In the name of the Lord, the everlasting God (Genesis 21,33) MTR MANUAL FOR ENGLISH READERS Print this file in a monospace font (e.g. Courier), not a proportional font. (Line-widths are 75 characters or less) (Page-lengths are 58 lines or less) This is part of the MTR Torah Freeware Package, Version Elul 5764 (C) 2004 Mechon Mamre, 12 Hayyim Vital St., Jerusalem, ISRAEL http://mechon-mamre.org mechon.mamre.org@gmail.com 972-02-652-1906 972-02-651-0718 This file is the English version of MTR's on-line help, which is now available in either Hebrew or English (only in Hebrew in MTRTSR). Additional documentation on MTR, also in Hebrew only, is provided in the following executable files, which are self-displaying text files: hamachon.com, azharot.com, bat.com, ketiv.com, and pissuq.com. The additional information they contain is mostly background material about Mechon Mamre, our approach to the Rambam, our approach to editing the texts and their punctuation and spelling, rather than practical information on the operation of the MTR program. For our non Hebrew-speaking users, we have extracted, from those files and from MTR's on-line Hebrew help, the practical information on the mechanics of using the package in this English version. If you are also interested in the background material on how and why MTR was developed, do read the additional Hebrew documentation after reading this. We invite comments and criticism to help us improve the English support offered with MTR. Note: If you prefer experimenting to reading manuals, you will at least want to know how to exit MTR: Press or (you may need to do this twice), then Enter. For quick reference, the sections listing the keys for performing various functions in MTR are: 4.2, 5.3, 17.2, 18.1, 19, 20, 24.2 CONTENTS -------- 1. OVERVIEW 2. INSTALLATION 1 replacing old versions of mtr 2 unzipping the internet file 3 mtr's directory structure 4 beware of making changes 5 installing mtr in your windows environment 3. FUNCTIONS OF MTR FILES 1 mtr.com 2 mtrfonts.com 3 mtrtsr.com 4 other .com files 5 batch files 6 other files 4. RUNNING MTR 1 mtr on its own 2 two copies of mtr 3 mtr and your word processor 4 command-line options 5 incompatibilities with mtrtsr 5. USING MTR 1 the Hebrew keyboard 2 mtr basics 3 main-page commands 4 other commands 6. SIMPLE SEARCHING 1 entering your search term 2 commencing the search 3 finding the next occurrence 4 stopping and repeating a search 7. CHANGING BOOKS 8. BIBLE BROWSING AND SEARCH OPTIONS 1 spelling styles 2 onqelos 3 concordance/text-browsing mode 9. ABOUT OUR BIBLE PUNCTUATION 1 punctuation and the ta`amim 2 symbols for text-layout 3 the maqqaf 4 punctuation standards 10. SUMMARY TO THIS POINT 11. ADVANCED SEARCHING 1 boolean a "or" b search 2 boolean a "and" b search 3 boolean a "and" (b "or" c) search 4 boolean a "and" "not" b search 5 summary of compound search expressions 12. INCLUDING THE ABBREVIATION SYMBOL (") IN A SEARCH TERM 1 the double-quote mark (") 2 the apostrophe (') 3 example 13. HOMONYMS 14. WHOLE WORDS AND PARTIAL WORDS 15. SPECIFYING PLACES TO SEARCH (SEARCH SCOPE) 1 background: books, volumes, and volume-groupings 2 volume names 3 specifying your search-scope 16. REUSING LAST SEARCH CRITERIA 1 what and where 2 explicit and implicit search criteria 3 exception to inheritance of search scope 17. LOCATION, TEXT, AND CITATION SEARCHES (SEARCH AREAS) 1 structure of mtr files 2 limiting the search area 3 searching text only 4 searching headings and location tags only 5 searching citation references only 6 all-inclusive searches 18. EDITING SEARCH COMMANDS 1 editing keys 2 search-command history-list on disk 19. BROWSING THE TEXT 1 browsing, searching, and help keys 2 resuming your search after browsing 20. CONCORDANCE-MODE FUNCTIONS 21. TO COMMENCE BROWSING AT A SPECIFIC VOLUME 22. MARKING YOUR PLACE (BOOKMARK) 23. BROWSING FROM A SPECIFIC LOCATION WITHIN A VOLUME 1 mishneh torah 2 bible and targum 3 mishnah and tosefta 4 talmud yerushalmi 5 talmud bavli 24. SAVING SEARCH RESULTS 1 sending output to a file 2 pasting blocks of text from mtr into your word processor 3 using mtr's /d command-line option 4 choosing between redirection and pasting blocks 25. CONCLUSION 1 your comments 2 final remarks APPENDIX -------- A1. THE HEBREW KEYBOARD 1 the Hebrew keyboard layout 2 transliteration scheme 3 notes 4 punctuation characters 5 marking your keyboard A2. HEBREW ASCII 1 what is ASCII 2 standard ASCII and IBM ASCII 3 the Israeli standard for ASCII-Hebrew 4 display of Hebrew characters and Hebrew text-files A3. TSR PROGRAMS 1 what is a tsr 2 mtrtsr 3 caveats on loading and running tsrs A4. NOTES ON NT, WINDOWS 2000, AND XP 1. OVERVIEW ------------- The MTR package consists of the Hebrew text of Jewish Scriptures and many of the great classical works of Jewish Torah-learning, plus software for the IBM PC for browsing and searching the texts. The software is all DOS-based and includes Hebrew screen fonts for DOS. MTR may also be run as a DOS application from Windows 3.x or Windows 9x. Minimum installation consists of the MTR software (0.6Mb) and Mishneh Torah by Rambam (Maimonides) (4.6Mb). Additional works in the package are: the Bible, Targum Onqelos, Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Talmud Bavli. The additional components may only be installed in the above sequence; the program requires the presence of all earlier-listed components to be able to use any later-listed ones. Full installation requires at least 28Mb. The texts are stored in unencrypted, plain-text files (in IBM-standard ASCII-Hebrew). (For an explanation of these terms, see the appendix, section A2.) The layout of the text within the files is "logical ordering" (same as for English text). Therefore, ordinary, non- Hebrew-aware software will display these files with the text running from left to right on the screen, making it appear mirror-reversed (sort of) to readers of Hebrew. MTR knows to display them so that the text runs from right to left on the screen, the way Hebrew is written. 2. INSTALLATION ----------------- Installation is easy, using either installation diskettes from Mechon Mamre or the version downloaded in zipped form from the internet, but you must first uninstall any old MTR version. 2.1 REPLACING OLD VERSIONS OF MTR - If you have the diskettes from Mechon Mamre, the INSTALL.EXE program on the installation disk does this for you automatically. - If you have downloaded MTR from an internet site, you must uninstall any old MTR version yourself before installing the new version. If you have a very old version (from before Adar A' 5757), in order to do this, you must get MTRDEL by email from us and run it. This program is required because the old versions of MTR used Hebrew file names, which are not generally supported and are usually only readable, or able to be deleted, by using a special method employed by the old MTR and MTRDEL programs. - WINDOWS 9x USERS If you are running Windows 9x and you have an old version of MTR using Hebrew filenames, exit to DOS before trying to remove the old version. If you run the installation-diskette program or MTRDEL directly from Windows 9x, the deletion of the old files will not work, because the Hebrew filenames are not compatible with Windows 9x. (For the same reason, old versions of MTR cannot be run directly from Windows 9x, though they do work under the Windows 9x DOS-emulation environment -- i.e. you can run them from a DOS prompt opened up under Windows 9x). There are no problems either running or deleting the newer versions of MTR under Windows 9x. 2.2 UNZIPPING THE INTERNET FILES To install the internet version, unzip the MTR?000.zip, with the -d option to create the required directory structure. You should install the files in X:\MTR (where X may be any drive), for best performance, but this version will run from any legal DOS directory (but not a Win9x long directory name). The correct syntax to accomplish this, using Pkware's PKUNZIP program, is: PKUNZIP -d [path\]MTR?000.ZIP x:\ - [path\] is the directory containing the .ZIP file. - x is the drive letter of the disk you are installing to. If you are currently in the directory x:\ this may be omitted. (The installation program on the Mechon-Mamre diskettes does this for you automatically.) 2.3 MTR's DIRECTORY STRUCTURE The following directory structure should be created by the installation program or the unzipping procedure: \MTR Search engines, fonts, and documentation (see section 3) \MTR\MTR Mishneh Torah (*.M??) \MTR\TNK Bible in easy-to-read spelling (*.K??) \MTR\TNX Bible in "masoretic" spelling (*.X??) \MTR\ONQ Targum Onqelos (*.Q??) \MTR\MSH Mishnah (*.H??) \MTR\TSF Tosefta (*.F??) \MTR\YER Jerusalem Talmud (*.R??) \MTR\BVL Babylonian Talmud (*.L??) 2.4 BEWARE OF MAKING CHANGES MTR is sensitive to changes in its files or directories. Without going into exhaustive details of exactly which changes are fatal, we point out, in general, that MTR will cease to function if it detects: - any alteration of its .COM files, - any deletion of its .COM files (other files in \MTR can be deleted to save disk space; if needed, MTR will recreate them automatically), - any addition of files with similar extensions to those used by MTR in the text file subdirectories, - any change in the order of its text files due to resorting the directory with a directory-sort program, or by use of the /S option of DOS's DEFRAG program (this now adversely affects only MTRTSR). 2.5 INSTALLING MTR IN YOUR WINDOWS ENVIRONMENT You can set up an icon for MTR in Windows which will allow you to run MTR directly from Windows by clicking on its icon. This is done in the usual way (consult your Windows documentation for help on adding a new program item). Assuming that its directory is c:\mtr, type c:\mtr\m.bat as the command line, and change the icon to use the file c:\mtr\mtr.ico. 3. FUNCTIONS OF MTR FILES --------------------------- 3.1 MTR.COM MTR.COM (or MTRE.COM with English help) is a simple DOS-based search engine that works on all IBM-compatible computers, from the XT to the latest pentium machines. It runs under all versions of DOS, from DOS 3.3 to DOS 7, and under Windows 3.x or Windows 9x. In order to use it, though, you need a Hebrew screen font for DOS. This is provided by running MTRFONTS.COM. 3.2 MTRFONTS.COM MTRFONTS.COM provides Hebrew screen fonts for DOS. These fonts allow DOS and DOS-based programs to correctly display ASCII-Hebrew characters, as well as the full set of characters on an ordinary English keyboard that were previously displayable. MTRFONTS.COM can be loaded as a TSR, but this is not normally necessary and it normally runs as an ordinary DOS program. In the latter case, it is not subject to the usual caveats applying to loading and using TSRs, nor does it need to be unloaded -- it simply replaces the normal DOS screen font with its own, then exits, and its effects can be undone by typing MODE CO80 at a DOS prompt, which will restore the original screen font. The screen font loaded by MTRFONTS, changes the way DOS displays certain characters (characters 128-154 of the ASCII character-set used on all IBM-compatible machines). These normally appear as French/German accented-vowels, but in Israel they are used to represent the Hebrew alphabet. See also the note in section 3.5 in relation to restoring the normal DOS screen font upon exiting MTR, when running MTR from a batch file. MTRFONTS checks for the presence of MTR on your disk, and will not run unless it finds that MTR has been installed. Despite this, it is a general-purpose utility and need not be run exclusively in conjunction with MTR. You may find it useful for viewing other Hebrew text-files in DOS or with DOS-based programs. You may therefore wish to copy it to your general utilities directory as well. For additional information relating to this topic and explanations of the terms used here, see the appendix, sections A2 and A3. 3.3 MTRTSR.COM MTRTSR.COM is a DOS-based TSR version of MTR, that can run concurrently with other DOS programs. (For an explanation of this, see the appendix, section A3.) You can run it concurrently with your DOS-based word processor. It provides a text-browsing and search facility that can send blocks of text to your DOS-based word processor (but not to Windows word-processors.) Alternatively, it can be run concurrently with MTR.COM, the dual copies allowing you to load a different text in each one and instantly switch from one to the other without losing your place in the former. This is useful for studying two texts in tandem -- e.g. Mishneh Torah plus a related Bible text, or Bible in Hebrew plus Onqelos on the Bible. 