@Jin yay!

@IsaacMoses - "When you print this document out for your own use, we hope you'll consider printing out an extra copy to give to a friend. " I'm going to print a whole stack of extra copies and put them on the rack that people will walk past to pick up their Pesach wine orders on Sunday morning! :-) (And pitch it at the minyan on Shabbat, of course.) anticipation...

I'm just really amazed at how quickly and well this all came together. Yasher kochachem and congratulations to @Jin and all the folks who spent lots of time and aren't being paid for this! Thanks!

@CharlesKoppelman :) working on it as we speak. I haven't used MS Word in sooo long.

@CharlesKoppelman Something everyone can help with at whatever level they choose, as soon as this goes live: promoting it far and wide.

@IsaacMoses @MonicaCellio are you guys good with Microsoft Word?

I'm creating this template in MS Word, so it's more accessible for others to edit.

@Jin I'm fine with it. Are you considering an alternative?

I used LaTeX for about a year, about a decade ago.

@IsaacMoses no

@IsaacMoses @MonicaCellio @msh210 and others, i put up a template MS Word file here. I also included a PDF version so you know how it'd look as it is on my computer (in case your version of Word formats differently).

I've been using the table of content you put together as a guide. I've put up a few questions in the template, up to "If God had not delivered us from Egypt we would still be slaves"? Really?

formatting is fairly straight forward. just copy the question title and body. change question title to Heading 1 in Word, and the body text to 11pt. you can copy and paste that floral divider to new questions. it's just an image.

I also plan to add a background pattern to the cover page, behind the logo, but i couldn't figure out how to do it in Word without messing up the format. I'll keep on trying.

@Jin since @IsaacMoses volunteered to do the work and he's fine with Word, sounds good to me! (I'm glad he's doing this; I've not had great luck going from Pages to Word without formatting blunders on my Mac, and I don't own a copy of Word.)

@Jin nice! I love how you incorporated the "scrollwork" graphic from the site between the questions and answers. How do you recommend we add the title to the front page? Above the logo? Below? Any font recommendations etc?

@Jin Thanks! Unless you object, I think I'm going to use H1 for section titles ("Introduction," "קַדֵּשׁ / Kadesh", "עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ ...‏" / "We were slaves ...") with the orange border around them, use H2 for question titles without the border, and set the TOC to grab only from H1. I may add a page break before each H1. I'll also de-italicize the List Paragraph style. ...

... Given that we're using a TOC, we'll need page numbers, so I'll add those, probably at bottom-center, and in a small Georgia.

... Do you know a way to switch between letter and A4 sizes for output purposes without changing the pagination?

@MonicaCellio Yes; unless someone else signals that they're picking it up before then, I'll pick up this document at about 8pm CDT tonight and at least get it to the point where all the content is in it. I would appreciate if someone else could commit to picking it up from there to proofread and then generate the final .pdfs, preferably by ~COB tomorrow.

(By which I mean, commit today to get it done by COB tomorrrow.)

@Jin @MonicaCellio Could you please get an email address of someone at SE who can receive the PDFs tomorrow late afternoon / early evening, put them somewhere public-facing and permanent, and provide URLs back (or just edit them into the landing page) shortly thereafter?

@Jin I just noticed in the pdf. In that question the direction is off in the title. The word עבדים should appear more to the right of the word היינו with the ellipsis all the way on the left.

Also, just to clarify, in the TOC the black words Hebrew / English that aren't linked are referring to sections of the seder. The section Maggid is long enough and question-ful enough that we subdivided it.

... For Magid, to keep things simple, I think I'll just have one H1 for Magid, followed immediately by another H1 for the first sub-section. They'll show up on the TOC at the same level, on the same page. Alternatively, I could just have one H1 (and one TOC entry) for Magid, and then use H2, but colored black, for the subsection/quotations, followed by regular, orange H2s for question titles. ...

... Third alternative: Make H3 identical to H2 now, make H2 like it is now, but black, use H1 for sections, H2 for Magid sub-sections, and H3 for question titles, and set the TOC to grab H1 and H2.

@DoubleAA If anyone can play around with the Hebrew and English in the Word doc and provide advice on getting it right with minimal steps after Ctrl-V, I'd appreciate it.

@DoubleAA that's fine. sorry I misunderstood. The TOC updates dynamically(although you have to right click on the TOC section to choose update new question titles and page numbers).

@IsaacMoses that's @msh210's domain. I'm just here to criticize :)

@IsaacMoses you can email it to me jin @ stackexchange.com. although right now we don't host files off our server. The best and easiest way would be for you to put it in a dropbox folder and share the link to file only.

@DoubleAA That's appreciated too!

that's what I did with the 2 links I pasted above.

