03-23-2013, 06:29 AM
I think I better understand now.
The Estrangela font is an ASCII encoded font where each ASCII character corresponds to an Estrangela glyph, with additional forms (initial, medial, final) represented by additional ASCII characters (i.e. if you want a final nun, you need to decide which form you need and then type the appropriate letter [abcdefg...etc.] it corresponds to).
Modern Hebrew fonts are Unicode where each Unicode character corresponds to a Hebrew glyph and additional forms are displayed via separate characters (nun or final nun must be chosen by the typer, but each have their own glyph slot; they don't correspond to ASCII characters at all).
The Meltho fonts are OpenType Unicode where each Unicode character corresponds to an Estrangela/Madnhaya/Serto glyph and additional forms are displayed using OpenType contextual rendering (they are determined when they are rendered by the operating system based upon context; the proper form of nun at the end of a word is chosen by the computer).
So, the only way to change Paul's Word documents into Hebrew Unicode or Meltho fonts is to change the encoding of the actual letters themselves into Hebrew Unicode or Syriac Unicode. Sadly, because of the structure of the Word documents, themselves, the only efficient way to do it is manually, as doing so programmatically (i.e. with a conversion program) is fraught with serious difficulties with how the text, itself, is formatted and typed into the document.
For example /shlama/ is represented as (if I remember correctly) ")ml$" in the Word document, and the Estrangela font changes those letters into Syriac letters for display. However, as far as the computer understands, they are *still* dollar-sign, lowercase-l, lowercase-m and left-parenthesis, not shin, lamed, mim, and alaf.
An alternative, is to actually fiddle with Paul's Estrangela font and copy and paste another font's glyphs over the Estrangela glyphs. This sort of thing you *can* do with FontForge, but it's also tedious and prone to glitch (when dealing with things like final forms, etc.). You would then need to distribute this new font along with the word document, otherwise it will not display properly. (In truth, this is really a band-aid solution.)
I hope I was clear enough. :-)
The Estrangela font is an ASCII encoded font where each ASCII character corresponds to an Estrangela glyph, with additional forms (initial, medial, final) represented by additional ASCII characters (i.e. if you want a final nun, you need to decide which form you need and then type the appropriate letter [abcdefg...etc.] it corresponds to).
Modern Hebrew fonts are Unicode where each Unicode character corresponds to a Hebrew glyph and additional forms are displayed via separate characters (nun or final nun must be chosen by the typer, but each have their own glyph slot; they don't correspond to ASCII characters at all).
The Meltho fonts are OpenType Unicode where each Unicode character corresponds to an Estrangela/Madnhaya/Serto glyph and additional forms are displayed using OpenType contextual rendering (they are determined when they are rendered by the operating system based upon context; the proper form of nun at the end of a word is chosen by the computer).
So, the only way to change Paul's Word documents into Hebrew Unicode or Meltho fonts is to change the encoding of the actual letters themselves into Hebrew Unicode or Syriac Unicode. Sadly, because of the structure of the Word documents, themselves, the only efficient way to do it is manually, as doing so programmatically (i.e. with a conversion program) is fraught with serious difficulties with how the text, itself, is formatted and typed into the document.
For example /shlama/ is represented as (if I remember correctly) ")ml$" in the Word document, and the Estrangela font changes those letters into Syriac letters for display. However, as far as the computer understands, they are *still* dollar-sign, lowercase-l, lowercase-m and left-parenthesis, not shin, lamed, mim, and alaf.
An alternative, is to actually fiddle with Paul's Estrangela font and copy and paste another font's glyphs over the Estrangela glyphs. This sort of thing you *can* do with FontForge, but it's also tedious and prone to glitch (when dealing with things like final forms, etc.). You would then need to distribute this new font along with the word document, otherwise it will not display properly. (In truth, this is really a band-aid solution.)
I hope I was clear enough. :-)