The main issue is the spacing -- too tight;

leading can be Tight or Loose that is not the issue, in hebrew traditional books letters tend to be very tight and do not comply with ordinary hebrew typography. looking at Sidurim Or Chumashim will indicate the same.

the sample was uploaded to get critics on the Teamim placements and technique.

Eli Fried

> the sample was uploaded to get critics on the Teamim placements and technique.

Welcome to typophile.

> leading can be Tight or Loose that is not the issue

Who's talking about leading? Spacing, kerning, glyph metrics - right & left sidebearings -- that's the issue;

The positioning of the nikkud and taam, and the combination of nikkud and taam, should fine-tuned.

There are rules on positioning single diacritics which the sample doesn't adhere.

It's not very bad. The average eye would admit that it's ok.

However, it's not exact. You see this clear in many examples of double diacritics.

In MS Volt, this is no big deal to correct, if the projects was created correctly.

If the type designer knows MS Volt well, and is not just a type technician, but a very precise designer, this all can be corrected in a relatively short time.

gohebrew: i would love to learn more about this rules.

if you have any experience i would be more than happy to learn a thing or two from you.

As Raphael Freeman explained based upon Mr. Eliyahu Koren's approach to correct Biblical Hebrew typography, itself rooted in ancient Hebrew manuscripts, multiple Hebrew diacritics are not centered under vertical aspects of Hebrew letters.

Rather, the nikkud is centered, and the meteg or taam on the nikkud's left is positioned off-centered.

Usually, the combination of nikkud with meteg and/or taam, is treated as one unit. Then, the whole unit is centered.

This is incorrect.

Under a reish, for example, this incorrect approach often will lead to "bumping", where the nikkud/tam/meteg combination under the previous letter will "bump" into the combo under the reish.

This is a basic rule. There are many exceptions, as we will explain. I will post visual samples to demonstrate them.

Hi GoHebrew:
Their are two approaches to this issue.

1. Visualy
2. Functionly

Let me explain.

Visualy, Having the Nikud+Taam As one unit is better, in the exeption Of Dalet,Vav,Yod,Resh where indeed the taam comes of centered to the nikud.

But, Function wise, we devide Letter, Nikud, Taam.
Where the letter is the most important
next In Line comes the Nikud, and at last TAAMIM.
Thetefor
Nikud sould be lighter than letter, and taam lighter than nikud, approaching this arrgument' you are correct, taam comes of centered the nikud.

so, My fonts support the two methods
normaly, in MARK proceedure, the Taam comes of centerd the Nikud.
But activating a style allows moving back the Nikud accourding to width of taam, and relink taam to nikud wich was demonstrated in the example that i uploeded.

however, I would love to hear what you have to say about this issue.

Typograph,

You raised many valid points and interesting ideas.

As a graphic artist, I lean strongly to the visual. I prefer to let the funtional be secondary, particularly in light of the fact that the reader rests his or her eyes upon the small configuration of letter+nikkud(+taam+meteg). If functional appearance would take precedence, then to that reader's eye, the configuration would look odd.

I don't see how it is possible to easily support two different positioning systems with MS Volt. To my limited knowledge OpenType and InDesign ME support only one positioning system.

Changing the weight in the font between the letter, which is darker, the nikkud which is lighter that the letter, and the taam, which is lighter than both the letter and the taam, is a very good technigue - as the visual approach can be maintained. In fact, the actual design of the letters, nikkud, and taam, seem to aim at this approach.

Raphael Freeman told me that Mr. Eliyahu Koren also employed a heirichal system, where the nikkud was positioned closer to the letters, and the taam were lower, farther from the letters. Personally, I do not subscribe to this approach. I have noticed Hebrew publishers intentionally position the meteg lower than the nikkud; this is logical, as the roleof the meteg is special, different than the sounds associated with the nikkud.

