Hebrew Support for Your Browser

To see all of the Hebrew on this site as it is intended to be seen, we recommend Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 5.0 (IE5) or later for Windows 95 or later, for which fine Hebrew support is supplied either on installation or as an update.  We must note that sadly the Hebrew support in IE7 is inferior to the Hebrew support in IE6, due to "improvements" in the rendering engine; hopefully IE8 will again be as good as IE6 was.

If you have IE5 or later, but it does not show our Hebrew correctly--first check that you have set the browser to choose the right encoding automatically:  click on "View" on the menu at the top of the screen, and then on "Encoding", and see that "Auto-Select" is checked; if it is not, do check it.  If that still does not work, you presumably need to download the free Hebrew support package:  click on "Tools" on the menu at the top of the screen, and then on "Windows Update"; when you get to the Windows Update site, click on "Product Updates", and when you finally get the list of possible updates (this may take a long time), scroll down to the "Hebrew support" and get it.  (While you are there, if you see any Critical Updates, you should also get them.)

Standard Windows Hebrew support does include vowels, but it does not include cantillation marks in our Bible with Cantillation Marks.  To support cantillation marks and not see black rectangles, you need to install a special font supporting cantillation marks; we also highly recommend installing the improved version from Office 2003 of the special helper program called the "Uniscribe Script Processor" responsible for handling complex scripts like Biblical Hebrew.

If you have Linux or insist on using the Mozilla Firefox under Windows instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Firefox 3 does support most of the Hebrew on our site including vowels and cantillation marks, but not the proper placement of Holam in words like `awon; Firefox 2 does not support Hebrew with vowels properly, unlike version 3.  For Linux, the Konqueror Web Browser reportedly renders our Hebrew better than Firefox 2.

If you have a Mac, Microsoft's Internet Explorer does not properly support our normal right-to-left Hebrew, but Apple Safari does reportedly support our Hebrew (even with vowels) and there is Firefox 3 for the MAC as well as Windows and Linux.  We have abandoned our previous plans for versions for Visual Hebrew for older browsers (Left-to-Right "Euro" fonts) and Mac's unique RTL Hebrew.

For a much more detailed explanation of setting up Hebrew on your Windows or Mac browser including typing in Hebrew for search boxes and the like (not just passively seeing Hebrew), visit City Wall!

If you have any questions or comments,   We intend to answer all real (non-junk non-virus) mail within a day or two; so if you do not hear from us within three days, please write again assuming that either your letter or our answer has been lost, which is hardly rare these days.  Note that letters with attached programs that can be run and letters with huge attachments are automatically rejected.  The hundreds of letters we get each month have helped us improve the site greatly, and we thank you for your on-going help:  God bless you all!

last updated:  19 June 2008