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I have a DavkaWriter .doc file from 20 years ago. When it opens in Word it looks like this

enter image description here

This text should be לא תרצח לא תנאף

Does any one have any way of converting this? (I do not have access to a copy of the DavkaWriter software)

Apparently there is a program called DavkaReader which would do this, but this seems to no longer be available. It seems that DavkaWriter uses its own proprietry format for Hebrew, so it does not seem possible to change the font, or to change the encoding. I have tried to do a search and replace - assuming each symbol aligns with one Hebrew letter, but was not successful (perhaps because there is other encoding there, including vowel signs)

gordon613
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3 Answers3

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The DavkaViewer program download is still available from the WayBack machine, archived in 2018. The DavkaViewer program itself is also available from this link.

I have verified that I could download the program, but have not tried to install it. The program itself dates from 2005, so I don't know how well it will work today.

If the viewer doesn't work, note that the DavkaWriter website still exists, but the software is quite costly. You could ask them for help, or for a working DavkaViewer program.

harrymc
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Using DavkaViewer, you can print the document as a PDF file. The issue then becomes that if you try and export it to Word from PDF all the Hebrew comes out backwards and I was unable to fix that issue. HOWEVER.. If you want to edit in Word, simply open the document in DavkaViewer, open the Davka file, enter Control A to highlight the enter document and the simply copy and paste into a Word file. Works perfectly. B'hatzlachah! Yosef

Yosef Fridman
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To properly understand the difference between DavkaWriter and Word one must understand that Davka had a free hand in addressing the issues any way they wanted and their sole objective was to address all Hebrew, font style, vowels, and trope and across multiple versions. The core issue is Word is that it is a superb word processor but it was not designed to handle esoteric issues of Hebrew vowels without external support. This means that Word can handle tons of different languages superbly because Unicode (the system of standardization facilitating all languages with their full alphabets) was done very well_ Unfortunately there are a few vowels which were missed when they took on the differentiation of Sheva Na and Sheva Nach along with Hataf Qamatz Kattan. I put in a request full explaining how to resolve this in a way that would have helped everyone who has such requirements. Unfortunately they required the approval of Vaad HaLashon in Israel and they are totally incoherent and incompetent in everything they touch. They did not approve based on their assessment that no one uses vowels any longer (See Israeli newspapers) and no one reads the Torah, Siddur, and any other Hebrew materials with Niqqud. In other words the incompetent Vaad HaLashon of Israel sabotaged all Hebrew typographical work in generic word processing software. So if your requirement are simple, you can get by. But if you have any niqqud or Trope it is hit or miss if you will succeed. In my case I am a systems engineer and can design my fonts any way I like and handle all encodings.

E. M.
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