eReader for the Hebrew reader

[Logseman]

Originally Posted by carmelra

I don't know for sure but my past experience shows that any device that supports Hebrew supports Arabic as well (You know, both are similar languages with similar characteristic that face similar hurdles with these reading systems )
Anyway, it's something that need to be tested and confirmed.

Hebrew and Arabic are not always in the same conditions. I've been using a custom ROM in my Samsung Galaxy S, and the ROM maker was literally assaulted with Arab people who wanted full Arabic support. While Hebrew worked fine almost from the start, there was an issue about Arabic having each letter disconnected from the other. The Arab folks were quite a bit... insistive, but the ROM maker managed to pull the trick. And peace ensued in the ROM's thread in XDA

[carmelra]

Here are a few (bad quality... Sorry for that) screen captures of the PAGEone ereader.
It might be that this reader that is being sold in Israel has a firmware update to enable better Hebrew handling.

The following screen captures shows that the erader suppORTS Hebrew properly.

Book library is being displayed aligned to the left but the text itself is readable and fine.


Book title is being is readable but there is a small problem with some of the text that should be centered and got aligned to the right...


Regular text is being displayed properly, including different styles. It's not possible (at least I couldn't find a way) to click on links (for example, for footnotes).


Punctuated text is being displayed properly.


Just a screen capture to see the device size. I think it's the smallest 6 inch ereader I have ever seen.

[h.k.]

Calibre can convert an epub to a pdf sized for your device. Here's something I'm working on.
hk

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by h.k.

Calibre can convert an epub to a pdf sized for your device. Here's something I'm working on.
hk

Thanks!
Actually, my main interest is ePub. PDF is not reflowable and I don't consider it as a good format for eBooks, although I know that there are a few eReaders that can read Hebrew PDF.

[h.k.]

I agree with you. I bought my e-reader, before reading your post here and learning that most of them don't support Hebrew. I also was surprised that there aren't (yet?) many classical Hebrew texts in epub format.
(Even stranger, I can't find interesting English Judaica books in epub format (Heschel, Lieberman, Soloveitchik, Sheinsaltz. Maybe you could convince the publishers to allow you to create and sell them from your site?)
Hebrew PDF format books sized for smaller screens is a work-around for me.

[jimad]

Kindle lacks the glyphs to support Hebrew or Arabic, as one can see by downloading the latest MOBI test file from:

http://freekindlebooks.org/Unicode/unicode.html

The test file displays common code pages at the start, but at the end of the document gives a comprehensive display of all unicode code points -- assuming your MOBI device supports those code points!

Sony Pocket Reader does seem to support RTL Hebrew, using your file as an example.

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by jimad

Sony Pocket Reader does seem to support RTL Hebrew, using your file as an example.

I never saw it working properly. Would you be able to post a screen capture of the result? Thanks.

[carmelra]

Bad news for the Hebrew readers. Aldiko's latest version doesn't support Hebrew. Version 2 added DRM support and implemented Adobe's RMSDK toolkit. It doesn't handle RTL languages properly.

How can we force Adobe to pay attention to the fact that they doesn't support ePub properly. Supporting RTL is part of ePub 2 specs.

[carmelra]

OverDrive Media Console now supports Hebrew ePub on iOS, Android and Blackberry.

[carmelra]

Nathan from the eBook Reader blog posted a review for the new Nook Touch reader. I asked him to check for Hebrew support and he kindly agreed and tested it. The results are not good as you can see from the attached screen captures. The text is displayed left to right and is not readable. In some cases the Nook is unable to deal with some styles and the result is strange characters and symbols.

Maybe the solution is to root it and use some Android application that support Hebrew.

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by carmelra

Maybe the solution is to root it and use some Android application that support Hebrew.

Well, one guy tested this option and it worked properly!
Detailed instructions on the process and results are in the following link (In Hebrew):
http://iandroid.co.il/forum/topic36716.html

[DovGrobgeld]

As my wife just got a Samsung Galaxy S2, I decided to learn a bit about android and E-readers. As you have mentioned earlier in this thread, FBReaderJ indeed does not support Hebrew, and after examining its open source code in Java I understand why. Fixing it isn't completely trivial due to its architecture (it's drawing a word at a time from the left to the right). On the other hand the desktop version of FBReader in C++ does support Hebrew (using "my" library FriBidi :-) and as it's architecture seems quite similar between the Java and the C++ versions, I think the easiest solution for Hebrew would be to simply copying over the bidi changes.

Once the RTL is solved (which is sufficient for Hebrew), it should be quite trivial to add shaping which is needed for Arabic. Not sure whether there are any Java libraries for it or whether the best is to use JNI and fribidi (which has shaping), HarfBuzz, or Pango. We'll see how much time I'll have to play with this.

Once I have something available I'll put it on github and will post in this forum.

[tabliczka]

Hebrew works fine on Onyx Boox X61S in FBReader mode (Settings -> Preferred Applications -> FBReader).
You can check the attached picture.

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by DovGrobgeld

Once I have something available I'll put it on github and will post in this forum.

Sounds great! Thanks.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 is currently (in my opinion) the best smartphone that can be used as an eReader.

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by tabliczka

Hebrew works fine on Onyx Boox X61S in FBReader mode (Settings -> Preferred Applications -> FBReader).
You can check the attached picture.

Thanks for posting this info. It looks good! Where did you buy it?