3.4 OTHER .COM FILES The other .COM files provide further documentation in Hebrew. You may wish to run them and read the information they contain after you have mastered the use of MTR. They are: HAMACHON.COM About Mechon Mamre and how and why MTR was developed. AZHAROT .COM General notes on MTR and limitations on its use. KETIV .COM About our spelling. PISSUQ .COM About our punctuation. BAT .COM About running MTR with batch files. 3.5 BATCH FILES We have provided .BAT files in the \MTR directory to make it easy to run MTR with just a single command. (The batch files load and run the relevant programs in the required sequence.) These batch files are samples which may be used as-is, or they may be changed according to your requirements. As supplied, they assume that you are running them from the directory in which they are installed. If you run them from some other directory, you must edit the batch files accordingly. If you want the normal DOS screen font to be restored after exiting MTR, we recommend that you append the following command to the batch file(s) that you will be using to run MTR: MODE CO80 For more information on this command, type MODE /? or HELP MODE at a DOS prompt (in DOS 5 or later). The batch files make it easier to run MTR whether you are running it directly from Windows or from a DOS prompt. In either case, they need not necessarily stay in MTR's native directory, but in the latter case, there can be a good reason for storing them elsewhere. If you put them in a directory that is included in your DOS PATH setting, you will be able to run MTR from any directory. M .BAT loads mtrfonts for normal VGA, then runs MTR. MP .BAT loads mtrfonts which have narrower letter-widths (more suitable for lap-tops and other portables), then runs MTR. M2 .BAT installs mtrfonts as a TSR, loads mtrtsr, then runs mtr. After exiting mtr, it unloads mtrtsr, and mtrfonts. M2P .BAT same as M2.BAT, but loads the mtrfonts with the narrower letter-widths for portables. MW .BAT installs mtrfonts as a TSR, loads mtrtsr, then runs your word processor (called via your wp.bat). After exiting your word processor, it unloads mtrtsr and mtrfonts. MWP .BAT same as MW.BAT, but loads the narrow-width mtrfonts. If, in any of the cases above, you see that wide letters like Shin in Hebrew or M in English run together, use the batch file versions with names ending in "p" (for portables). 3.6 OTHER FILES The remaining files in the MTR package and their purposes are: MTR .DAT internal data file (not for printing). MTRE .DAT internal data file (not for printing). MTRTSR .DAT internal data file (not for printing). MTR .HST internal search history file (not for printing). MTRE .HST internal search history file (not for printing). MTRTSR .HST internal search history file (not for printing). HADPES .OTI printable Hebrew help file with text arranged in "visual layout". (You need a printer with a Hebrew font.) PRINTME .ENG this file (printable on any printer). MTR .ICO icon for Windows. 4. RUNNING MTR ---------------- 4.1 MTR ON ITS OWN To run just a single copy of MTR under DOS, or from Windows, just run m.bat. If it is running under Windows other than NT, you can send blocks of text to the clipboard. For instructions see section 24.2. If you have the Hebrew version of Windows, you can run MTR in a Window and work with it like any other Windows-compatible DOS program. If your Windows has no Hebrew support, MTR will run perfectly well with its own Hebrew fonts in a full DOS screen (if you get a graphic screen of Latin letters, just press ), and you can still send text to the clipboard. The clipboard contents can then be pasted to Hebrew-aware applications such as Dagesh that run under English Windows. 4.2 TWO COPIES OF MTR To run two copies of MTR concurrently, run m2.bat. This loads both MTR and MTRTSR (a "pop-up" version of MTR that can be run concurrently with other DOS programs). You can switch between the two by pressing MTRTSR's "hot-key" combination -- the left and right shift-keys together. If you have a VGA monitor, you can have both copies on view at the same time, in the upper and lower halves of a split, 50-line screen. To split the screen, press Alt-2 from the main screen in MTRTSR. The MTR screen will be on the top and MTRTSR at the bottom. To return to a 25-line screen, press Alt-1 from the main screen in MTRTSR. Note: MTRTSR is primarily intended for use in a DOS-only environment. Although it is possible to load it from a DOS-prompt that you have opened up under Windows, there are certain limitations that are imposed by the Windows environment on some of MTRTSR's capabilities. (Details are given below in section 4.5 "Incompatibilities with MTRTSR".) The recommended method for running MTR under Windows is to run m.bat, which runs MTR on its own. As with any program running under Windows, you can always open up two copies of it, and use the Windows task-switching key (Alt-Tab) to switch between the two. 4.3 MTR AND YOUR WORD PROCESSOR To run MTR with your DOS-based word processor, run mw.bat. This loads MTRTSR and your word processor. Note: you will need to create a batch file named wp.bat which will run your word processor, or you must edit mw.bat so that it will run your word processor directly instead of doing so by calling wp.bat. Note also the incompatibilities listed in section 4.6 which are known to apply when using MTRTSR with certain other programs, and under Windows. 4.4 COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS There are a number of command-line options that can be used when running MTR.COM, MTRTSR.COM and MTRFONTS.COM. These options are used to control certain aspects of the program's behavior (whether it beeps on errors, its colors, etc.). For details on these, type the relevant program name followed by /? e.g. MTR /? The /d option for MTR is discussed in more detail in section 24.3. 4.5 INCOMPATIBILITIES WITH MTRTSR - WINDOWS There are certain limitations to be aware of when running MTRTSR under Windows: Alt-2 cannot be used under Windows to split the screen as described in section 4.2. Also, MTRTSR is not Windows- aware and can only send blocks of text to your DOS-based word processor, not to the Windows clipboard. Under Windows, it is better to use m.bat which runs MTR on its own. - DOS's EDIT Do NOT use DOS's EDIT with MTRTSR. Doing so will crash your system. Because of the peculiar manner in which EDIT handles the keyboard, it is not compatible with MTRTSR. - WORDPERFECT Because of the unique Hebrew support in WordPerfect, MTRTSR does not cooperate well with it. However they can be used together if you wish; doing so will not crash your system, but texts you paste from MTRTSR will not have the usual WordPerfect Hebrew coding. 5. USING MTR -------------- 5.1 THE HEBREW KEYBOARD Having loaded MTR, the next step is to learn how to use it and how to exit MTR. Most functions in MTR are activated by a Ctrl- or Alt- combination, where is a letter of the Hebrew alphabet standing for the Hebrew name of the function. Section A1 of the appendix contains a diagram depicting the Hebrew keyboard-layout. You should take time to familiarize yourself with this, if you do not already know it. We recommend that you print out a copy for handy reference and/or mark the Hebrew letters on your keyboard. Further recommendations as to how to do this are in the appendix, section A1.5 5.2 MTR BASICS Now for some "hands on" stuff: When MTR starts up, it displays an introductory screen containing a copyright notice. MTR is freeware, but remember that it is copyrighted and that you need written permission to quote any substantial part of it, like any other copyrighted work. Please read this at least once. Each main body of work (even a multi-volume work) is called a Book in MTR. This term is applied even to texts which, for everyday purposes, we usually regard as consisting of many books. Thus, all the books of the Bible are, in MTR's terminology, a single book. To avoid confusion, when referring to individual books of the Bible, we shall call them volumes -- and the same goes for the "Halachot" of Mishneh Torah, the Tractates of the Talmud, etc. Each book opens up, initially, at a main page (like the contents page of a printed book). The first of these main pages is the one for Mishneh Torah. Please take the time, at least initially, to read and familiarize yourself with the contents of these main pages. Note, in particular, the single help-line at the bottom of the screen which lists the main functions that are available at this level and the keys to activate them. 5.3 MAIN-PAGE COMMANDS At any main page, the commands available and the key-strokes to activate them are: Alt-X (samech) ("Sefer", book): Go to the neXt book. Ctrl-X (samech) ("Sayyem", eXit): If you are inside a book, this exits the book and returns you to the book's main page. At a main page, Ctrl-X is a request to exit the program. Before exiting, MTR asks you to confirm the exit request. Press to confirm and exit, any other key to cancel the exit request. F1 Help (introduction for beginners.) F10 Shows a single help-line at the bottom of the screen, listing the available commands. This works at both the main page and inside a book. In both places, there is more than one such help-line. Press F10 repeatedly to cycle through them. Alt-V (hei) ("Hora'ot", instructions): Detailed, on-line help manual, consisting of many pages. Press Alt-V repeatedly to AdVance through the pages. Ctrl-V (hei) ("Hora'ot"): turn to preVious page in help manual. (It should be remembered that this program was originally written in Israel. If you take note of the Hebrew letters for the above keys on the Hebrew keyboard, you will see that they actually stand for the Hebrew names of the above commands, whereas the association in English is less obvious. Try browsing through the Hebrew on-line help in MTR after reading this manual. This will remind you of the association of these commands and keys in Hebrew and will help you remember them.) 5.4 OTHER COMMANDS Other commands available within MTR are listed separately in the context of the topics to which they relate. As a quick reference aid, they are to be found in the following sections: 4.2 Two copies of MTR (for MTRTSR only) 17.2 Limiting the Search Area 18.1 Editing Keys 19 Browsing the text 20 Concordance-Mode Functions 24.2 Pasting Blocks of Text from MTR into Your Word Processor 6. SIMPLE SEARCHING --------------------- We will now (at last) take you through a simple search. Note: Throughout this file, wherever typing instructions are given for entering search commands, the command must be typed in Hebrew. For clarity, we usually transliterate the Hebrew words into English twice. The first time, we use a recognisable form that is loosely phonetical, the second time indicates its Hebrew spelling, and the English letters used for this rigidly follow our Hebrew-letter transliteration scheme appearing in section A1.2 of the appendix. If you have not yet done so, please take a few moments before continuing to look through this transliteration scheme. (We have used this scheme to ensure that these instructions will print correctly on all printers.) 6.1 ENTERING YOUR SEARCH TERM Type the Hebrew word pesach, spelled in Hebrew and enclosed in quotes, as follows: " p s x " . As you type, the word will appear, in Hebrew, on the top line of the screen. This is MTR's "command-entry line". Please remember: It is essential, when entering a search command, that you enclose the search term in double quote marks. The reason for this will become clear later. 