBL Hebrew font, and in many other fonts for other scripts, some of the diacritic combinations are represented by precomposed glyphs, i.e. single glyphs representing more than one character. In the current version of the SBL Hebrew font, for example, shin with shin dot or sin dot are precomposed glyphs, as are combinations with dagesh. This makes some other processing easier for me. In the upcoming v2.00 release, there will be additional precomposed combinations for marks themselves, e.g. combinations of nikud and te'am(im). The reason for this is that I can more accurately control the relative position of the marks in this way than by using on-the-fly contextual positioning as in the current release.

What Bob Stallman wants to do is to be able to colour individual marks with different colours for educational purposes. This is a very sensible thing to want to do for students learning Hebrew, and I intend to support it, but it isn't something that can be done while at the same time seeking the most sophisticated and refined mark positioning possible. So my intention is to make a separate 'SBL Hebrew Pedagogical' font that will not use any precomposed combinations, but will rely on mark positioning for everything. This will mean that some marks will not be optimally positioned (I'm not sure, for instance, if I'll be able to correctly position the hiriq on final mem in yerushalaim as it occurs in L), but this font will be useful for instructors wanting to produce material for beginner students.
         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         
Bob, can you email me a copy of the document in which the text is appearing blue? With which version of the SBL Hebrew font is this occuring?

tiro[at]tiro[dot]com
         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Joe Lewis
         

Yes, it's Tools > Options > Complex Scripts > Different Color for Diacritics.

 

Incidentally, you get a different color for almost all diacritics, but (if I remember right) not the Holem--even though it's clearly a separate character in the font.

 

The logic of Word is sometimes hard to follow.

 

I hope this information is helpful. 

 

Joe Lewis

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         
You are likely to get a separate colour for holam in some instances but not in others. You won't get it when applied to vov, for instance, because that is represented in the font by a precomposed glyph.

The Word diacritic colouration function is a bit of a crapshoot: it relies on identifying glyphs that are categorised as marks in the OpenType Layout GDEF table in the font.
         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Prof_Bob_Stallman
         

Thank you. In my set up of Word, the "Different Color for Diacritics" box was checked (I don't recall ever checking it though). Resetting this switch solved my problem so that all elements of whole words (letters, nikudim, and te'amim) can be assigned a given color.

 

I look forward to gaining the flexibility to color individual elements within a word. Thanks to John for his intent to make an 'SBL Hebrew Pedagogical' font. This will be very helpful to me as a teacher and appreciated by my students.

 

Shalom

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: jlharper3
         
I also heartily support such a "SBL Hebrew Pedagogical" font, since I'm also hoping to produce educational materials with colored vowels (such as diagnostic paradigms for the verbs).

Do you know of any Unicode fonts that currently could be used this way?
         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Joel_Salomon
         
> Do you know of any Unicode fonts that currently could be used this way?

From the rest of the discussion (http://preview.tinyurl.com/34zg5w) it would seem that any font without precomposed letter+nikud glyphs might work.

--Joel
         

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