@DoubleAA One way or the other, we'll get the section titles and TOC to work with our intuition

@IsaacMoses change the paper size will affect the page number count, but since the TOC is dynamic it can be updated easily.

@Jin But that way, any tweaking I do to for widow/orphan control will get undone.

@IsaacMoses I think the best way to get this done is, once you're done with final text edits, email the word doc back to me at jin @ stackexchange.com and i'll do some final design changes(visual only), and email the doc back to you and convert it to 2 PDFs

@IsaacMoses another way would be, adjust margin to the longer/wider version of the page size, so the content section size remains the same.

@Jin Thanks!

@Jin I see how that could work

@IsaacMoses to be honest I haven't done this two size thing in Word before. In fact, it's been years since I used Word that's why I struggled a bit with it last night.

@Jin The margin trick you suggest may be just the thing. In any case, if we end up releasing only in letter, it's not the end of the world.

@Jin, I know this is your job and all, but you deserve a medal. Just skimming the Haggadah, it looks terrific!

@IsaacMoses yeah. these days most software's print option has a choice of "scale to fit entire paper"

@SethJ thanks! I think most work were done by the community. I merely copy and pasted, then fought MS Word a bit..

@IsaacMoses btw, you can make the TOC grab Heading 2 also, that way the TOC will show actual question titles too. Would that be better?

@DoubleAA and @Jin, I'm wondering if the titles that are in Hebrew and translated into English (like "...עבדים היינו " / "We Were Slaves..." should be one on top of the other, not side by side.

@MonicaCellio @Jin How about title in Hebrew above the graphic and both title and subtitle in English below ?

@SethJ See my messages above

@IsaacMoses Concur.

@IsaacMoses you're talking about the cover page?

@Jin Yes. Asking for your opinion. Not (necessarily) asking you to implement that, especially since we haven't provided the title in Hebrew.

@IsaacMoses Oh, I wasn't.

@IsaacMoses I think the logo as first may be more visually pleasing. followed by Hebrew, then English. That way the top of the page feels airy and open.

but we can try different layout 'n see.

@Jin Your instincts are, of course, likely correct. Note that a Hebrew title is not essential, but I think would be good form.

I think including Hebrew title is a great idea.

@Jin ?הגדה - מי יודע

@IsaacMoses i just pasted that below the logo, looks good to me.

you can try it too. you can type words below the logo on the cover page

text is center aligned on the cover page by default.

@IsaacMoses Not objecting here, just wondering if it's a bit of overkill? The Hebrew words מי יודע are in the graphic. You know I love Hebrew; I'm just wondering about its appeal to, say, @Jin, whose Hebrew background isn't as strong. ;-)

@Jin (I no longer have the doc open) Is the font style and size currently on the front page good?

@SethJ well, having English title there helps too. But when I see Hebrew, (even though I can't read it) it gives me a sense of authenticity...

@IsaacMoses I had to enlarge the font a bit, but looks decent to me.

@Jin How large?

@Jin OK, good feedback, thanks.

i set it to 28pt in the screen above.

but once you add the english titles, i think it could be a bit smaller.

@Jin @IsaacMoses Do we want the Hebrew title to be in Rashi script, like we thought for Mi Yodeya?

@Jin The Hebrew words are backwards again. (not your fault, and I don't know how to fix it.)

@DoubleAA I was gonna say the same thing.

@Jin RTL still causing problems. Hopefully someone (@msh210) will provide advice for that some time today. Should the title text maybe be in a different color than the text in the logo (tree-brown)? (What are the RGB numbers for tree-brown?) Also, should the titles perhaps be above the logo, to separate them from the (larger) text in the logo? As far as the doc is concerned, its title is more important.

@DoubleAA Well, not backwards. Just the words are in the wrong order.

@SethJ That's what I meant.

@DoubleAA Right. I was just clarifying for @Jin.

@DoubleAA Perhaps. If you can recommend a font, we can try it. One issue is that fewer people can read Rashi script than can read standard Hebrew block letters, and we're (I think) trying for broad reach with this volume.

@SethJ Actually, I don't think I addressed this above. Answer: maybe yes. I'll see how it looks/works. If they can fit on the same line centered (or with the space between them at center) (or maybe even left-justified), without slash or quotation marks, that may actually look nice. I may shorten some specifically so they can fit on one line

Free online font

All those letters are pretty similar to regular script.

@DoubleAA I like it. Where can we get the font?

@DoubleAA True, but to the untrained, or less-trained, eye it might be difficult to read.

@IsaacMoses h/t mar gavriel margavriel.livejournal.com/217268.html

along with a whole bunch of other free hebrew fonts

including ktav ivri

@SethJ Close enough, I think, especially given the transliteration directly below.