6.2 COMMENCING THE SEARCH Check that you have entered your search term correctly, then press . MTR will search for "pesach" in the current book and will open the book at the first occurrence of this search term. The text of the book will be displayed in the text window, commencing at the beginning of the halachah (if you are searching Rambam) or the beginning of the Biblical verse or Talmudic passage, etc., where the search term first occurs. MTR's text window commences on line two of the screen, just below MTR's command-entry line. As we are just getting the feel of the program for the moment, we will skip the procedure for reading the text, which you will normally want to do at this stage in a real search. For now, let us proceed to the method for checking whether there are any further occurrences of the search term. 6.3 FINDING THE NEXT OCCURRENCE Keep pressing repeatedly. Each time you do so, MTR searches ahead for the next occurrence of the search term in the current book. Notice that each time a further instance of the search term is found, the display in the text window jumps to the place in the text where it occurs, until, eventually, when there are no further occurrences, it returns you to the book's main page. 6.4 STOPPING AND REPEATING A SEARCH You can stop the search and return to the main page by pressing Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break. If you do not enclose your search term in double-quote marks, MTR will display an error message. Try reentering the same search term but omitting the opening or closing quotes, or both, in various combinations and note the various error messages. Now try entering "pesach sheni", in quotes, spelled, in Hebrew, as follows: " p s x sh n y " Now try another term, "shlosha devarim elu", spelled, in Hebrew, as: " sh l w sh h d b r y M a l w " MTR can search for any sequence of characters making up partial words, words, or phrases, up to a length of 75 characters. Hopefully you will not find this limit too restrictive. This is all you need to know for conducting a simple search for a single word or a single, multi-word phrase. More advanced topics relating to searching are dealt with in sections 11 to 18. 7. CHANGING BOOKS ------------------- If you haven't already done so, try changing books now by pressing Alt-X. Note that repeatedly pressing Alt-X cycles through the books Mishneh Torah, The Bible, Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, Bavli, then back to Mishneh Torah again. Note: if you have not installed all of these books, you will see only the main pages for those you installed. At the main page for any of these books, other than Mishneh Torah, Alt-N (Mem) takes you directly back to Mishneh Torah. At Mishneh Torah's main page, pressing Alt-N (Mem) takes you to the Bible ("Miqra", in Hebrew). During a search, you can press Alt-X (Samech) or Alt-N (Mem) to stop the search and move on to the main page of another book. 8. BIBLE BROWSING AND SEARCH OPTIONS -------------------------------------- Press Alt-X or Alt-N until you see the main page for the Bible. There are new options available here. These are listed just below the middle of the text window, following the list of Bible-volumes. Alt-J (Chet) switCHes between easy (modern) spelling and traditional, masoretic spelling ("Ketiv Malei" / "Ketiv haMesorah"). Alt-T (Alef) switches between the Bible and Onqelos ("awnqlws") Ctrl-R (Resh) concoRdance mode ("Ritsah") Ctrl-E (Qof) browsing mode ("Qeriyah") 8.1 SPELLING STYLES The Hebrew terminology for the two spelling styles of Hebrew is "ketiv malei" and "ketiv chaser". These are commonly rendered in English as "plene" and "defective". We prefer to translate them into English as "full style" and "brief style". The traditional masoretic spelling of the Bible uses both and is not consistent in its usage, even for the same word within a single verse. It is however often referred to as brief style, to contrast it from modern, easy spelling which is predominantly full style. The two styles of spelling in which MTR's Bible texts are available are referred to as Ketiv Malei (full style) and Ketiv haMesorah (masoretic spelling.) Alt-J (Chet) is a toggle ("maCHlif"). Press it and note the change in the description of that command. The spelling style that is currently in use is the first one mentioned, the one mentioned at the end of the line is the style that will be switched to if you press Alt-J (Chet) again. To see the difference in spelling styles, enter a dummy search term consisting of " " (a single space enclosed in quotes). Observe the spelling, then go back to the main page, change the spelling style, and read the text again to contrast the two styles. The procedure for doing this is as follows: Press Ctrl-X to end the search and return to the main page, Alt-J to change the spelling style, then to repeat your search. Purists may cringe at the full-style spelling (ketiv malei), but the benefit of having it will quickly become apparent when searching for a term for which you cannot remember the masoretic spelling (ketiv haMesorah). The masoretic spelling can seem quite arbitrary. (Take, as an example, the Hebrew word "toldot". Each of the two syllables, "tol" and "dot", may be spelled in either full style or brief style. The masoretic spelling in the Bible uses, in various places, all four possible combinations of malei/chaser: tldot, toldt, toldot, and tldt, i.e. chaser-malei, malei-chaser, malei-malei and chaser-chaser.) The choice of spelling is implemented by having two different versions of the Bible in two separate sets of files. The version that will be used by MTR for displaying or searching text depends on the currently selected spelling style. Therefore, when you are about to conduct a search in the Bible, you must note (or change) the currently selected spelling style, and take care to spell your search term in the same style. 8.2 ONQELOS (This is the classic, Aramaic translation of the Torah by Onqelos.) You switch to Onqelos by pressing Alt-T. This only works at the main page for the Bible, though. Therefore, if you are within a text, press Ctrl-X first to return to the Bible's main page, then press Alt-T (Alef, for 'Onqelos), then . Repeat the same sequence of key-presses to switch back to the Hebrew Bible text. 8.3 CONCORDANCE/TEXT-BROWSING MODE These are two alternative modes for text searching. They are selected, respectively, by Ctrl-R and Ctrl-E, and you can change between the two at either the main page or within a text. The difference between the two modes is in the way MTR displays the results of a search operation. When searching in text-browsing mode, MTR opens up the book being searched at the place where the first (or next) instance of the search term occurs, and displays a screen-full of text beginning with that verse and continuing with the verses immediately following it (if any). You can then press to immediately find the next occurrence, or you can first browse through the context of the item just found by scrolling up or down from that location. When you have finished browsing, you can still press to find the next occurrence. This continues the search from the place where the last item was found, and, if there is a further occurrence, the text display jumps to its location. When searching in concordance mode, MTR extracts only the verses in which the search term is found. It displays the results of the search by listing, in succession, only those verses. For each occurrence, the entire verse is displayed, but in isolation from its context. The keys that are used in browsing mode for scrolling through the text are, in concordance mode, used to continue the search (forwards only), for subsequent occurrences. This difference is best observed after a successful search for a term that occurs a good number of times. "Pesach" is a good example to try. Remember, from the above exercises, that it is entered as " p s x ". Experiment with that and with various search terms, until you are familiar with how both search modes work. Try changing search modes at various points in the process, both during a search, and at the main page before repeating the same search. Remember that after returning to the main page you can repeat your previous search (even after changing search modes) by just pressing . Notice that in Concordance mode, when you press a key to find further occurrences, you can step forward in the search either one result at a time by pressing the down-arrow key, or a whole screen-full of results at a time by pressing or . When there are no more occurrences, the last item will occupy a partially-filled screen, with the cursor at the bottom of the screen. Press any key at this point to return to the main page. 9. ABOUT OUR BIBLE PUNCTUATION -------------------------------- 9.1 PUNCTUATION AND THE TA`AMIM It might be well at this point to explain our use of the punctuation symbols , -- ; : . which are included in our Bible text. The period is always used at the end of a verse. The other symbols are dictated by the Ta`amim. (These are masoretic, musical notes by which the text is traditionally chanted in synagogue-service Bible-readings. They are included in most printed Hebrew editions of the Bible, where they appear above and below the words as diacritical marks, alongside, but not to be confused with, the "nikkud" (vowel pointing) used in vocalised Hebrew text. They impose a phraseological parsing upon the text, closely allied with its meaning, which we have tried to translate into modern punctuation. Run pissuq.com for more information, in Hebrew, about the correspondence between our punctuation and the Ta`amim.) If you compare the Onqelos text you will notice that the same punctuation is also used there. This corresponds to the punctuation used in the Hebrew text. These punctuation symbols , -- ; : . represent pauses or breaks in the flow of the text to which different levels of intensity can be ascribed. They ascend in value from a minor pause to a major one, in left to right order as listed here. Mishneh Torah and the Mishnah have been similarly fully punctuated. The other books of the oral law have not, so far. 9.2 SYMBOLS FOR TEXT-LAYOUT In our Bible text we also indicate where paragraph breaks, blank lines and special cases of text alignment occur in the layout used in Scripture, according to masoretic tradition. Places where these occur are marked, in our text, with one of the four Hebrew letters Peh, Samech, Shin, and Resh, occurring singly and enclosed in braces, as: {p} {s} {sh} {r}. They stand for the following: {p} petuchah - an open paragraph break in which the entire remainder of the current line is left blank. {s} setumah - a closed paragraph break, which is to say, blank space embedded in a line of text, i.e., enclosed on both sides by text. {sh} shurah reqah - a blank line or, where it occurs at the end of a Bible-volume, several blank lines. {r} rosh shurah - the preceding word occurs at the end of a line, left-aligned with the column's left-margin, and the next word commences the next physical line and is right-aligned with the column's right margin. The use of the first two symbols is standard in most printed Hebrew editions of the Bible (except that braces are not used). The latter two allow us to accurately represent the structure of "Shirat Hayyam", for example, for which no standard method exists other than using a physical image -- i.e. by setting the text to appear in a similar format to the way it is laid out in a Torah scroll. You will be able to better interpret the meaning of these symbols, if you compare the MTR text of "Shirat Hayyam" (Exodus 15,1-21) with the way it appears in a Torah scroll. (Consult a good "Tikkun"; or run our m2.bat and search for "Shirat haYam" in Mishneh Torah in one copy of MTR and for Shemot 15.1 in the Bible in the other. You may note some differences between the tradition of the "Keter" used in MTR and by the Rambam in Mishneh Torah, and your "Tikkun" or your Torah scroll.) 