Here are the simple steps that you need to take to make everything work.
Pull down under the apple on your menu bar and open up System Preferences. Then choose "International".
If Hebrew is not on your list on the left, you can click on "edit list" and add it.
Make sure that Hebrew is
checked. Next click on "Input Menu". Check "Character Palette" and
"Keyboard Viewer". This will make it easier to enter any kind of letter
in your text. Also be sure to check "Show input in menu bar".
Next, pull down the list
until you find Hebrew. You will have "Hebrew" which is the regular
Hebrew keyboard layout that you would find in Israel.
There is also
"Hebrew QWERTY". This is especially nice if you do not already know the
Hebrew keyboard layout. With this you can type a "b" and get a bet, a
"g" and get a gimel, etc. You can choose one of these or both. Compare the QWERTY Hebrew and English keyboard layouts below.
(The Hebrew QWERTY keyboard layout for the Mac has been around for years. It has become so popular that an exact copy has been made for use on Windows computers)
If you look at your menu bar, you should now see a flag next to the clock.
You can pull down on the flag and change the input to Hebrew
Now let's see how Mail works when we paste some text in an outgoing message.
The only problem is that
the final period in a paragraph is placed at the beginning of the final
line. The nice thing about Mail is that this is corrected when the
message is received.
To make sure that your Hebrew messages are always formatted correctly, you can use this little application by Nir Sofer
to set your Hebrew charset as the default. This can interfere if you're
sending out and receiving letter in Spanish or other accented
languages, but it definitely helps the Hebrew.
Gmail by Google also displays the Hebrew well using a browser. If you have Gmail set to English, you still have the problem with the final period.
However, if you go into the Gmail settings...
You can change the language to Hebrew...
After you save the settings, it will look like this...
Now, when you look at the message, the problem with the final period has been solved.
If you want to do word processing in Hebrew, there are several choices.
Of the five, only Nisus
and Mellel cost money. However, the price is small and the applications
do a very good job with the Hebrew. Textedit, which comes free with all
Macs, has only minimal formatting abilility and it has the same problem
with the period at the end of a paragraph, as does NeoOffice.
You have to install Xll (a
free program from Apple) to run OpenOffice. However, Open Office does
an excellent job with the Hebrew and even shows misspelled words.
Nisus Express also does a very nice job.
Mellel, the choice of many who write professionally in Hebrew, also displays the Hebew well.
The thing to remember with all of these applications is that you need to choose "Lucida Grande" as your font (or another Unicode font) or the Hebrew will be displayed with random non-Hebrew letters.
If you are still running OS9, try this page.
A great source for information on writing in Hebrew on a Mac is the IsraMac mailing list. Join the list and have your questions answered by experts.