The tav has an interesting form, in which the center zone is smaller and more to the right, that the entire width of letter. Hence, visual centering is really off-center. Similarly, the tzaddi's horizontal base is further to the left in many designs, making its visul center really off-center.

GoHebrew:
Hi, From earlier threads in the forum i see you have great interest in hebrew typography, biblical diacritics issues and opentype development.

first let me introduce my self.
my name is Eli Fried.
Lives in Israel.
Hebrew type designer.
(designed over 100 typefaces where over 50 faces are sold through MasterFont).

over the years i have studied and learned hebrew typography to depth and discovered much wich i am going to make an attempt to share with you.

as an israeli, my point of view of hebrew typography might differ from Raphael Freeman's point of view.

now, lets divide this post into 2 parts
1. Nikud and Teamim: the way they were applied troughout the years.
2. tech issues regarding volt and opentype.

1] biblical literature had meny approaches as technology had developed. so lets examine some of them.

the first Chumashim, Tikuney Koreem were manualy set.
there were no underlaying rules, every word got its own treatment for nikud and taam as they went along. but mainly they placed the taam ofcentered.

later, computer programs were developed.
a well known dedicated program for Holi literature is called TAG By Daniel Weissman.

Tags font used Guttman And Palron fonts.
the way TAG preferes to deal with Teamim is by bringing the Nikud Back and placing both Nikud & Taam As one unit.
Taam does not come of centered of the nikud as in the
manual settings.

this is the way daniel weissman programs his kern tables.
users if tag might kern the table differently.

Guttman's Teamim are not lighter than the Nikud, thay are both same weight.
in this approach taam and nikud act as one in are only hints and nothing main. so we do not approach the taam with less importance than the nikud.

next to open type fonts were developed.
1. Sil Ezra
2. Guttman Vilna by yoel ganzburg

both tried bringing back nikud when there is a taam.
both used Mark and/or MarktoMark Positioning but could not utilize the pair abjusments because indesign CS did not Support this fuction in right to left.

trying to do so, indesign would shift the nikud forwards rather than backwards this bug was only fixed in CS2
(Office 2003 allready did support this)

instead, both projects use 3 minus spaces glyphs in order to shift back the nikud. this resulted unaccurat positioning because glyphs were treated as THIN SPACE, MIDSPACE and WIDE SPACE.

today, hebrew fonts can use Pair abjusments in order to move back the nikud rather than minus spaces, this results much more accurate positioning.

Now, in my fonts Normal does not include The Pair abjusment feature. with a Stylistic Set you may use a pair abjustment and then replacing taam to nikud.

this featur must come after feature.

TRY IT OUT.

Israel,

> If the type designer knows MS Volt well, and is not just a type technician, but a very precise designer

are you building an F-15 Eagle aircraft ? :^)

...vroooom..

Typograph,

Sorry for the delay - just been building an F-15.

Eli, where is Israel are you? I lived in the eighties in Kfar Chabad. Did font work for Georgian (Gruzini) newspaper, when it went digital to Apple Macintosh.

Weisman/Guttmam and Tzika/Masterfont were just starting. Does Tzvika still have his bicycle? (I personally think his work is very poor.) Tag came later. I don't think it ever worked on XP and Vista.

My font development work is based on InDesign ME CS/x, any MS Windows or Apple Macintosh System X (3 and higher). That's why I have an interest in sophisticated OpenType, which is needed for correct Biblical Diacritic Placement, and other fascinating things, like (automatic) shva-na, komatz katan, and meteg placement.

How, as an Israeli, do you that your practice of typography differs significantly from Raphael Freeman? He appears very talented, and his typographical principles are based upon Eliyahu Koren a"h, who in turn was based upon drawings of very old typography.

Eli,

> 1] biblical literature had meny approaches as technology had developed. so lets examine some of them.

the first Chumashim, Tikuney Koreem were manualy set.
there were no underlaying rules, every word got its own treatment for nikud and taam as they went along. but mainly they placed the taam ofcentered.

