[OS X TeX] hebrew with LaTeX

[Michael Sharpe]

On Jan 12, 2012, at 5:27 PM, Art Werschulz wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> For a long time, I've been using Joel Hoffman's Hebrew TeX setup.  This mainly consists of an interface file hletter1.tex (which define \aleph, \bet, etc.), as well as MetaFont files (such as hclassic.mf) for Hebrew fonts.  This works fine for the small amount of Hebrew I might want to put into my documents (e.g., for a dedication).
> 
> Now the TeXLive distribution contains ArabTeX, which has a map file named arabtex.map for updmap.  Said map file has the lines
>  hclassic TeX-hclassic <hclassic-4.pfb
>  hcaption TeX-hcaption <hcaption-4.pfb
> When I use the "out of the box" version of a new distribution, Hebrew characters all come out as little blobs.
> 
> Now the easy fix is to simply run
>  # updmap-sys --disable arabtex.map
> and I'll be using my old PK fonts (e.g., hclassic.600pk).  I need to do this every time I install a new version of the TeXLive distribution.
> 
> How can I avoid all this?  There ought to be a way for me to easily use the hclassic-4.pfb font, rather than the PK version.  
> 
> Thanks.
> 

Those pfb fonts are set up quite oddly, having a designsize of 128pt. (10pt is much more common for a text font.) You can use them if you do in the manner of Plain TeX.

In your preamble:

\input hletter1
\font\hlet=hclassic at 128pt

In your document:

{\hlet \aleph\bet}

gives you the glyphs at actual 10pt size. May be OK for occasional use. (This assumes you've enabled arabtex.map, or you use pdflatex with a line

\pdfmapfile{+arabtex.map}

Michael