9.3 THE MAQQAF In the three poetic books (Psalms, Proverbs, and Job) the ~ (tilde in most fonts and a maqqaf in the fonts provided by our mtrfonts.com) has a similar connotation to the hyphen in English text -- that is, it indicates that the words joined by the ~ are to be treated as though they formed one word. 9.4 PUNCTUATION STANDARDS It is true that our use of some of these symbols does not follow any established standard, but we have used these in the absence, so far, of any other commonly accepted standard for punctuation of the Bible, or the representation of Ta`amei Hammiqra, using ASCII characters. It shouldn't be too hard to get used to it. Punctuation characters and the other symbols described here do not interfere with searches. Where they occur between two words of a phrase you are searching for, MTR will still find the phrase, even if you do not include the punctuation in the search term. 10. SUMMARY TO THIS POINT -------------------------- So far, we have covered all of the basics of simple searches. This would be a good point, if you have been reading this without attempting the examples, to get some practical experience and try out what you have learned so far. Experiment, using our examples and others of your own devising. We have also covered: Starting up and exiting MTR, selecting a Book, simple text-searches for single words or phrases up to 75 characters in length, and how to repeat a search without having to retype your search term. Of the Bible commands, we have covered: switching between spelling styles, switching between the Hebrew Bible text and Onqelos, changing the search mode from Browsing to Concordance mode, To recap: Alt-X cycles from book to book. Ctrl-X exits a search, or, from a main page, exits the program, subject to confirmation by pressing . F1 and F10 are help keys for beginners' help and reminders. Alt-V and Ctrl-V are used for perusing the on-line manual. Alt-N returns you to Mishneh Torah, or from there to the Bible. from a main page, starts a search using either a search term you have just typed or, if none, the search term used in the previous search. within a text, finds the next occurrence of the item being sought. From the Bible's main page, Alt-J switches between full-style and masoretic spelling, Alt-T switches between Bible and Onqelos, Ctrl-R switches the search mode to concordance-mode, and Ctrl-E switches the search mode to text-browsing mode. There is much more, but we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the above before going on. 11. ADVANCED SEARCHING ----------------------- MTR can also perform boolean searches (If you don't know what that means, don't worry -- it will all become clear). For such searches, you combine search terms to form a complex search expression. (Remember, from our simple searches, that a search "term" may be a single word or a phrase.) 11.1 BOOLEAN a "OR" b SEARCH Sometimes you will want to search for any of several words or phrases. To do this, just put a space between each quoted word or phrase. This can be very useful for finding all occurrences of several different grammatical forms of a word you wish to search for. As you will see from the following examples, MTR does not have, nor does it need, any understanding of Hebrew language or grammar in order to achieve this. Try searching for any of three possible forms of the word mezuzah, "mezuzah" "mezuzat" "mezuzot". Enter the Hebrew search expression as: " m z w z h " " m z w z t " " m z w z w t " Try also searching the Talmud for the word tefillin spelled either chaser or malei, i.e. in brief or full style (tefllin / tefillin): Enter: " t p l y N " " t p y l y N " Both spellings of tefillin are used in the Talmud. If you use only one in your search, MTR will not find any occurrences of the other. Another use for combined search terms is to find any of several words that are entirely different from one another, but are related to a single topic, for example: Try searching for "shabbat" "yom tov" "mo`ed". Enter: " sh b t " " y w M T w b " " m w A d " 11.2 BOOLEAN a "AND" b SEARCH Sometimes you will want to search for instances of two or more words or phrases occurring together. To do this, just put a plus sign between the words. Try searching for "shabbat" + "mo`ed". Enter: " sh b t " + " m w A d " Or try searching for a place where the terms meat, milk, and vessel all occur together. The search expression is: "basar" + "chalav" + "keli". Enter: " b sh r " + " x l b " + " k l y " 11.3 BOOLEAN a "AND" (b "OR" c) SEARCH Sometimes you will want to search for some term that must occur with any of several others. To do this, combine the items that must appear with a plus sign and put spaces between the items of which any one of them will do. We will try to find a place where the terms meat AND milk occur in conjunction with ANY one of various types of cooking vessels. The search expression is: "basar" + "chalav" + "keli" "qederah" "qe`arah" "sir". (The latter four terms are words for different cooking vessels.) Enter: " b sh r " + " x l b " + " k l y " " q d y r h " " q A r h " " s y r " 11.4 BOOLEAN a "AND" "NOT" b SEARCH Sometimes you will want to search for only those occurrences of a term where it does NOT appear in conjunction with another term. To do this, just put a minus sign before each term that you wish to exclude from the search results if it occurs with the previous term. We will look for an instance where mo`ed occurs, but not together with shabbat. The search expression is: "mo`ed" - "shabbat". Enter: " m w A d " - " sh b t " Now look for: "yom tov sheni" without "bazzeman hazzeh". Enter: " y w M T w b sh n y " - " b z m N h z h " 11.5 SUMMARY OF COMPOUND SEARCH EXPRESSIONS To summarize, OR: To find any one or more of several terms, put a space between each quoted term to form the search expression. AND: To find two terms occurring together, put a plus sign between each quoted term to form the search expression. NOT: To find one term but NOT in conjunction with a second term, put a minus sign before each quoted term that you want to exclude. These logical expressions can be combined up to the limit of the size of the command line. 12. INCLUDING THE ABBREVIATION SYMBOL (") IN A SEARCH TERM ----------------------------------------------------------- 12.1 THE DOUBLE-QUOTE MARK (") Sometimes you may wish to include a quote mark (") within the term to search for. This is crucial to being able to search for abbreviations. Abbreviations in Hebrew are usually indicated by the presence of a " within the abbreviation, e.g. Yom Tov may be spelled yo"t. If you type the search term as "yo"t", MTR will interpret the second " as a closing quote, ending the search term "yo". The solution is to use two consecutive quote characters for the abbreviation symbol. (DOS's FIND program also uses the same solution.) Try searching Talmud Bavli for the abbreviation RaSHB"I (for Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai). Enter: " r sh b " " y " 12.2 THE APOSTROPHE (') Abbreviations consisting of a single letter are usually followed by an apostrophe, e.g. rabbi is often abbreviated as r'. This presents no problem to MTR and can be entered, as is, in a search term since the ' is treated just like any other character in a search command. 12.3 EXAMPLE Now let us try to find any of several possible ways of writing Rabbi Shim`on Bar Yochai, including abbreviated forms. The search expression is: "Rashb""i" "r' Shimon" "rabbi Shimon". Enter: " r sh b " " y " " r ' sh m A w N" " r b y sh m A w N " 13. HOMONYMS ------------- Every language has its share of instances where two quite different words are spelled the same. "Lie", for example, can mean a falsehood or the act of reclining. Hebrew also has its share, perhaps a little more than its share. For example, a search in the Talmud for mo`ed (festival) will also find mu`ad (an animal with a previous history of violence). Both are spelled: m w A d. Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent this. 14. WHOLE WORDS AND PARTIAL WORDS ---------------------------------- A search for a certain sequence of letters will find not only whole words made up of those letters but also any places within other words where that sequence of letters happens to occur. Thus a search for mo`ed will also find bemo`ed, mo`adot, bemo`adot, etc. (The `e in mo`ed and the `a in mo`adot both represent an ayin.) If this is what you want, that's fine; if not, there is a trick you can use to exclude such occurrences. Since every whole word in the text has a space (or punctuation that MTR treats as a space) before and after it, if you also begin and end the search term with a space this will ensure that only whole words are found. Note: This will still find words which occur at the end of a verse. In searches, they are treated by MTR as though they were followed by a space just like words occurring in the middle of a line. When entering the search term, you must, of course, also put the spaces inside the quotes enclosing the search term. The following table shows the various results obtained when searching for mo`ed without spaces, preceded by a space, followed by a space, and with a space both preceding and following it. "mwAd" will find mo`ed, bemo`ed, mo`adot, or bemo`adot " mwAd" will find mo`ed or mo`adot, but not bemo`ed "mwAd " will find mo`ed or bemo`ed, but not mo`adot " mwAd " will find only mo`ed Thus, you can expand or restrict the type of matches that will be found depending on what you are looking for. You can choose to allow or preclude prefixes, suffixes or both. At this point, it should be clear why MTR always requires search terms to be enclosed in quotation marks. We should also emphasize that a single space within a quoted term will match not only a space, but any series of non-Hebrew characters including punctuation marks, spaces, and our special signs in the Bible, like {r}. 15. SPECIFYING PLACES TO SEARCH (SEARCH SCOPE) ----------------------------------------------- 15.1 BACKGROUND: BOOKS, VOLUMES, AND VOLUME-GROUPINGS So far we have seen how to define a search expression and how inclusive or restrictive we can make it in terms of allowing or precluding prefixes and suffixes. We will now learn how inclusive or restrictive the scope of a search can be in terms of where MTR should search. We have already seen how we can select a particular book in MTR and change from one book to another. You will also have noticed by now, that the searches we have conducted so far have been limited to the currently selected book, but they include the entire book. Remember that MTR calls each main body of work a book, even those which, for everyday purposes, we usually regard as consisting of many books. Thus, all the books of the Bible are, in MTR's terminology, a single book. To avoid confusion, when referring to individual books of the Bible, we call them volumes -- and the same goes for the "Halachot" of Mishneh Torah, the tractates of the Talmud, etc. This division of books and volumes is mirrored in MTR's directory structure, where there is a separate directory for each book, and the files in a particular book's directory correspond, more or less, to the volumes of that book. It is possible to restrict the scope of a search (i.e. where MTR should look) to just one volume of a book or to a range of volumes of a book. This is done by appending a second search criterion to your search expression to define the scope of the search. A complete search command therefore is made up of two criteria -- the search expression which defines what MTR should look for, and the scope of the search which defines where MTR should look. Notice that on the main page of Mishneh Torah the volumes are grouped into fourteen divisions, a << marking the start of each one. On the Bible's main page the volumes are divided into three groups, and on the main pages of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli, the volumes (tractates) are divided into six columns according to the six "Orders". 