----------------------------------------------

> Many approaches
According to Raphael, multiple appraches existed because of the limitations of the equipment. This was confirmed to me by Scott Kesofsky of Philidor Company, see www.philidor.com, an excellent master typographer who worked as a youth using previous generation typesetting equipment.

> there were no underlaying rules
I disagree. Perhaps, you do not see any patterns in manually set typography. I think that they are there. Rather, one may determine that there is no pattern, because of the repeated inconcistancies or exceptions. Either this was due to the limitations of the equipment, or the "creativeness" of the typesetter.

Many non-religious and even some semi-religious find it difficult to be disciplined and express their creativity in different ways.

I am not being condescending or self-righteous at all. I am just calling a spade a spade, as they say.

Wait a second, Eli. Let me get off my high horse, and hide behind thee barrel to dodge the rotten tomatoes.

Eli,

> later, computer programs were developed.
a well known dedicated program for Holi literature is called TAG By Daniel Weissman.

Tags font used Guttman And Palron fonts.
the way TAG preferes to deal with Teamim is by bringing the Nikud Back and placing both Nikud & Taam As one unit.
Taam does not come of centered of the nikud as in the
manual settings.

-------------------------------------------------------\

Tag is Weisman, they use fonts from Guttman? So, Guttan are just fonts, used by Tag. Are they two separate companies, with two separate people?

> later, computer programs were developed.

Well, first there was Quark XPress, using the English or demestic operating system of either MS Windows or Apple Macintosh. It was the early or mid ninties.

This was the "backwards" font solution.

Since Quark could "flip the text box", take left-to-right text, and flip it over, the text appeared from right-to-left. Furthermore, text entered in such a flipped text box, could be entered and edited from right-to-left.

I was working at FontWorld, see www.fontworld.com, then. I and a few of our customers, used it for a while, before other competitors offerred less expensive solutions.

It was a simple solution for Hebrew typesetting in a Western computing enviroment.

In those days, the only Hebrew typesetting program was on the Apple Macintosh, called "Ready Set Go for Hebrew". It was made for Arabic by the London based Diwan, see www.diwan.com, through the wizardry of Adir Allawi, the brilliant son of Diwan's owner.

There also was the Israeli Rav Ktav, but it had a very poor feature set. There was nothing on MS Windows.

> Tag used... Palron fonts
Is this Meir Palron? He must be a very old man today.

Meir represented Varityper then, a line of dedicated Hebrew typesetting mini-computers. I had a Sinclair QL personal computer, around the time the IBM PC was becoming popular in Israel. I edited a book of Rambam (Maimonides) on it. I convinced my customer that instead of retyping all the data, I would "dump" it to the Varityper. The customer called Meir for some technical help. In those days, a cusstomer simply called a vender, "Hey, Meir, come over, I need some help." I think Meir wanted to see if my $400 personal computer could really do what the mini he sold for $8,000 could also do.

Meir looked on in disbelief when after a few glitchs, it succeeded in 10 minutes.

> a well known dedicated program for Holi literature is called TAG By Daniel Weissman.

A few years ago, most holy books were created in Tag. This was mainly because Tag infiltrated in Jewish world.

Tag is code-based and not WSIWYG. It handled fonts in a non-standard way. Tag was rejected by most book producers.

Today, Adobe InDesign CSx ME is the accepted standard. It is becoming more and more powerful, particularly with well-made OpenType fonts.

I am creating well-made OpenType fonts for classic Hebrew typography, such as Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew Poetry, and Hebrew Primers. Each year, my Hebrew OpenType fonts are becoming more sophisticated.

> the way TAG preferes to deal with Teamim is by bringing the Nikud Back and placing both Nikud & Taam As one unit.
Taam does not come of centered of the nikud as in the
manual settings.

Please explain. What do you mean "bringing the Nikud Back" and "both Nikud & Taam As one unit" and "Taam does not come of centered of the nikud as in the manual settings".

> Guttman Vilna by yoel ganzburg

Who is he?

