Importing RTF/Word documents containing Hebrew & Greek

Eric Peterson · Post by **Eric Peterson** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:20 am

I must confess that I am a "trial" Mellel user, and in fact new to the Mac world in general (after spending years in CPM/DOS/Windows environments). As old as my knees tell me I am, I am also going back to school and now taking 3rd semester Hebrew and Greek classes. I am TRYING to learn Mac stuff (version 10.4.8 on my new "MacBook") as well as Accordance having grown up with Bible Works and most recently Win XP. My instructors hand out informative files in Word format, using both Hebrew and Greek characters; I've never had a problem opening/viewing them on my old Dell laptop, or modifying them with original or copied text (the latter from Bible Works) using Word. However, and perhaps I haven't queried either the latest Mellel pdf manual or the beginners tutorial enough, but I cannot get anything but garbage characters from these files in Mellel either importing Word or RTF files (and I've exported/imported them all in both formats). I've tried altering the font assignments in Mellel (though not all of the Hebrew/Greek fonts I've imported via SBL seem to appear).

HELP! Is this Mac or Mellel ignorance or both, or just me once again showing my age?

ochsenmeier · Post by **ochsenmeier** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:53 pm

Are all the fonts garbage or just Heb. Greek? If so, it all depends on the fonts used in the original file. You need to make sure you have the fonts on your Mac too. Ideally your instructor should use Unicode fonts.
That's probably all it is.
Otherwise import the files in Mellel (File Import). If that does not work save the files as rtf in Word (if possible) and import in Mellel. If that does not work download OpenOffice, open the files, save them as rtf and import them in Mellel.
By the way, I have also recently switched to Mac and Accordance after about 20 years of Dos and then Windows. Would not go back now. So hang in there.
Erwin

Eric Peterson · Post by **Eric Peterson** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:51 pm

Thanks for your help! Both Greek and Hebrew were coming out illegible; I tried the RTF channel through Word and that didn't work; a fellow student (raised on Mac) in class today suggested copyiing over the BibleWorks Greek and Hebrew fonts onto my Mac: that worked fine with both.

As the Windows user I've been, I guess I didn't realize that ttf originating from Windows OS would work in the MacOS--proof that years of use do not guarantee in-depth understanding!

I do appreciate your implicit Unicode suggestion--I'll bring that up with my instructors; they may very well not realize, as I didn't, the cross-platform importance of Unicode fonts. In the mean time I'll stay the course in my battle with my MacBook!

Eric

Sefer11 · Post by **Sefer11** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 9:45 pm

I am glad you were able to solve your problem. Here is a related topic since you are new to Mac and Accordance.

If you want to export Hebrew and Greek from Accordance in Unicode, you need to change the preference settings under Greek & Hebrew to export all characters as unicode.