@DoubleAA My father, for example, only uses Artscroll for Bentching because fancier Bentchers tend to have slight distortions in the letters for artistic purposes, and he struggles to read them. (cc @IsaacMoses). It depends on how easy you're trying to make it for people.

@SethJ This is just for the front title, not for the in-text Hebrew bits

@DoubleAA Understood. First impressions, though...

@DoubleAA Again, I'm not objecting, just making observations and suggestions.

@DoubleAA Thanks. Can't access LJ now, but I trust it'll be straightforward enough to get the font tonight. I hope it survives the translation to PDF without trouble.

@SethJ Keep 'em coming.

@Jin I thought we were aiming for a "page area" that would work on either A4 or letter without having to tweak the content. The PDF last night looked like it would print fine on either (though I can't test with A4). Do we need to worry about page numbers changing, widows/orphans, etc?

@SethJ You've got to check this out. They have different fonts for ancient Hebrew as used in qumran, vs the mesha stele, vs gezer, vs the samaritans etc.

@IsaacMoses works for me!

@MonicaCellio In pdf, I think the pagination is fixed. It'd be nice if someone could test the test PDF Jin already made in an A4 environment to see if what comes out looks reasonable. If so, we'll just publish one PDF and shalom al Yisrael

@DoubleAA Sounds awesome. Alas, I cannot download software on my work computer, and I rarely use a pc at home anymore.

@DoubleAA Oh, I'm looking at their PDF sampler. Someone put a lot of work into this.

The good news is, the price we're charging converts easily between US $, Euros, NIS, Canadian $, Cypriot Euros, etc.

@IsaacMoses I think having the lone use of Rashi script being on our cover page would be odd. And as you said, not everybody knows how to read it, and I hope that some of the people we're reaching with this are in that group. As @SethJ said, first impressions matter.

@IsaacMoses :-)

@Jin, thank you so much for all your work on this! I can't wait to share this with people!

@MonicaCellio you guys did the hard part :) thank you too.

@MonicaCellio Good points. I agree wholeheartedly that I hope this document gets used by a wide cross-section of people, including those who can't read Hebrew at all.

@IsaacMoses and @MonicaCellio, right, so the question is, are we assuming that Rashi font won't turn off readers since there's a preponderance of English and standard Hebrew font?

@SethJ I'm assuming that Rashi script on the front page could deter the less-fluent folks from turning to the second page. I'd rather just stick with standard Hebrew; even if they can't read that either, they'll probably recognize "haggadah" since they see it elsewhere, and "mi yodeya" is translated below the logo.

@MonicaCellio The English title will be a transliteration of the Hebrew title: Hagada - Mi Yodeya?

@MonicaCellio @SethJ, but yes, this concern plus what you said about stylistic unity with the content inside convinces me to just keep it block

@IsaacMoses yeah, right, sorry! Of course. Need to install more caffeine today, apparently. :-) They should know those words from the song, and if not "haggadah" will still be obvious. So long as it's not in Rashi script. :-)

> commemoratingthe Exodus from Egypt

^^ missing space.

@TRiG link please?

I can fix that, but tell me which answer it's in

It's from Jin's PDF.

> Why do we link Shabbat with the Exodus from Egypt?

Also, there's quite a few double hyphens which really should be dashes.

(This is especially annoying when the double hyphen breaks on a linebreak, as it does in Alex's answer to that same question.)

I see it. It's Isaac's kid's question

Contributers list for that same question: Barry's name is followed by a double hyphen before the URL. All the others have but a single hyphen. (I'd say a colon would be better, but consistency is what really matters.)

@DoubleAA oh, my fault then. Sorry!

@IsaacMoses, looks like we'll need a sweep for "--" to real m-dashes. Can you do that in Word?

@MonicaCellio No it's correct in the original. Must be a transcription error.

Heads up @Jin ^^^

@DoubleAA oh! Ok. Cut/paste then, and that could have been either of us.

@IsaacMoses How about block script....of the handwriting of Ben Asher?

(I'm too excited by these fonts.)

@MonicaCellio Should be easy enough to fix with find/replace

@DoubleAA Probably had to do with adjusting the formatting there (there's some bold). @TRiG, thanks for the proofreading. When we do the copy/paste for real, we'll make sure these issues are not present.

@IsaacMoses Proofreading isn't so much a service I provide as a form of compulsion. I can't help it.

@TRiG excellent! Got any free time tonight?

@MonicaCellio My home computer is playing up (refusing to turn on), and I promised myself I'd leave the office on time today for a change, so probably not.

@TRiG Me, too, but for yodeya-ing :)

Anybody see this site?

haggadot.com

@SethJ Took a quick look when @DoubleAA kicked off this whole thing by suggesting we make a hagada.