15.2 VOLUME NAMES Notice also how, in each book, the volume-names reflect these divisions. In the Bible, for example, the volume names all begin with a one-letter prefix (t, n, or k) followed by a hyphen separating it from the rest of the name. The prefix identifies the division to which the volume belongs; the rest of the name is the volume's individual name. The three divisions of the Bible are called Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim (The Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings). Note that MTR has combined the Twelve Minor Prophets into a single volume named n-treiAsar, and that the five Megillot (Ruth, Shir- haShirim, Kohelet, Echah, and Esther) have been similarly combined into a volume named k-megillot. Ezra and Nehemiah have been combined into k-`ezra-n. And Samuel 1 and 2, Kings 1 and 2, and Divrei-Hayamim 1 and 2 have been combined into, respectively, n-shmuel, n-melachim, and k-divrei-h. Similar volume-naming schemes are used in all of MTR's books. In the Talmud, a three-letter prefix identifies which of the six "Orders" of the Mishnah a volume (tractate) belongs to. The fourteen divisions of the Mishneh Torah are identified by a three-letter prefix. (The Rambam himself called these divisions "books" and what we are referring to as volumes here, he called Halachot, laws.) 15.3 SPECIFYING YOUR SEARCH-SCOPE To restrict the scope of a search, proceed as follows. First, type a search expression, enclosed in quotes, as usual, to define what MTR should search for. Then, before pressing , follow this with either a volume name or just a volume-name prefix, this time without quotation marks. This defines the scope of the search. You can restrict this to just one volume by using a full volume-name, or you can widen it by using just a volume-name prefix, in which case the scope will include the range of volumes with that prefix. (Be sure to spell the volume names as shown on the book's main page because those names correspond to the filenames in that book's directory.) If, for example, you wish to search Mishneh Torah, Sefer Zemannim, you should specify the scope of the search with the Hebrew letters z m n. To search the Nevi'im of the Bible, define the scope with the Hebrew letter n. To search the Order Mo`ed in the Mishnah, define the scope with the Hebrew letters m w A. To restrict the search to just one volume, say, Shemot in the Bible, define the scope of the search as T-Shemot, spelled, in Hebrew: t - sh m w t. These names are filenames, and MTR internally adds wildcard characters as needed. Therefore, when defining the scope of a search, you really only need to type enough of the name to uniquely identify what you want. For example: to search Mishneh Torah, volume Hilchot Ta`aniyot, you could type z m n - t A n y or you could shorten this to z m n - t since that is the only volume in that group beginning with t. To search the Bible, Prophet Yesha`yahu, you could define the scope as n - y sh A y h w or you could shorten it to n - y sh. To search Talmud Bavli, Tractate Ta`anit, you could define the scope as m w A - t A n y or you could shorten it to m w A - t. Remember: MTR recognizes two elements which make up a search command, What to search for and Where to search. The What comes first and must be enclosed in quotes. The Where comes next and is entered without quotes. If you get them the wrong way around and put the Where before the What, MTR will think that your Where is a What but that you forgot to put the quotes around it! (That is quite clear, is it not?) To restore the search scope to include the whole book, define the scope with an * (asterisk) which means all volume-names. (Note: there is a reminder of this on every main page.) 16. REUSING LAST SEARCH CRITERIA --------------------------------- You have already learned that MTR remembers your search commands, so that upon returning to a book's main page after a search, you can press without typing any new search expression, and MTR will repeat the search using the same search expression as before. This is true even if you change books with Alt-X or Alt-N. 16.1 WHAT AND WHERE We will now explain exactly how this works so that you can learn how truly versatile this memory facility is and how best to take advantage of it. MTR remembers both of your search criteria -- the What and the Where. Let us say that you conduct the following four searches in Mishneh Torah: 1. You search for "pesach" in Sefer Nashim, 2. You search for the same thing in Hilchot Nedarim, 3. You search for "sukkah" in the same place, 4. You search for "pesach" in all of Mishneh Torah, You can save yourself lots of typing by using the following set of search commands: " p s x " n sh y (that is, "pesach" nashim) h p l - n d r y (that is, hafla-nedarim; MTR remembers "pesah") " s w k h " (that is, "sukkah"; MTR remembers hafla-nedarim) " p s x " * (that is, "pesah" in all of Mishneh Torah) A common error for beginners, is to forget the * when you want to conduct a general search following a search with more limited scope. 16.2 EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT SEARCH CRITERIA Note that if you do not take into account what MTR reuses from the previous search, you can miss out on finding something that is really there, because you searched for the right thing but in the wrong place, or because you searched in the right place but for the wrong thing. This can happen when one of your implicit search criteria (that is, a criterion that you did not enter, but which MTR has reused from a previous search) is not what you really intended. Keep in mind that if you change only one of these criteria, the other one will be inherited from your previous search. 16.3 EXCEPTION TO INHERITANCE OF SEARCH SCOPE There is one exception to this which applies after changing books with Alt-X or Alt-N. If, in your previous search, the scope was not entered explicitly and you now repeat the same search in the new book, the new search command will inherit the old search term (i.e. What to search for) but not the old search scope. Instead, the new search scope will be * (all volumes). Thus, in the above example, if you change books between search 3 and 4, there is no need to specify the scope as * because search 3 did not explicitly define the search scope. The same thing is true if you pressed Alt-N to change books, then changed your mind and pressed Alt-N again to return to the previous book without conducting any search in between. 17. LOCATION, TEXT, AND CITATION SEARCHES (SEARCH AREAS) --------------------------------------------------------- (Kotarot, Tekst, Sograyim) 17.1 STRUCTURE OF MTR FILES All of MTR's text files have a standard internal structure in which the following elements occur: - Headings These commence at the right screen-border and occupy a line of their own. Depending on the context, they can be volume titles, section or chapter headings, and the like. - Location Tags These commence at the right screen-border. They occupy a 16-character-wide margin on the right of the text window. They label each verse/passage/halachah/daf (depending on the book) with a reference identifying its location in the book. Each location tag relates to that section of body text to its left that commences on the same line. - Body Text This is the main text of the book. It occupies the rest of the text window to the left of the margin reserved for the location tags. All body text commences in screen-column 17. - Citation References Within all non-Biblical texts, a citation or quotation from the Bible is accompanied by a reference in parentheses indicating the source of the citation or quote. These parentheses may occur anywhere within the body text. For the sake of brevity, we shall refer to these elements below as: Location Tags, Text, and Citations. Headings, for these purposes, are treated exactly the same as Location Tags. 17.2 LIMITING THE SEARCH AREA You can further limit your search to focus on any one of these areas to the exclusion of the others, or it can include all three. The default setting includes all three areas. Press: to set the search area to: Alt-Y (Tet) text only (Tekst) Alt-F (Kaf) headings and location tags only (Kotarot) Alt-) citation references within () only Alt-D (Gimel) all of the above (Gam veGam veGam) This is worth knowing because it can be extremely useful to be selective in the areas you search, as explained below. 17.3 SEARCHING TEXT ONLY Before you search for terms that also appear in location tags, press Alt-Y to exclude places in which the term occurs in the location tag only. For example, the word "vayikra" occurs in only two places in the Bible-volume Vayikra. But if you wanted to find them, you would have to press Alt-Y first, otherwise you will get every single verse in Vayikra because the word "vayikra" also appears in the location tag of every verse in that volume. Similarly, if you are looking for occurrences of "Shabbat" in Hilchot Shabbat and do not limit the search to text only, you will get every single halachah simply because it has Shabbat in its location tag. 17.4 SEARCHING HEADINGS AND LOCATION TAGS ONLY This is useful for going straight to a particular volume, chapter, verse, etc., that you want to study. You can find the location by entering its location tag as your search term, but press Alt-F first to avoid also finding all the places where the same term occurs in the body text. For example, to jump to chapter 7 (z, in Hebrew) in Hilchot De`ot, search for " p r q z " but avoid finding "pereq zeh" as well. This topic is also discussed in section 23 in connection with using MTR to browse a specific part of a book rather than searching for text. 17.5 SEARCHING CITATION REFERENCES ONLY This is useful for finding citations from the Bible in other books. Before doing so, press Alt-) to avoid finding words in the body text that are also names of Bible volumes. The fifth volume of the Bible, for example, "Devarim", is also a common word that occurs quite frequently in ordinary text. 17.6 ALL-INCLUSIVE SEARCHES Remember to press Alt-D after a search that you have limited to one of the above areas. This restores the search-area setting to include all three areas. A common mistake for beginners is to search for citations of Bible verses and then to search for something else without first pressing Alt-D. 18. EDITING SEARCH COMMANDS ---------------------------- If you have made any typos while entering search commands, you may have already discovered that you can edit search commands. You can also recall previous search commands from a history list maintained by MTR. This is quite a boon for those inexperienced in typing Hebrew. (If you have ever used DOSKEY, most of the following facilities will be familiar to you.) 18.1 EDITING KEYS and Move the cursor right or left one character. and Move the cursor right or left one word. Moves the cursor to the beginning of the line. Moves the cursor to the end of the line. followed by a letter: Moves the cursor forward to the next occurrence of that letter. Switches between insert mode (the default) and overwrite mode. (Notice that in overwrite mode you get a block cursor, instead of the thin insert-mode cursor.) Deletes the character at the current cursor position. Deletes the character preceding the cursor and moves back one space. Deletes everything between the cursor position and the beginning of the line (like lots of BackSpaces). Deletes everything from the cursor to the end of the line (like lots of Dels). followed by a letter: Deletes everything up to, but not including, the next occurrence of that letter. Erases the command line, if any; or exits MTR, if none exists. Erases the command line, but preserves its contents in the command-line history list. Recalls the first command line in the history list. Recalls the final command line in the history list. Moves upwards one line in the history list. Moves downwards one line in the history list. Saves the current history list to disk. Clears the current history list in memory. 18.2 SEARCH-COMMAND HISTORY-LIST ON DISK Upon exiting, MTR saves the current history list (up to 1000 characters) to disk. Each time it starts up, MTR automatically reads the history list in from the disk file, so that your previous commands are again available for recall, even if you have turned off your computer in the meantime. New commands are appended to the current list in memory, then, upon exiting, the updated list is again written to disk, overwriting the previous history file. If, for any reason, you wish to circumvent any of this, you can do either, or both, of the following: 1. If, just before exiting, you clear the current history list by pressing , MTR will write this blank history list to disk as it exits, thus clearing the history file on the disk. 2. After exiting MTR, if you then wish to preserve the history file on disk in its present state, preventing future updates by MTR, you can write-protect the file using DOS's ATTRIB command: ATTRIB +R \MTR\MTR.HST. MTR will still be able to read the write-protected file when it next starts up, so you will still be able to recall the commands stored in that file, but upon exiting, MTR will not be able to update the list. To re-enable updates, use the following DOS command to remove the file's write protection: ATTRIB -R \MTR\MTR.HST. Note: MTRTSR maintains its own history list in a separate history file named MTRTSR.HST. To write-protect or write-enable both files, repeat the relevant command using MTRTSR.HST as the filename, or use *.HST as the filename to make the command operate on both files. 