Or, in my caustic way, I guess I could just say, "Quark blows, again." This isn't even a Hebrew issue.
Working on a new Siddur (prayerbook) project, I decided to create some quick samples of the proposed cover using Quark 4.whatever on my Mac, where most of my fonts reside. I have created a special Hebrew layout for many Hebrew fonts so that, by typing backwards and kerning the vowels into place, I can use them with XPress. What I forgot was that the program doesn't know how to handle OpenType fonts, so when I went to create a PDF to send to the client, I got printing errors. I mention this only because at the recent MacWorld I made a point of stopping by the Quark book and asking if this has been incorporated into the current version. No such luck.
But, I did have a demo of InDesign 2 on the Mac (usually I now use InDesign CS on my Windows machine) which I reinstalled and used to import the Quark file, then to create the desired PDF. Piece of cake.
I wish Quark would do something to make me regret moving on to InDesign and investing in the MiddleEast (i.e., knows how to handle Hebrew) version of same. Actually, maybe I don't wish that, except that I have loved to hate Quark for so many years that it is hard simply moving on with my life and not hassling with the same old issues any more.
I am working on the new Singer's Prayer Book, doing it all in InDesign CS ME and I'm finding Indy to be a great tool for the project.
Likewise, I am doing my first siddur using InDesign. What a pleasure! (The client just totally revised the page size and other specs. Compared to what I would have gone through with XPress, this is such a breeze - and most of the delays are caused by my inexperience, not InDesign, per se.)
I am currently working in quark 5.0 with a Hebrew-English project. It is a disaster! I am switching to InDesign - it seems that that is the way to go - but I need to know where I can purchase fonts to go along with the package. My current fonts are fake Hebrew fonts.
The trick isn't to work with Quark or InDesign (although I love InDesign and have happily abandoned XPress), but to make sure that you have the MiddleEastern version of the tool, so that you can handle the Hebrew in logical order without "fake Hebrew" fonts.
I am happy to have another excuse to note that FontWorld (see sidebar) provides the InDesign ME package (among many others) for the North American market, and has been excellent. Installing InDesign also gives you some good basic Hebrew fonts, although I personally prefer the OpenType Hebrew fonts I purchased from masterfont in Israel (which also include Yiddish characters).
I am starting to work on Hebrew-English liner notes. I do not want to invest in INDesign ME, as this is a very occacsional project.
What steps do I have to take to set Hebrew type in either Quark (6.3) or Indesign CS on OS X (10.3.9). I'm about to get a new computer with Tiger.
Thank you.
Your blog is a great resource!!
If you do not have the tools to do the job, then you need to find alternatives. (One of them really is _not_ trying to do decent work in Hebrew with tools that have no hooks to work with Hebrew.)
You have three choices.
1. Find a Hebrew font that will let you type backwards and to kern the vowels into place (if needed). From experience, this is tedious.
2. Find a compositor who can handle Hebrew and get the Hebrew as a PDF that you can plug in to your layout. This can be messy as your page layout changes.
3. Find someone else to typeset the liner notes who knows both Hebrew and English typography.
I received a Word Document with Hebrew text, which I need to import into InDesign.
But when I do this, the type flips, and is (presumably) backwards.
Any ideas on how to deal with this?
If you do not have a version of InDesign that understands Hebrew (specifically, the Middle East version, available in the US from FontWorld, for instance), then it cannot handle Hebrew - it won't present Hebrew in the correct direction, won't properly use the OpenType vowel placement, etc.