Hebrew keyboard

A standard Hebrew keyboard showing both Hebrew and Latin letters.

A Hebrew keyboard (Hebrew: מקלדת עברית mikledet ivrit) comes in two different keyboard layouts. Most Hebrew keyboards are bilingual having both Hebrew and English, as English (Latin) letters are necessary for URLs and Email addresses. Trilingual keyboard options also exist, with the third language option having Arabic or Russian characters as well, due to the sizable Arabic and Russian speaking demographics in Israel.

Layouts

Standard Hebrew keyboard

A typewriter in the Hebrew layout, the Triumph Gabriele 25.

Standard Hebrew keyboards have a 101-key layout. Like the standard English keyboard layout, QWERTY, the Hebrew layout was derived from the order of letters on Hebrew typewriters. On computers running Windows, Alt-Shift switches between keyboard layouts. With a Hebrew keyboard layout, holding down a Shift key, or pressing Caps lock, and pressing the standard QWERTY letters produces the uppercase Latin (English) alphabet without having to switch layouts. However, this only works for uppercase English (Latin) letters.

In a 102-key layout of this form, there would be an additional duplicate key to the right of the "Left Shift Key". This key would be an additional backslash key (). As a result, 102 key keyboards are not sold as a standard configuration since two keys with the same function serve no purpose.

The backslash key (), can also be found left of the enter key, instead of on the top row to the left of the backspace key where it resides normally.

Hebrew QWERTY

Another layout exists which is a QWERTY based layout that, for the most part, follows the phonology of the Roman letters. However, this layout is extremely uncommon and not a standard layout. This configuration is not available to be bought as a physical layout of a keyboard, instead only available as a secondary keyboard layout option on the Mac OS X operating system. The Hebrew QWERTY is not an option that ships with Microsoft Windows.

It also requires the use of the shift key in order to access the five Hebrew letters that have "final forms," that is, a different form of the letter when that letter falls at the end of a word. On the standard Hebrew layout, this is unnecessary, since each letter has its own key. The use of the shift key is somewhat similar to the use of the shift key to access capital letters in the English (Latin) alphabet.

One advantage of the layout is that it can be used fairly easily on ordinary QWERTY keyboards without Hebrew engraving or labeling.

Niqqud

For the Hebrew letters there is a standardized Hebrew keyboard. But when it comes to niqqud (vowel points and diacritics), different computer systems and programs provide for adding the signs in different ways.

Nevertheless, a standard is beginning to emerge in the keystrokes that enter niqqud in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word and Open Office alike. In these applications, first enter the letter and then enter the niqquid. To enter niqqud the typist first presses "Caps Lock." Then, to enter any specific niqqud, one presses "shift" and simultaneously presses one of the following keys:

Niqqud Input
Input	Key	Type	Result
~		Shva
1		Hataf Segol
2		Hataf Patach
3		Hataf Kamatz
4		Hiriq
5		Zeire
6		Segol
7		Patach
8		Kamatz
9		Sin dot (left)
0		Shin dot (right)
-		Holam
=		Dagesh or Mappiq Shuruk
\		Kubutz

Note 1: The letter "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used
Note 2: The letters "ש" and "ו" are used whenever the corresponding niqqud can operate only on them
Note 3: The dagesh, mappiq, and shuruk are different, however, they look the same and are obtained in the same manner
Note 4: Niqqud are rarely used by native or fluent Hebrew speakers, and at most as pronunciation guides.

SIL International have developed their own standard, which is based on Tiro, but adds the Niqqud along the home keys. This is being used both by them, and in Linux (which comes with "Israel - Biblical Hebrew (Tiro)" as a standard layout). The big advantage of this layout is that there is no need to press the Caps Lock key.

Paragraph Directionality

Since Hebrew is read and written right to left, as opposed to the left to right system in English, the cursor keys and delete keys work backwards when in left-to-right directionality mode. Because of the differences in left to right and right to left, some difficulties arise in punctuation marks that are common between the two languages such as periods and commas. In a standard left-to-right input, at the end of a sentence pushing the "period" key has the mark displaying on the wrong side of the sentence. Then, when the next sentence is started, the period then moves to the correct location. This is due to the computer not knowing which way to direct the text, because the punctuation can go either way, and in a default English environment it will be left to right.

There are many ways to switch from left-to-right to right-to left directionality. In Internet Explorer, a webpage can be right-clicked, and select Encoding -> Right-To-Left Document. It can be done in Microsoft Word by going into Format -> Paragraph menu and changing the paragraph's default direction to right-to-left. And in Notepad, it can be done simply by right-clicking and selecting Right to left Reading order.

Access through the AltGr key

Sheqel symbol

The symbol "₪", representing the sheqel sign can be typed into Microsoft Windows on a standard Hebrew keyboard layout by pressing AltGr and 4 () or by Alt +20AA on a non-Hebrew layout.

Euro symbol

For a Euro sign, one would press the AltGr and "E (ק) key".

Rafe

For the rafe, while a niqqud, it is virtually no longer used in Hebrew. However, it used in Yiddish spelling (according to YIVO standards). It is accessed differently than the other nequddot (plural of nequdda, 'a point'). To input the rafe, press the AltGr key, and the "-" key:

Niqqud Input
Input	Key	Type	Result
AltGr+-	AltGr +	Rafe	סֿ

Note Ⅰ: The letter "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.

Yiddish digraphs

These are intended for Yiddish. They are not used in Hebrew. If one wanted two vavs, a vav-yud, or two yuds in Hebrew, one would enter the desired keys independently. (See Yiddish orthography for more)

Yiddish digraphs Input
Input	Digraph	Result
AltGr and Vav (U)	Double Vav	װ
AltGr and Khet (J)	Vav Yud	ױ
AltGr and Yud (H)	Double Yud	ײ

Inaccessible punctuation

For more details on this topic, see Hebrew punctuation.

Certain Hebrew punctuation, such as the geresh, gershayim, maqaf, pasuq, sof pasuq, and cantillation marks are not accessible through the standard Hebrew keyboard layout. As a result, similar looking punctuation is often used instead. For example, often, a quotation mark for a gershayim, an apostrophe for a geresh, a hyphen for a maqaf, a vertical bar for a pasuq, and a colon for a sof pasuq, is used.

See also

• Hebrew punctuation
• Keyboard layout
• Hebrew alphabet