19. BROWSING THE TEXT ---------------------- MTR has all the usual functions for text browsing that you would expect to find in such a program. The keys listed below which are used to control your movement within the text follow common conventions for the use of these keys as far as possible, so that, for the most part, their use is quite intuitive. The few keys that perform functions specific to MTR also behave quite logically and are fairly easy to get used to. 19.1 BROWSING, SEARCHING, AND HELP KEYS Note: Some of the keys described here operate differently in Bible- Concordance mode. Concordance mode functions are described further on. - BROWSING KEYS Moves text-window up one line (text scrolls downwards). Moves text-window down one line (text scrolls upwards). Moves text-window up one page (text scrolls downwards). Moves text-window down one page (text scrolls upwards). Moves backward one halachah, one Bible verse, or one Talmud daf (leaf). (From the middle of one, moves to its start.) Moves forward one halachah, Bible verse, or Talmud daf. Like but moves by chapter or parashah. Like but moves by chapter or parashah. Moves to the top of the current file. Moves to the end of the current file. (This is a blank page; press to bring the last page of text back into view.) or or or Stops the current search and returns you to the main-page of the current book. - SEARCHING KEYS <5> or or -Returns to the location of the item last found, after having used the browsing functions to move elsewhere from there. <+> -Finds the next occurrence, relative to your present position. This works within the current file only; at the end of the file, press to continue the search into the next file. <-> -Same as <+> but searches backwards up to the top of the file. (Sorry, but once you reach the top of the file there is no command to go back to the previous file. We hope to fix this.) Note: This leaves the search direction locked to backwards-searching, even for continued searching with the key. To resume forward-searching, you must press <+>. -Finds the next occurrence, relative to the location of the item last found. Unlike <+>, this function operates across file boundaries when searching forward. Note: After pressing <-> the search direction remains set to backwards-searching even when you resume searching with this key. To resume searching forward in such a case, you must press <+>. -in the Bible, switch to Concordance-mode searching. (See section 20.) - HELP KEY Shows a one-line reminder of the available commands at the bottom of the screen. Press again for more commands. One shortcoming that we hope to remedy in the future is that, of the above commands, only operates over the whole set of files for a book (when searching forward, that is). The scope of the other searching and browsing keys is limited to the current file only. 19.2 RESUMING YOUR SEARCH AFTER BROWSING After using any of the browsing keys (as distinct from the search keys), there will be an important difference between the way <+> or <-> on the one hand and on the other work when resuming your search to find the next occurrence: <+> and <-> resume searching from your present position, which, if you have been using any of the browsing functions, is not necessarily the location of the item last found. always resumes the search from the position of the item last found, even if you are now elsewhere in the text after browsing. This is the equivalent of pressing <5>, then <+> or <-> (except for the fact that <+> and <-> are limited to the current file.) 20. CONCORDANCE-MODE FUNCTIONS ------------------------------- Concordance mode operates only in the Bible; it is not applicable to other books. Movement ability, when in concordance mode, is far more limited than in text-browsing mode. To enter concordance mode, press . This works both at the main page and within the text. Searches forward one item at a time. The text is scrolled upwards by one verse and the newly found verse (if any) is added at the bottom of the screen. Exactly the same as down. (Note: searches forward!) or or or Stops the search and returns you to the main page of the current book (same as in browsing mode). Switches to text-browsing mode, or does nothing if you are already in text-browsing mode. Switches to concordance mode, or does nothing if you are already in concordance mode. Changes to the next book (Mishnah, if installed). Changes book to Mishneh Torah. Continues searching forward, a page-full of results at a time. If the verse at the bottom of the screen is only partially showing, the next time you press a key, the text will scroll upwards only far enough as to leave the start of that verse at the top of the text-window; the next lot of items will commence below that verse. This is so that you will not miss seeing the whole verse. 21. TO COMMENCE BROWSING AT A SPECIFIC VOLUME ---------------------------------------------- So far, we have seen how to use the search facility to go to an unspecified location by specifying the text you want to find. If you wish to commence your reading at a specific part of the text whose location (chapter/verse/halachah/daf, etc) you know in advance, you can use the search facility to go straight to that location by specifying the location tag as your search term rather than the text that is there. First select the book with Alt-X. Let us assume, for the following examples, that you have chosen Mishneh Torah. To start from the beginning of the book, just specify your search term as a single space enclosed in quotes (" ") and the search scope as the entire book (*). Type: " " * (It may seem strange to search for spaces, but since there are spaces on every line and you can get MTR to search for them, this is the most convenient method of enabling browsing of the entire text, as well as being able to go from one file to the next -- forwards, at least.) To start from some other volume of the book, type the volume-name instead of * as the search scope. e.g. To read Hilchot De`ot in Sefer Hammada` type: " " m d A - d A w t 22. MARKING YOUR PLACE (BOOKMARK) ---------------------------------- With your search term specified as a single space as described in section 21, you can use the <+> or <-> key as a bookmark. To explain: Say you wish to digress for a moment to consult some other part of the text, then return to your present location later on. Press <+> or <->. This will move you back or forward one line (remember, MTR is searching for spaces and there are spaces on every line) but before doing so, MTR marks your current location in its memory, and will return you to that location when you press <5>. You can now use any of the text-browsing keys to move forward or backward (within the current file) and, when you are ready, press <5> to return to your bookmark. Just be sure not to use <+> or <-> for browsing while you are digressing, because there is only one bookmark, and it floats with those keys to whatever location you are at when you press them. If you reach the end of a file and you wish to go on to the next one to continue your reading, press , <+>, then . This takes you, first, to the very end of the current file, sets the search direction forward, then puts you at the beginning of the next file. 23. BROWSING FROM A SPECIFIC LOCATION WITHIN A VOLUME ------------------------------------------------------ We have already described in section 17, "Location, Text, and Citation Searches (Search Areas)," the method for limiting your searches to just the headings and location-tags. We shall now take this further with examples from each of the books in MTR showing how to go directly to a particular location in each book by entering the appropriate heading or location-tag (chapter, halachah, verse, daf, etc.) as your search term. - TERMINOLOGY AND SYMBOLS: (These are used in the descriptions below giving, for each book, the general form taken by its chapter headings and location tags.) pereq (p r q) = a chapter. masechet (m s ch t) = a tractate of the Mishnah, Tosefta, or Talmud. daf (d P) = a leaf of the Talmud. `amud (A m w d) = one side of a Talmud leaf (numbered a or b). # = a number written in Hebrew numerals. vvvv = a volume name, as given on MTR's main pages, minus the prefix and the hyphen following it. (usually a contraction of tttt). tttt = a volume title, as in the Hebrew original, either in full, or abbreviated. m, t, y and b stand for: Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, Bavli. 23.1 MISHNEH TORAH Note: Because our edition of Mishneh Torah is based on the Yemenite manuscripts, you may find that the halachah numbers here are not the same as you may be used to from other editions (sometimes a halachah has been divided into several halachot, or several halachot have been combined into one; sometimes a halachah has been moved to a different order, or from the end of one chapter to the start of another; sometimes a halachah has been added or omitted). In every place where our numbering is different, we have added in parentheses in the form [] the numbering in the usual Vilna edition. (For an interesting example of this, see Hilchot Maacholot Asurot 9,3-4 in MTR and see the commentators there in the printed editions on the puzzlement caused by erroneous division of these halachot.) Chapter headings are of the form: hilchot tttt pereq # The location tag for each halachah is of the form: vvvv #,# where #,# are chapter and halachah numbers. So, to go to: search for: Chapter 6 in Hilchot De`ot " p r q w " m d A - d A w t Hilchot De`ot 6,9 " d A w t w , T " m d A - d A w t A reminder: vvvv are the last four letters of the volume names listed on the Mishneh Torah main page. The one exception is the introductory volume named haqdamah. Within that volume, the location tags are of one the following six forms: haqdamah # h q d m h # `aseh # A sh h # lav # l a w # mitsvot # m ts w w t # chaluqat hasefer x l w q t h s p r sefer s p r <title> where <title> is one of the fourteen sefer-titles which the Rambam divided the Mishneh Torah into. The three-letter prefixes to the Mishneh-Torah volume-names used in MTR are abbreviations of these. 23.2 BIBLE AND TARGUM Note: Because our edition of the Bible is based on the Keter Aram Tsova manuscript, you may find that there are occasionally departures from the numbering in other Bibles, especially translated Bibles of non-Jews. In the Ten Commandments, even the Jewish Hebrew Bibles vary somewhat. (We recommend reading the Bible in the Mosad Harav Kook's Keter edition, which is numbered as here.) There are no chapter headings, only volume titles of the form: tttt The location tag for each verse is of the form: tttt #,# where #,# are the chapter and verse numbers. So, to go to: search for: Shemot 21,1 " k a , a " t - sh m w t Esther 3,6 " a s t r g , w " k - m g y l w t 23.3 MISHNAH AND TOSEFTA Note: Because our edition of the Mishnah is based on the manuscript attributed to the Rambam (which in the original also includes his commentary, which we hope eventually to add to MTR), you may find that the mishnah numbers here are not the same as you may be used to from other editions (the comments on Mishneh Torah above apply). In every place where our numbering is different, we have added in parentheses in the form [] the numbering in the usual Vilna edition. (We recommend reading Mishnah in the Mosad Harav Kook's edition with the Rambam's commentary translated to Hebrew from the Arabic original, which is numbered as here.) Chapters headings are of the form: masechet tttt pereq # The location tag for each Mishnah is of the form: x tttt #,# where: x is m for Mishnah, or t for Tosefta, and #,# are pereq and mishnah numbers. So, to go to: search for: Tractate Shabbat, ch 5 " sh b t <space> p r q <space> h " m w A or " h , a " m w A - sh b t Shabbat 5,4 " h , d " m w A - sh b t 23.4 TALMUD YERUSHALMI Chapter headings are of the form: masechet tttt pereq # The location tag for each passage is of the form: y tttt daf #,# pereq # halachah # where #,# are daf and `amud numbers. So, to go to: search for: Jer. Ta`anit Ch. 3 " p r q <space> g " m w A - t A n y Jer. Ta`anit ch 4, hal. 7 " p r q <sp> d <sp> h l k h <sp> z " m w A - t A n y Jer. Ta`anit daf 22b " d F <space> k b , b " m w A - t A n y Pereq and halachah numbering seems standard across all editions; but, unlike Talmud Bavli, pagination is not. Our page numbering follows the Pyeterkov edition. This is one of the popular editions and it also happens to be the one we at Mechon Mamre use personally. So, we are sorry if you have a different edition, but we had to choose something, and the above seemed a natural choice. 