> Guttman’s Teamim are not lighter than the Nikud, thay are both same weight.

In the famous Romm family typefaces of Vilna, Lithuania, popularly known as Vilna, the taam symbols were created lighter than the nikkud, unlike most other Hebrew fonts.

Did Yoel Ginsburg do this like the original? My guess is not.

If we look at all the incarnations of Vilna, this feature is dumped, like even many of the letterform designs.

Frederick Goudy reports in his little book that the father Romm traveled to Italy with old drawings of the correct Vilna typefaces, and his original metal type masters were created based upon these drawings by the students of the famous Bodoni school of Type Design.

My Romm/Vilna seeks to be a faithful re-creation of these typefaces.

> next to open type fonts were developed.
1. Sil Ezra
2. Guttman Vilna by yoel ganzburg

You didn't mention John Hudson's SBL-Hebrew. I didn't see Yoel Ganzburg's Guttman Vilna. But the Sil Ezra typefaces are poor.

OpenType has many features, which are not part of FontLab Studio. Hence, if an OpenType Hebrew font was not editing in MS Volt, it is very limited. Even in Volt, there are different levels of quality.

> both tried bringing back nikud when there is a taam.
both used Mark and/or MarktoMark Positioning but could not utilize the pair abjusments because indesign CS did not Support this fuction in right to left.

trying to do so, indesign would shift the nikud forwards rather than backwards this bug was only fixed in CS2
(Office 2003 allready did support this)

instead, both projects use 3 minus spaces glyphs in order to shift back the nikud. this resulted unaccurat positioning because glyphs were treated as THIN SPACE, MIDSPACE and WIDE SPACE.

today, hebrew fonts can use Pair abjusments in order to move back the nikud rather than minus spaces, this results much more accurate positioning.

Now, in my fonts Normal does not include The Pair abjusment feature. with a Stylistic Set you may use a pair abjustment and then replacing taam to nikud.

this featur must come after feature.

----------------------------------------------

This is very abstract. Please break the ideas up into units, and explain each one at length.

> In the famous Romm family typefaces of Vilna, Lithuania, popularly known as Vilna, the taam symbols were created lighter than the nikkud, unlike most other Hebrew fonts.

This is not quite right. Do you have any book, sample? if the taam is lighter or darker than the nikkud -- this is a matter of taste; there's nothing wrong or right. So, what is the big deal: "Did Yoel Ginsburg do this like the original? My guess is not."

David,

When I created these faces, I clearly recall this, but I also thought it was a matter of "taam v'rayach". Recently, Raphael Freedman suggested the reason was to set apart the taamim from the nikkud.

Nevertheless, I will scan and post samples next week.

I have never seem a version of Vilna created exactly like the original Widow and Brothers Romm version, which I replicated in detail. Hence, I concluded that I doubted that Gansbourg did so in Guttman Vilna.

The reason Raphael suggests is fascinating, and makes a lot of sense.

With all due respect, David, I don't buy your explanation. It's like saying, the ink spilled and created the Vilna face.

.

.

.

Nikkud

Taam

if you are interested in SHEVA NA-NACH, DAGESH HAZAQ-KAL and QAMATS QATAN here is a sample of ERETSHAZVI doing all this

ShevaNa = 2 sqr
ShevaNACH= 2 circles
Dagesh kal = Circle
Dagesh hazaq=Sqr
qamats qatan= Long qamats

check it out...

heres a link

www.eftype.prog.co.il/tehilim2.pdf

this is not for a forum
its too much to write
and i dont write english well.
if you think i can help you i would be more than happy to talk with you/
my Phone number is at home
02-9919841

i guess you would hav to dial a prefix (+927)?

my mail is
studiofried@gmail.com

how ever you wish

> I will scan and post samples next week.

Israel,

well? :^)

---------------------------

Well, what?

I forgot whatever you were trying to show me by this. Please remind me. Landeinu, rabbeinu. :)