Re: Hebrew in LaTeX

Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:17:29 +0200
From: Tzafrir Cohen <[email protected]>
To: Ivrix Discussions <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Hebrew in LaTeX

Hi

I tried to reply ealier, but a misconfigured firewall was between my
mail server and the rest of the world,

On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 10:09:01PM +0200, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2005, Baruch Even wrote about "Re: Hebrew in LaTeX":
> > >>> > (FWIW, recent Babel should now contain the latest changes from
> > ivritex)
> > >
> > >>
> > >> Does that mean that the latest babel makes ivritex obsolete?
> > 
> > The babel part, yes. So the ugly overrides can be removed.
> 
> This sounds like good news. I don't know what "ugly overrides" you refer
> to, however.

"override" is a technical term that relates to dpkg . it was used to
work around the fact that we include our version instead of the
"official" one.

> 
> > Not the fonts parts.
> 
> Tzafrir, what did you mean by that?
> I tried creating a trivial Hebrew Latex 2e file, and I got an error that
> the "jerus10" font is missing 
> 
> > The hebclass part is probably a nice-to-have
> 
> Personally, I think this can be a separate package. Jewish calendar, Technion-
> specific styles, and things like that are secondary to actually getting Hebrew
> Latex to working "out of the box" (just install the "latex" and "culmus"
> packages on your Linux, and you're "on the horse"), and getting it to work
> exactly like the English counterpart (so that everything, including "complex"
> stuff like table of contents, two-column text, indices, and so on, works).

I'll just expelain why hebclass was generated: 

heblatex includes some code to modify babel, some styles for Hebrew
dates handeling and "hebthes": a Technion Thesis class. While hebthes was
nice as a sample and rather handy for some Technin people who used it,
it is not useful for everyone.

When I wanted to remove it from the official heblatex package I was 
answered that this is impossible, as someone may rely on it. So the 
workaround was to move it to a separate CTAN package. That separate 
package is hebclass. 

> 
> > The old fonts were crap and at the time I needed it I used the ms fonts,
> > there were instructions on *your* website on how to do this which I
> > followed, it was a pain.
> 
> Yes, I remember my hacks - glad you enjoyed them :)
> When I did them, I had no choice but using Microsoft fonts (of which I had
> a legal copy, like anyone who is forced to accept Microsoft Windows on a
> new computer). But now that Culmus exists (and it is not TrueType fonts,
> but rather type1 fonts), I prefer to use that.
> 
> In any case, you couldn't pay me enough money to use the old "Jerusalem"
> and friends fonts. I wouldn't print my shopping list with them :-)
> 
> > Tzafrir said to me in another e-mail exchange he has an hack to make
> > Culmus work with ivritex. Hopefully he still has it somewhere and you
> > can improve on that. Another e-mail from him says he put it in
> > ftp://iglu.org.il/pub/Hebrew/HebLatex/ called ivritex 1.2 and there is
> > also another announcement for
> > ftp://iglu.org.il/pub/Hebrew/HebLatex/Contrib/Culmus this was in a
> > message to the IVRITEX mailing list with Message-ID
> > <[email protected]>
> 
> Tzafrir, is this,
>  ftp://iglu.org.il/pub/Hebrew/HebLatex/Contrib/Culmus/culmus-fonts-tex-0.2.2.tar.gz
> 
> what I should use?

Basically, use the CVS of the ivritex . 

> 
> > some other base) and added support for fonts and vowel points. It would
> > be a good idea to integrate it as well, http://nikud.berlios.de/
> 
> This looks interesting. I'm not very interested in niqqud per se, but it
> couldn't hurt, and it appears that getting their package is enough and
> if I have a modern babel I don't need anything from the "ivritex" site.
> Am I understanding right?

The manual changes to config.ps and friends should not be necessary with
later tetex versions. Again, take a look at the CVS version of Ivritex
for an installation procedure.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen         | tzafrir-InM/rOVbCCTlPM0/s5TZ72ZHpeb/A1Y/@public.gmane.org | VIM is
http://tzafrir.org.il |                           | a Mutt's  
[email protected] |                           |  best
ICQ# 16849755         |                           | friend

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