23.5 TALMUD BAVLI Chapter headings are of the form: masechet tttt pereq # The location tag for each passage is of the form: b tttt daf #,# where #,# are daf and `amud numbers. So, to go to: search for: Ta`anit Ch. 3 " p r q <space> g " m w A - t A n y Ta`anit 22b " d F <space> k b , b " m w A - t A n y Pagination follows the Vilna edition, which is the standard. 24. SAVING SEARCH RESULTS -------------------------- MTR does not include any printer drivers, and therefore does not support printing directly from the program. However, you can send search results to a file and then load that file into your word processor, or you can paste blocks of text directly from MTR to your word processor. 24.1 SENDING OUTPUT TO A FILE A simple method of saving MTR's output to a file is to run MTR using DOS output-redirection. To do this, run MTR by typing: mtr > filename or mtr >> filename filename may be any legal DOS filename and may include a pathname. > overwrites any existing file of the same name. >> appends output to any existing file of the same name. There are a number of caveats however that apply to this method: Certain functions do not work, e.g. <Ctrl-E> and <Ctrl-R>. You are locked in a concordance-type mode and scrolling is automatic, which means that your search results will disappear from the screen too quickly for you to read them. This method is best used therefore after you have conducted a successful search with MTR running normally. You can then exit MTR, rerun it as shown above, and repeat your search to capture the results in a file. You can then load the results file into a word processor for further perusal or printing. Note, however that if you use a Windows word-processor it must be able to read DOS- standard, ASCII-encoded Hebrew. (See appendix, section A2.3.) We must warn you not to search for anything that occurs too commonly (like all of the spaces in Mishneh Torah). If you do, you will get a huge file of results in just seconds. Note also, that you cannot save search results from Talmud Bavli or Yerushalmi this way. This is not a bug, we have deliberately disabled this capability in the Talmud. 24.2 PASTING BLOCKS OF TEXT FROM MTR INTO YOUR WORD PROCESSOR In section 3 "Functions of MTR files", we described two methods of running MTR together with your word processor, and the appropriate batch file to run for each method. To recapitulate briefly: MW.BAT lets you use MTRTSR.COM with your DOS word processor. This is primarily intended for use in a DOS-only environment. In the instructions below we will refer to this as the method for working under DOS. M.BAT runs MTR.COM on its own, and is the recommended method for using it under Windows with a Windows word processor. In the instructions below, we will refer to this as the method for working under Windows. The following describes how to export text from MTR or MTRTSR to your word processor. 1. Ensure that the cursor in your word processor is at the place where you intend to insert the text. 2. Switch to MTR and mark the block of text you wish to export as follows: a. Scroll the text until the first line of the block is at the top of MTR's text window (just below MTR's command-entry line). b. Mark the beginning of the block by pressing Alt-A or Ctrl-A. Note: These two keys perform the same task but they do not function identically; the choice of which key to press depends on your word processor and whether it is running under Windows or DOS. We will deal with this more fully later on. (Note: The block cursor at the top of the text window shows the starting letter of the marked text.) To export just the location tag in the right margin rather than a block or whole line of text, press <Alt-M> or <Ctrl-M> in place of <Alt-A> or <Ctrl-A>. (Here there is no need for step c.) c. Scroll the text again until the first line that you do not want is at the top of the text window and mark the end of the block by pressing <Enter>. (Note: The block cursor at the top of the text window shows the end of the marked text, which does not include the letter under the cursor.) If you change your mind before pressing <Enter>, you can cancel the process by pressing <Esc>. 3. What happens next depends on which of the two methods mentioned at the beginning of this section you are using: (a) If you are working under DOS - MTRTSR will have returned you to your word processor at this point and it will be entering the text into your word processor just as if you were typing it yourself at the keyboard. The word processor will format the text using the font, margins, tab settings, etc., currently in effect. If you change your mind at this point and you want to stop the text transfer, press MTRTSR's "hot-key" combination (left-shift + right-shift together). This will stop the text transfer and switch you back to MTRTSR. (b) If you are working under Windows - MTR will have sent the block of text you have marked to the clipboard. You must now transfer it from there to your Windows word processor. Use the Windows task-switching key (Alt-Tab) to switch to your word processor, then, use the appropriate command (e.g. Ctrl-V, or menu-item Edit, Paste) for pasting text into your word processor from the clipboard. We shall now return to step 2 (b) and deal with the question of which of the two keys, Alt-A or Ctrl-A, you should use to mark the beginning of your block in MTR. (The same applies to choosing between Alt-M and Ctrl-M for exporting just a location-tag rather than a block of text.) If you are working under Windows it does not really matter which one you use. Under DOS, it depends on your word processor and whether you are writing an English paragraph or a Hebrew one. (We are assuming here that you are using a Hebrew/English or Hebrew word-processor). In general: For Einstein, use Ctrl-A; for Qtext, use Alt-A. For others, you will need to experiment: If you see the text-transfer coming across as English letters after pressing Ctrl-A, you need to use Alt-A; if you see Tavs wherever commas should occur after pressing Alt-A, you need to use Ctrl-A. 24.3 USING MTR's /D COMMAND-LINE OPTION In our experience of word processors running under Hebrew Windows, we have come across three different methods for handling parentheses using, respectively, Write, Word, and Dagesh: The former two are similar, but, while Write behaves quite well, Word, for some reason best known to itself, generally turns every parenthesis at the end of a paragraph to a right parenthesis which, in English is a closing parenthesis but in Hebrew is an opening one (we have seen some versions of Word that have fixed this bug). Dagesh works consistently like Write, but if you load MTR with the default options, all parentheses will be backwards. To overcome this, load MTR with the /D option if you use Dagesh, and MTR will adjust the way it transmits parentheses to suit that program. 24.4 CHOOSING BETWEEN REDIRECTION AND PASTING BLOCKS Which of the two methods described above for exporting text from MTR should you use -- redirection to capture your search results in a file, or pasting selected blocks of text to a word processor? Ordinarily the second method is preferable, as it gives you more control over the process. However this is best suited to cases where it is convenient to select the blocks of text manually as described above. If you wish to export many excerpts that are scattered far and wide throughout a book (e.g. all occurrences of "Chanukkah" in Mishneh Torah), the redirection method will be faster, more convenient and less error prone. 25. CONCLUSION --------------- 25.1 YOUR COMMENTS We would value your feedback on the contents of this file and on the MTR program in general. We invite comments and criticism to help us make improvements, where called for, in future releases. Our postal address is: Mechon Mamre, 12 Hayyim Vital St., Jerusalem ISRAEL e-mail: mechon.mamre.org@gmail.com Thank you in advance for your help! 25.2 FINAL REMARKS We hope you will enjoy using MTR and derive great benefit from it. We also hope that you will see steady improvements to the program with future releases, in which all the limitations mentioned above will have been eliminated -- but no promises. It depends on how much of our efforts we can devote to the programming involved in this project. At the moment we are concentrating most of our energies on editing texts rather than programming. We find this very rewarding as we acquire more Torah-learning in the process (which is not something that can be said for programming). However - We shall try in the name of the Lord, and may God bless our efforts with success! APPENDIX -------- A1. THE HEBREW KEYBOARD ------------------------ You should take time to familiarize yourself with the Hebrew keyboard layout. This is depicted in the following diagram (and on page 4 of F1's Help for Beginners in MTRE.COM in a regular Hebrew font, which you can view while entering your commands). The following diagram is not so pleasing visually, and represents Hebrew letters in English according to the transliteration scheme shown below the diagram. It has the advantage, however, of being able to be correctly printed on any printer, and being intelligible when viewed with the standard DOS screen font. A1.1 THE HEBREW KEYBOARD LAYOUT +---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+------+ | ; | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | - | = | BkSp | +---+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+-+-+----+ | Tab | / | ' | q | r | a | T | w | N | M | p | [ | ] | | +-----++---++---++---++---++---++---++---++---++---++---++---++--+ | | Caps | sh | d | g | k | A | y | x | l | K | P | ," | Enter | +------+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+-+--+---+---+ | Shift | z | s | b | h | n | m | ts | t | TS | . |Shift | \ | +-----+--+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------+---+ | Ctr | | Alt | Space Bar | Alt | | Ctr| +-----+ +-----+------------------------------------+-----+ +----+ A1.2 TRANSLITERATION SCHEME The following transliteration scheme, by which Hebrew letters are represented in English, is used in keyboard diagram above; it is also strictly followed throughout this file wherever Hebrew words are transliterated in a manner intended to indicate their Hebrew spelling. 