Nikud - Hebrew Culmus fonts in LaTeX with vowel-point placing

2004/12/24: A new version is available (0.101.0):

Uses Culmus fonts version 0.101.
Supports babel versions 3.7 and 3.8 (Ivritex)

2004/10/29: A new version is available (0.100.0):

Uses Culmus fonts version 0.100.
Doesn't conflict with Ivritex (I hope).
Hyphens and dashes work also in Nachlieli font (sans serif).

Project highlights

Culmus fonts replaces poor Hebrew Metafonts.
Good vowel-point placing
Hebrew bibliography
Smart Hebrew references
Easy to use

An example of the output

Details

This project provides all the files needed to use Culmus fonts in Latex (elatex) with Hebrew vowel-points (Nikud). Vowel-points are placed using type-3 Postscript fonts that wrap Culmus fonts. The Type-3 fonts are an implementation of a method publish by Sivan Toledo for Vowel-point placing.

The package currently uses Culmus fonts from version 0.100, and includes all the needed fonts.

Also included, is a modified version of varioref.sty package -- variorefh.sty, and a modified version of multibib.sty -- multibibheb.sty. These are for Hebrew cross-referencing and bibliography. See samples

Downloading and installing

Project page in Berlios: http://developer.berlios.de/projects/nikud/

Important: there is a difference between the installation process for babel 3.7 and babel 3.8 (Ivritex). New linux distributions (e.g. Mandrake 10.1) comes with babel 3.8, in which the Hebrew support adapted the changes made in Ivritex.
To check which babel version you have, look in the file babel.def (you can find where the file is by running kpsewhich babel.def) at the line beggining with %%\ProvidesFile...

A remark on texmf tree

If you want to work locally (recommended), make sure you have a local texmf tree: edit texmf.cnf (you may use kpsewhich texmf.cnf to find its location), and add $HOMETEXMF to the search path (in Mandrake 9.1 and above this is default so you don't have to do anything, but in 9.0 you have to make the change).

There are three option for downloading and installing the package:

The texmf tree

Untar nikud_texmf_for_babel_3.x-0.101.0.tar.bz2 into your main or local texmf tree
Become root (su).
Add the line:
p +culmus.map
to the file config.ps. You may find where it is by running:
kpsewhich --format="dvips config" config.ps
Run mktexlsr

Source (Linux only)

To compile the fonts, the following packages must be installed: tetex, afm, tetex-latex, dvips, iconv, perl.

Untar nikud-0.101.0.tar.bz2.
Edit Makefile and set the variables as you like (you really don't have to change anything if you work locally).
Run make.
If you have babel 3.7, run make install. If you have babel 3.8, run make install BABEL_3_8=1.
Become root (su).
Add the line:
p +culmus.map
to the file config.ps. You may find where it is by running:
kpsewhich --format="dvips config" config.ps

RPM

Just install nikud_for_babel_3.7-0.101.0-1.noarch.rpm, or nikud_for_babel_3.8-0.101.0-1.noarch.rpm, depending on your babel version.

How to use

preparing the source file

You have to use the installed package culmus.sty:

\documentclass...
\usepackage{culmus}

(babel is implicitly included by culmus.sty)

Source file should be cp1255 encoded (or ISO-8859-8, if you don't need Nikud). You may edit your source file in Unicode (UTF-8) and convert it to cp1255 with iconv.

Running latex

To create a postscript file, use elatex and dvips.
To create a pdf file run ps2pdf or some other distiller on your .ps file.
Important: Do not use pdflatex or dvipdf(m) if you are using Hebrew vowel-points (Nikud).

Samples

Samples are in texmf/doc/latex/nikud/samples directory (see the Makefile there). The source is utf-8 encoded. You may use emacs-bidi as an editor.

Links

Culmus fonts: culmus.sf.net
Emacs Bidi: http://www.m17n.org/emacs-bidi/, and my .emacs file: ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/nikud/utils/.emacs

This project is hosted by