QText Version 8.0 Help Notes

Unicode

Please click here for an overview explanation of Unicode and why it's potentially important for Yiddish on the Web and also in email.  The QText program itself does not support Unicode. However, thanks to contributions from Noyekh Miller, an active member of UYIP (Understanding Yiddish Information Processing),  read below to find out:

• How to Create Unicode text from QText documents

• How to Convert Unicode text into QText documents

How to Create Unicode text from QText documents:

Step-by-step instructions are below. One known problem is that the paragraph breaks from QText will be lost in the Unicode document. If you have the ability to edit Unicode documents, you could try the following to resolve this problem: From within QText, insert a special symbol (e.g., ##) at the end of each paragraph. Then, in your Unicode editor; e.g., Word 2000 in Windows 2000, use Search and Replace to replace the symbols with paragraph breaks (usually coded ^p). Unfortunately, these symbols must be added to each paragraph manually in QText. Unfortunately you cannot use QText's Search and Replace to do it; apparently, QText marks paragraphs in some non-standard way.

1. Create your QText Yiddish document as usual.

2. Go to the menu item File/Import-Export

a. Set Hebrew at 224

b. Set Logical Hebrew order

c. Hit Save ASCII file

d. Change File Type to *.txt before you name and save file.

3. Go to the yidish-shraybmashinke.    (Click here to read more about the Yiddish Typewriter.)

        a. Click Input - QText

        b. Click Output - YIVO

        c. Hit the Browse button to find the *.txt file you created from QText.

        d. Hit Submit.

        e. Hit Edit, Select All, and then Edit, Copy to copy the YIVO-style transcription.

        f. Go back to the shraybmashinke, and Hit Clear Text.

        g. Click in the text area and Paste (Edit Paste or Cntrl+V).

        h. Set Input to YIVO and output to MS-Hebrew.

4. What you will get is a web page with your Yiddish text displayed. In your web browser, go to File, Save As  and save as in the format  filename.htm or filename.html.  What you can do with this depends on your system, as described in the Overview of Unicode. For example, If you're running Word 2000 in Windows 2000, you can open the *.htm  or *.html file in Word for further editing, provided your Windows 2000 system is configured for Yiddish in Unicode. Click here for important additional notes about working with Yiddish in Word 2000 in Windows 2000.

How to Convert Unicode text into QText documents:

I haven't been able to try this myself, because I don't have the software to create Unicode UTF-8 files. Please email me with any corrections. This applies (perhaps only) to Word 2000 on Windows 2000, but may work on other platforms as well:

1. In Word, save the file as a UTF-8 file.

2. Go to the yidish-shraybmashinke.    (Click here to read more about the Yiddish Typewriter.)

        a. Click Input - Unicode UTF-8

        b. Click Output - QText

        c. Hit the Browse button to find the Unicode file you created from Word.

        d. Hit Submit.

3. See Notes for Creating a QText file with the Yiddish Typewriter.

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