2nd row: q - kuf r - resh a - alef T - Tet w - vav N - NunS M - MemS p - peh 3rd row: sh - shin d - dalet g - gimel k - kaf A - Ayin y - yod x - chet l - lamed K -KafS P -PehS 4th row: z - zayin s - samech b - beit h - hei n - nun m - mem ts - tsadi t - tav TS - TsadiS A1.3 NOTES This assumes that you have a standard US English keyboard. For other keyboards you may have to experiment. The position of the "\" key (shown here adjacent to the right shift-key) may vary, depending on the keyboard manufacturer. Its function (both shifted and unshifted) is the same on both the Hebrew and the English keyboard. NunS, MemS, KafS, PehS, and TsadiS are final letters, the S standing for Sofit -- Hebrew for "final". (This is the character used instead of the ordinary form of the same letter when it occurs at the end of a word.) "A" (Ayin) is to be distinguished from "a" (alef) here, and "T" (Tet) is to be distinguished from "t" (tav) here. In phonetic transliterations, an ayin is indicated by the left single-quote mark (`) so as to distinguish between an ayin and an alef. The mark, if any, for an alef is the right single-quote mark ('). E.g. `al = ayin-lamed = upon; 'al or al = alef-lamed = not. A1.4 PUNCTUATION CHARACTERS Punctuation characters on the Hebrew keyboard are not in the same keyboard positions as on the English keyboard: , (comma) is below and slightly to the right of [ (This is the ' apostrophe key in English.) . (period) is immediately to the left of the right shift-key. (This is the / key in English.) ; (semicolon) is in the upper left corner (This is the ` left single-quote-mark key in English.) " (double quote mark) is the shifted comma-key (the same key-stroke as used in English for double quotes). Search terms in MTR are required to be enclosed in double quotes. A1.5 MARKING YOUR KEYBOARD If you cannot touch-type in Hebrew and your keyboard does not have Hebrew letters inscribed on the keycaps, it will help you to mark the keycaps yourself with the Hebrew letters. We recommend that you use a permanent-ink felt-tip pen for this, and that you write on the front vertical-surface of the keycaps. The top surface comes in for greater abrasive finger-contact during typing, and the ink would tend to wear off more quickly from the top. We also recommend that you print out the above keyboard-layout and keep it handy for future reference in case you need to remark the keyboard. A2. HEBREW ASCII ----------------- A word of explanation about ASCII-encoded Hebrew might be in order here. If you already know what this is or you are not interested in the technicalities, you need not read this section. A2.1 WHAT IS ASCII ASCII (pronounced "asskey") stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is an international standard (despite the American label) for digitally encoding text so that it can be handled by a computer, which stores everything internally as numbers. It is thanks to the existence of this standard that you can read this file on your computer even though it may have been created in another country and on an entirely different type of computer. When a file is described as a "plain-text" file it usually means that the text it contains is digitally encoded according to this encoding scheme. Such files are also known as "plain-ASCII" files. A2.2 STANDARD ASCII AND IBM ASCII Standard ASCII employs a character-set consisting of 128 characters (numbered 0 to 127). This is enough to represent all of the English alphabet in both upper and lower case characters, the numerals 0-9, plus punctuation characters and common currency and mathematical symbols (in short, all the characters on a standard English keyboard), with enough left over for certain control characters which have special meaning to computers. The control characters (numbered 0-31) are used for controlling devices that are attached to computers; for example, to communicate paper- movement commands to printers when printing the text. Two of these control characters, called "carriage-return" and "line-feed", are used to indicate the end of a line. In DOS-standard text-files they occur together, as a pair, at the end of each line, but you generally won't see them. Programs that display these files are intelligent enough not to display these characters but to simply start a new line wherever they occur. Aside from these, a plain-text file contains no other formatting information, just the text. IBM-standard ASCII is an extension to the basic ASCII set which adds another 128 characters to it (128-255), known as the "upper-ASCII" characters. The IBM-ASCII set of 256 characters is also known as "8-bit ASCII" because it takes 8 binary digits to represent a set of numbers in the range 0-255. 8-bit ASCII is used on all IBM-compatible computers, and it opened the way for alphabets containing non-Latin characters to be represented by the ASCII encoding scheme, which was originally designed with only English characters in mind. Over the years, various standards arose for ASCII-encoding of such alphabets. The upper-ASCII characters are used, on IBM-type computers, to represent things such as box-drawing characters, additional mathematical symbols, Cyrillic and Greek characters, and the special accented vowels used in French and German. A2.3 THE ISRAELI STANDARD FOR ASCII-HEBREW The Israeli/IBM standard for ASCII encoding of Hebrew uses some of the upper-ASCII character-codes (128-154) to represent the letters alef to tav. This standard was named "IBM-862 encoding," and is the standard for DOS text. The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. Hebrew-Windows and many Windows word-processors use a newer encoding scheme for ASCII-Hebrew called ISO 8859/8 encoding, where alef to tav = 224-250. (ISO stands for International Standards Organization.) Most modern, Hebrew word-processors know about both standards and can convert one to the other when required. We are chiefly concerned here with describing DOS-standard, plain-text files, and wherever Hebrew text is described in this document as "ASCII-Hebrew", we mean IBM-standard, ASCII-encoded Hebrew, where alef=128, bet=129 and so on, according to the IBM-862 encoding standard. Since the English alphabet and the other characters that appear on standard English keyboards are all numbered below 128 in the ASCII code, neither the IBM nor the ISO standard presents any numbering conflict with those characters and there is no problem at all having ASCII files containing mixed English and Hebrew text. A2.4 DISPLAY OF HEBREW CHARACTERS AND HEBREW TEXT-FILES The standard DOS screen fonts used on IBM-type computers outside Israel display characters 128-154 as the special accented-vowels used in French and German. The Hebrew screen fonts for DOS supplied for IBM computers in Israel replace these with the letters alef to tav, according to the IBM-862 encoding scheme. Since the accented vowels are not used in English, their loss is no problem for mixed English and Hebrew text, but this may not be so for French or German. (I doubt whether such text can be mixed with Hebrew using IBM-862 encoding without losing the accented vowels.) Having the right screen font is not the only consideration in correctly displaying a Hebrew document -- even a DOS-standard, plain-text file. Hebrew text needs to be displayed from right to left. Depending on the program used to create the file, the layout of the text in the file will usually follow one of two main formats. The most common layout, and usually the most efficient for storage, is for the text to be stored in "logical order", the same as for English text. That is, the first character first, the second character second, and so on. There is nothing special within these files to indicate that they contain Hebrew text; to a computer, they are no different from text files containing English text or text in any other language. Therefore, ordinary software that knows nothing of Hebrew will display such files on the screen with the text running from left to right, making it appear mirror-reversed (sort of) to readers of Hebrew. Hebrew-aware software, however, knows to display such files so that the text runs from right to left on the screen, the way Hebrew is written. An alternative format for storing Hebrew text is to use a "visually- ordered" layout. This is a kind of mirror reversal of logical order, which means that when ordinary software displays the text from left to right on the screen it appears the right way around for reading Hebrew. Hebrew programs that store text using this method usually restrict the line widths to 80 characters, or slightly less, to fit a standard DOS screen. Often, they will also right-justify all the lines to this width by left-padding shorter lines with spaces. Such padding makes for rather inefficient storage, but the advantages are that ordinary software can correctly display such a file and print it (provided you have a Hebrew printer-font). The layout of the text files in the MTR package is logical ordering. A3. TSR PROGRAMS ----------------- (This explanation is relevant to MTRTSR.COM and, to some degree, to MTRFONTS.COM.) A3.1 WHAT IS A TSR TSR stands for Terminate and Stay Resident. A TSR program is a program which remains present in memory, even when it is not being used, until you explicitly unload it. It can coexist with other DOS programs (which normally need to be exited before you can run another one). Thus, even after you load another DOS program, it stays resident, but in the background; and you can often switch between the two by using a special "hot-key", which "pops up" the TSR over the other program, or switches back to that program from the TSR. A3.2 MTRTSR Because TSRs can coexist with other programs, it is possible to have a TSR work cooperatively with another program, providing additional functionality to that program which it would not have without the presence of the TSR. Having MTRTSR pop-up and search and then send search results or blocks of text to your DOS-based word processor is an example of this kind of cooperative working. MTRTSR's hot-key combination is left-shift + right-shift, pressed simultaneously. A3.3 CAVEATS ON LOADING AND RUNNING TSRS TSRs should not be loaded from a temporary DOS prompt that has been opened up from within some other program, except for Windows. Doing so introduces fragmentation into memory usage which may cause your system to hang (stop working) when you return to the program. If you plan to unload a TSR, keep in mind that subsequently loaded TSRs must be unloaded first, in the reverse order to the order in which they were loaded, e.g. if you have loaded a, b, c, and d, and you now want to unload b, you must unload d and c and then b. In most cases, unloading is accomplished by running the TSR with a command line option such as /u or /r (for unload or remove). Check the documentation. In the case of MTRTSR, you issue the same command to load and unload it. If it is already loaded when you issue the command, it will unload itself (if possible). Some TSRs may clash with other TSRs or with other ordinary DOS programs. If you experience problems, experiment by eliminating one at a time until you find the culprit, and adjust your usage of them accordingly. Because of a very rare bug in the BIOSs (hard-wired programming) of some video cards or mother boards, running MTRFONTS.COM in former versions of MTR would hang the system when it checked if it is already loaded in memory. In the current MTR version, we think we have overcome this bug. if you find that we have not, do let us know immediately: write us at mechon.mamre.org@gmail.com, and we will try to supply you by return email with a Hebrew font program that is less flexible than MTRFONTS.COM, but will not hang your system. A4. NOTES ON NT, WINDOWS 2000, AND XP The newest versions of Windows--NT, Windows2000, and XP--are totally lacking in support for the clipboard in all DOS-based applications like MTR. Thus, do not expect to copy and paste from MTR to other applications under those systems. In addition, they lack support for easy switching between the usual Grapical User Interface (GUI) of Windows to s full screen DOS applications that was in all Windows systems up to Windows 98 and ME. Thus, you cannot just run m.bat from the GUI and press <alt-enter>, and expect to see MTR's built in Hebrew font support. You must first get your machine in a DOS session with full screen and only then run the m.bat to see MTR with its own Hebrew font. We suggest that you make a shortcut on your desktop to run a DOS session in full screen, so that you need only run your shortcut and then type xp and <enter> to run MTR. While you cannot copy to the XP ClipBoard, if you use MTR4XP or MTRE4XP by running xp.bat or xpe.bat, you can copy from MTR to a MTR.TXT file in which texts are saved in Windows Hebrew encoding, using the same procedure as with MTR under Win9x for copying to the Clipboard. NOTE: MTR cannot write to MTR.TXT at the same time as MTR.TXT is open in certain editors and word processors, and if you try to save text to MTR.TXT from MTR when MTR.TXT is being used by them, you will get a beep warning instead of saved text. This is a feature of Windows, so that two programs are not trying to write in a conflicting way to the same file. Just close MTR.TXT in the Windows program, save the text from MTR, and then reopen MTR.TXT with the added saved text. Note, too, that MTR always adds copied text to the end of the MTR.TXT file, no matter how large it is (up to 2 GB!), so you may at times want to erase MTR.TXT or delete no longer needed texts to keep it from getting too large for your convenience. You also may want to add a shortcut on your desktop to the dotxt.bat to open the current MTR.TXT in Notepad or dodoc.bat to open an MTR.DOC file copy of the current MTR.TXT in Word. But note that saving new text to MTR.TXT from MTR will not update the currently open MTR.TXT or MTR.DOC in either Notepad or Word: you need to close the file and then reopen it using dotxt or dodoc.