General information

Hebrew/Yiddish Notes+Keyboard is the best way to write Hebrew text with nikud (vowel points), trop (cantillation marks), and Yiddish characters on your Android device. It consists of a bi-directional notes app, plus a keyboard that can be used for text entry in any app. To switch to an English keyboard, long-press on the space bar to see a menu of available keyboards. Long-press on the space bar to switch back to the Hebrew or Yiddish keyboards.

The notes app features the Traditional Hebrew/Yiddish OpenType Unicode font. This font, designed specifically for Android, accurately renders Biblical Hebrew, with proper placement of vowels (nikud, nekudot) and cantillation marks (trop, te'amim); it also supports medial meteg placement. This font supports Yiddish with all of the special Yiddish forms -- komets alef, pasekh alef, tsvey vovn, vov yod, khirik yod, tsvey yodn, pasekh tsvey yudn. The font can be continuously re-sized to suit your needs, both for viewing on your device and for printing. The notes app supports titles for notes, unlimited undo/redo, and printing through Google Cloud Print. Notes are automatically saved as you type. The notes app saves files as plain Unicode text. Files can be shared.

The Hebrew/Yiddish keyboard supports two languages: Hebrew (עברית) and Yiddish (ייִדיש). Each language has its own keyboard layout.

Hebrew: The Hebrew letters and vowels, with the vowels in an extra top row of the keyboard, plus a separate layout for the cantillation marks. A long press on most keys pops up a menu with additional forms. For example, a long press on the bet brings up the option for bet with dagesh, a long press on the vav brings up options for vav with dagesh (shuruq), holammale, and vav with holam haser,and a long press on the kamatz brings up options for the kamatz katan, hataf kamatz, and the number 6.

Yiddish: The Yiddish letters, with numbers in an extra top row of the keyboard. A long press on specific letter keys brings up options for additional Yiddish letters. Long press on bet, kaf, and pe for the dagesh or rafe forms of those letters. Long press on yod or vav for other forms of those letters. Long press on gimel, zayin, het, tsadi and tav for those letters pre-composed with geresh. Long press on the single quote for for geresh, long press on the double quote for gershayim. Long press on the numbers for commonly used symbols.

Within each language, the keyboard supports the usual numbers and symbols layout and a format layout which includes the Unicode bidirectional control characters (RLM, LRM, RLE, LRE, LRO, RLO, PDF), and several other Unicode special characters (CGJ, ZWJ, ZWNJ, NBSP, ZWSP) which are sometimes needed for correctly displaying Hebrew, Yiddish or mixed direction text.

The keyboard's appearance and other properties can be changed via the keyboard settings. Long press on the comma key and select the gear icon. To find the help file for the keyboard, long press on the comma key and select the question mark icon.

Hebrew/Yiddish Notes+Keyboard is a joint project of ZigZag, Inc. and Davka Corporation.