After some more reading in forums I found (and understood, or not) the following:
The babel package contains the font encodings and metrics and definitions needed to use the Culmus fonts, but not the fonts themselves, which today are readily availabe for linux and Windows. Latex CANNOT have font definitions by encodings, it can only have ONE encoding, and ONE font family at any given time, and you can change them, of course, but there is no memory for the font used in the encoding. The Hebrew font families define font substitutions for the English letters using the cmr fonts, so when you define the hebrew font family, your English will be in computer modern. It isn't a bad font :). I think the way to go about it using lyx (and leaving latex's problem as they are) is to define the \language english and \language hebrew macros to include a font definition as well, if the default fonts aren't used, but that is something I don't have the time to begin to learn how to do, and it may not be the best solution. Nikud is nice to have, but it isn't needed in every day life unless you write the Bible or childrens' books or poetry, or quote from such sources. Lyx already knows how to include vowel points (see Sivan Toledo's page in tau.ac.il) - I don't know by which packages, but it works, although sometimes the signs are somewhat misplaced. The Nikud package you mentioned promises that the vowel points are not misplaced, but I don't know how the nikud works in lyx, so I don't know what is the cost of replacing or changing lyx to use this package. As for the Culmus fonts, they are already incorporated through ivritex/babel, so using Nikud won't change anything with respect to that. Can we have a "feature request" regarding font definitions for different encodings in lyx (and not latex)? Miki "Dov Feldstern" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Hi! > > You should also check out this package: http://nikud.berlios.de/ . It is > mainly for using nikud, but as a side effect it also uses the culmus > fonts. It's also really simple to use --- after the initial setup > (explained on the site), all you need to do is use the culmus package > instead of babel. I've used it a little bit here and there, but not very > much --- I'd be happy to hear how this compares to the solution described > below. Please keep us posted! > > It seems to me that perhaps LyX should use this package (or something > similar) by default, since the default ivritex fonts are not great --- > especially when it comes to bold or italics... How would one go about > doing something like that? (not that I have time to do that at the moment, > but maybe someone else could...?) > > Dov > > Miki Dovrat wrote: >> I actually got it working!!!! >> >> I feel I am stating the obvious to the Hebrew users who already KNOW the >> answer and didn't have time to respond. >> >> There is a package called "hebfont.sty", written by Boris Lavva, which >> has created macros to use all the hebrew fonts (culmus, and the old >> default ones) as >> \DeclareTextFontCommand{\text..}{\fontfamily{somefontname}\selectfont} >> >> The package was apparently installed in Windows by the culmus.exe pointed >> to by the lyx wiki page on setting up Hebrew. I have seen that this >> package is a part of ivritex as well. >> >> He lists there all of the following culmus fonts by their names: david, >> frank, aharoni, drugulin, yad, ellinia, miriam, nachlieli, as well as the >> old fonts which came with previous latex distributions. >> >> These \selectfont commands get cancelled every time a language change is >> made from Hebrew to English or math, so they are good for a few words, a >> paragraph or so, but I found an explanation how to change the default >> font of the entire document and other font related commands here: >> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rf10/pstex/latexcommands.htm >> >> so >> >> \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{ellinia} will change all Hebrew in the document >> to the culmus font Ellinia (for example). >> >> It isn't exactly what I want since it also changes back the English font >> to its default cmr (It was lmodren), so I will actually have to look how >> to change only the left to right parts. >> >> There is much more variety in the culmus fonts, and they look better. >> >> Thanks for everyone who replied on and off the group. >> >> Miki > >
