Can't Display Hebrew Letters

[KH]

I have some Hebrew words in my Word documents but they just don't display
right. When I open the document all I see of the Hebrew words are
gobbedegook. How do I correct this so Word documents with Hebrew words will
display and print correctly. I am using Word 2007 Home and Student edition.

Thanks.

 

[grammatim]

What font is the Hebrew in? Is that font installed on your computer?
If not, select the Hebrew and change its font to Arial Unicode or
Times New Roman. Does it look right now?

Do you have the "Hebrew keyboard" turned on in Windows? (Start >
Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Language > Add
Keyboard)

 

[KH]

Thank you for your response. I am using Windows Vista Home edition. When I
go to the control panel and then to regional and language options, I see a
"keyboard and languages" tab and I click on that, then I click on "change
keyboard" and in the "general tab" I click on "add" then I chose "Hebrew
(Israel)" and check-marked "Hebrew".

I believe the font is something called BWHEBB (WP Hebrew David) but that was
TTF file that I pasted into the Font folder. Prior to that I didn't have any
Hebrew font in my Office 2007 Home and Student Edition.

With those TTF files pasted in, now when I click on fonts in Word 2007, I
can see Hebrew letterings but the letters in the Word document remain
unchanged, they are still gobbledegook. I am pasting an example here for you
to see - 1) dbeK' (Käbëd): literally “to be heavyâ€. Instead of Hebrew
letters what I have, as you can see, is a dbek'. How do I install the right
Hebrew font? I have since deleted those TTF files that I pasted into the
Font folder.

Thank you.

 

[grammatim]

(1) You don't "paste" fonts into the Fonts folder; you "install" them;
the easiest way to do it is to right-click on the name, in whichever
folder it happens to be stored in, and choose Install. In Vista and
2007, you don't even have to close and reopen Word for the font to
become available for use.

(2) You did indeed have Hebrew fonts in your system already -- as I
said, both Times New Roman and Arial Unicode include Hebrew (and much
else).

(3) However, you've just revealed that this document started out in
WordPerfect, which means all bets are off. It's well known here that
some WP fonts do not conform to Unicode, so it's very likely that WP
Hebrew also doesn't; which means that even if you've gotten the
letters to appear correctly, Word doesn't know that they're supposed
to be Hebrew, so it doesn't display them right-to-left. If you don't
simply retype your Hebrew text using a standard font, no one else who
doesn't happen to have this legacy WP font will be able to read it,
either.

(4) Now that you've installed Hebrew in your Windows system, you'll
see that a new icon now appears near the right end of the Windows (not
Word) status bar (very bottom of your screen), a square with EN. Click
on that, and choose Hebrew instead. (Or, toggle between them with Alt
+Shift.) In order to see the keyboard you're using, go to Start > All
Programs > Accessories > Accessibility > On-screen Keyboard. Now, when
your cursor is in a document where Hebrew is selected, move your
cursor over the on-screen keyboard and it will show you the Hebrew
letters. (If you need vowels, IIRC you get them with a combination of
CapsLock and Shift and they're way too small to see on the On-screen
Keyboard.) You then type either by typing on your keyboard, or by
clicking on the on-screen key images.

 

[KH]

Thank you again for your help. I see what you mean in (3). Looks like I was
given the wrong font to install. The font was sent to me by a friend. May
be that is why it isn't working. I am told that Word 2007 Home and Student
edition does not come with Hebrew font. Is that right? How or where can I
find the correct Hebrew font to install?

 

[KH]

Hi again, I forgot to mention that after going through all that you said
with the WP font that was sent to me, now when I click on the window in Word
2007 that shows the font I am using, the letters that appear at the side of
each font type appear like Hebrew letters. Previously, before I tried
installing the Hebrew font, the letters next to each font type were in
English. Now I don't know how to get it back to displaying the normal
alphabets again. Do you know how I can do that? Thanks.

 

[grammatim]

I'm not sure what you mean (that's never happened to me). If nothing
else, you've proved that you do indeed have at least a Hebrew system
font in your computer!

I wonder whether you've somewhere managed to switch your operating
system, or maybe Office, to using Hebrew as its system language.

Are these Hebrew font labels in all different fonts, like the usual
fonts menu? Do they in fact give the names of the fonts?

 

[grammatim]

I don't know any reason why Home-and-Student can't handle Hebrew; you
get Hebrew with Windows (not Word), and Word is Word, no matter what
package it came in.

Did you install the Hebrew keyboard, and did you get the "Language
Bar" icon (the square with EN) as a result?