Can't see Hebrew

If you can't see the Hebrew texts in the Bet Midrash Virtuali we suggest that you upgrade your browser. As far as we can tell both Netscape 6 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for Windows users will automatically install the necessary fonts when you try to visit a page that needs them; all you have to do is click OK when asked for authorization. Since the Bet Midrash Virtuali is best viewed with these browsers we suggest you upgrade.

To reach Netscape click here and to reach Microsoft Explorer click here.

Macintosh users may wish to take the advice sent us by one participant, Professor Naomi Koltun-Fromm, which is reproduced here:

For anyone using a Mac and Netscape 6 and who still cannot read some web pages in Hebrew (or the Hebrew appears but backwards) they should go to Mozilla and download their browser (for free!) and miracle of miracles - it works! For those who are curious (tho I am not expert) it is a spin off of Netscape (so it will read your bookmarks from Netscape) and uses open source formatting (that is, if I understand correctly, it reads you in PC and me in Mac and everyone is translatable).

Here are some further hints that have been forwarded by subscribers. Shel Schiffman wrote to me:

I can't see the Hebrew as Hebrew, although I do have ... Hebrew fonts, and I have no difficulty seeing Hebrew in other places, e.g., Snunit... I tried copying the text into Word and applying a Hebrew font, to no avail. Please advise.

I responded:

In your mailer programme go to Tools and then to Options. Somewhere in there (it could be under "read" or under "language" or something similar find the "default encoding" choice box. Set it to "Hebrew-Windows" and see if that helps. (Whenever on the Web you can't read the Hebrew try right-clicking and selecting "encoding". Seek for the Hebrew encoding and play around with it until the Hebrew becomes readable.)

Shel responded to me:

Setting the default encoding to Hebrew (there was only one Hebrew option) in Outlook Express made the Hebrew text in your mailing readable. Unfortunately, I can't leave that setting because I don't like its effect on my English font...

Before I could respond to Shel I got the following joyous message from Ellen Schwartz:

I had always been able to see correct Hebrew off the web site and I never understood why the Hebrew was gibberish in the emails. It had certainly been disappointing to me to not be able to view the Hebrew text. I just tried looking in the View menu in Outlook Express and under "encoding" I saw that it was set to "Western European (ISO)" When I looked under other encoding options I found two for Hebrew and selecting either of those made the Hebrew appear perfectly (while not affecting the English text). This same solution worked when I accessed the emails directly from hotmail (without using Outlook). Perhaps others were also not aware of these encoding options. Just passing it along as a suggestion for others.

This is a message from Jordan Wosnick which I think many will also find helpful:

If anyone inquires about how to view the Hebrew characters in your shiurim using the Mozilla or Netscape e-mail programs, please feel free to pass on the following info -

To change the Hebrew characters into meaningful ones (not gibberish), select "Character Coding" [or "Encoding" in some cases - SR] under the "View" menu, then under "More" you should be able to find a "Middle Eastern" category and various Hebrew code sets, pretty much all of which seem to work for me.

I have yet to get vowellised Hebrew text to appear appropriately though. It's my next challenge.

I comment:

All this, of course, assumes that you have installed Hebrew fonts!