A major problem which many Mellel users have come across is that when they are writing text in both English and Hebrew, even though when they have chosen the Secondary script (i.e.Hebrew) and an appropriate Hebrew font for use when the Hebrew flag has been selected, and have been writing in Hebrew, the puncuation marks turn out to be those from the Primary (i.e. English) font.
There is a way to avoid this unfortunate situation.
First: Choose your "Regular" Character Style and name it English. Choose the font and characteristics you wish for English language writing.
Second: Make a new Character Style and name it Hebrew. Make sure the Hebrew flag is selected in the Flag Menu, and make sure the new Hebrew Character Style is chosen. Then In the Secondary Font palette choose the language as Hebrew and the font as the Hebrew font you want to use.
But -- and this is vital -- using the Character Menu choose the style you have named Hebrew, and choose the Primary font to be exactly the same as you chose for the Secondary Font: for instance the Primary and Secondary fonts might both be New Peninim 12pt.
Thirdly, rename two paragraph styles as English and Hebrew respectively and make sure the associated character styles are English for the English paragraph style and Hebrew for the Hebrew paragraph style.
You will now find that when writing English, the punctuation marks will be the normal ones for the English language. But when writing Hebrew, providing the Hebrew paragraph style is selected as well as the Hebrew flag, Mellel will use the punctuation marks from the Hebrew font.
Don Broadribb
Making punctuation marks proper for 2nd language
Moderators: Eyal Redler, redlers, Ori Redler
Re: Making punctuation marks proper for 2nd language
Thanks, Don. Very helpful.
Rich
old, slow, and confused...but at least I’m inconsistent!
iMac 27" (10. 13. 8 ) and MBP 13" Retina (10. 13. 8 )
old, slow, and confused...but at least I’m inconsistent!
iMac 27" (10. 13. 8 ) and MBP 13" Retina (10. 13. 8 )
Re: Making punctuation marks proper for 2nd language
Yes, of course, Don, that is a workaround that solves the problem, but it also totally eliminates the advantage of having primary and secondary fonts.
Your solution forces me to use the English font delivered with the Hebrew font -- not usually the choice I would make.
[Hebrew font foundries often have a very limited number of English fonts which they tag onto all of their diverse Hebrew fonts.]
Also, because Hebrew fonts have to leave room for upper and lower extenders as well as diacritics, Hebrew characters tend to be smaller than the corresponding English characters. I solve this problem by defining my secondary Hebrew fonts as 15-30% larger than the primary English font. That means that Hebrew punctuation (taken from the primary font) will appear 15-30% smaller than it should.
Janet
Your solution forces me to use the English font delivered with the Hebrew font -- not usually the choice I would make.
[Hebrew font foundries often have a very limited number of English fonts which they tag onto all of their diverse Hebrew fonts.]
Also, because Hebrew fonts have to leave room for upper and lower extenders as well as diacritics, Hebrew characters tend to be smaller than the corresponding English characters. I solve this problem by defining my secondary Hebrew fonts as 15-30% larger than the primary English font. That means that Hebrew punctuation (taken from the primary font) will appear 15-30% smaller than it should.
Janet