I'm not really keeping up here, but (@DoubleAA @IsaacMoses anyone else) are there extant bidi issues?

Just glancing at the PDF I see that all the <li>s are italicized. On purpose?

(Where by "the PDF" I mean dropbox.com/s/aivx02zs1oxsbxy/haggadah-publication.pdf . Dunno whether there's a newer version I should be looking at instead.)

@msh210 I intend to fix this.

Ohh... I see. That PDF also has all Hebrew multi-word phrases with the words in reverse order. Okay: is that extant? If so, I don't know what to do about it! (Sounds like a MS-Word-specific issue, and I don't know Word.)

@msh210 OK; thanks anyway. When I actually do the pasting, I'll figure it out (unless someone else comes along with an idea!)

@msh210 that was my fault most likely. it's both good and bad when copying from website then pasting into Word, that Word tries to help you to maintain the text styling from the site..

hyperlinks are a pain. because i had to manually strip out the link, and reformat the text color

what I ended up doing was, pasting into Notepad/Textedit first, the convert to pure text format, then copy 'n paste again into Word.

@Jin Isn't there a way to set the global format for hyperlinks to look like plain text? This would be ideal.

@IsaacMoses i tried to look for the theme's style for hyperlinks, but couldn't find it.

but then again i'm not too great with Word.

I was able to format heading text, body, and list items.

@msh210 It looks like in most cases, I can copy/paste mixed text from MY into Word, and the Hebrew comes out OK.

@Jin Found it. (Create hyperlink. Put cursor in it. Open Styles list. Select Hyperlink style. Modify. All hyperlinks remain clickable but look like regular text)

I think that I'll be able to copy formatted text out of MY, drop it in Word, and fix most style issues with global changes to styles.

@msh210, your thoughts related to these two comment blocks would be appreciated

@IsaacMoses re the 1st link:

I don't knwo what H1, H2 ook like.

There already is a pagebreak before each section, isnt there?

@IsaacMoses another thing you could do for magid is to collapse it down to one heading -- magid - dayeinu" (with the Hebrew), instead of "magid" h1 + "dayeinu" h2.

...oh, no, there isn't.

Well, I dont see one's necessary.

A pagebreak I mean, before each section of the seder

@msh210 with the number of questions we have this year it doesn't seem necessary, so we can leave it to editor's (Isaac's) discretion when he actually sees the pages before his eyes.

Anyway, I don't thinkhaving Magid and its Qs both in the the ToC & at the same level therein lwould look good

@MonicaCellio yeah, fine by me. I'm only commenting because he asked me to

@IsaacMoses no

@msh210 right, gotcha.

@msh210 H1: Big, orange, with box around it. H2: Medium, orange, with no box

@msh210 If I put sections as H1 and subsections as H2, it's possible to configure the TOC to indent the subsections. I don't intend to let Q titles be on the TOC; only sections and maybe subsections

@IsaacMoses oh ok. maybe that'd be good, and mayeb with pagebreaks. whatever you think best if you're doing it

@IsaacMoses oh i thought Q titles would be good, as at dropbox.com/s/aivx02zs1oxsbxy/haggadah-publication.pdf

...which incidentally should have "Table of Contents" not "Table of Content". Both are right literally but the former is the idiom AFAIK

@msh210 Too much text leads to misbehavior of table

@msh210 will fix

My current favorite scheme, not having tried any yet, is this one

@IsaacMoses or that one with the H2/H3 colors switched?

@msh210 Or that.

@msh210 Yeah; that'd unite the Q titles with the content and the subsection titles with the titles.

@IsaacMoses be easier to decide seeing it, so whatever you choose is good afai'm concerned

@msh210 True. Thanks.

@msh210 s/so/and/

@msh210 :) Thanks

Apropos of nothing... we have a new employee in my office, who I spent some time chatting with yesterday. He wears a kippah. Finally, I will not be the only person in this office who keeps kosher, won't work on Shabbat, etc! I spent years feeling so alone, with the occasional "but he does..." questions/challenges when I needed to (e.g.) leave early for yom tov... (He just moved to my neighborhood, so I was helping with the local "what's where" stuff.)

@MonicaCellio Get him a Hagada!

@MonicaCellio Until very recently, I was the only employee of my company (which has a couple thousand) that I've met that I've even suspected was Jewish, let alone observant. I'm sure he's happy to know you're there, too!

@DoubleAA This.

@DoubleAA already planning to. :-)

@IsaacMoses yeah, we have several secular Jews (in an office of ~120; the company is bigger but I don't meet many who aren't from here). And now we each have a buddy, so to speak. :-)