Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Christopher V. Kimball" <mail AT cvkimball.com>]

The code snippet  Karl provided is a portion of the XML data in the 
Unicode/XML Tanach.  Specifically, it's the data behind the "Unicode" 
link on the "Technical" page.

Two issues often get intermixed.  One is Unicode and font problems 
associated with displaying Unicode characters, the other is XML and its 
display mechanism XSLT.  To view the Unicode/XML Tanach, the browser 
must support both Unicode and XML/XSLT transformations.  (And have 
JavaScript operable, too.)

Different browsers display ("render") Unicode characters differently; 
even in the Windows world the rendering is problematic.  Most browsers 
support Unicode and have a built-in Modern Hebrew font that is 
inadequate for the Tanach.

XML/XSLT transformations are a standardized way of separating data 
(XML)  from data display (XSLT).  This allows users to change the font 
size, consonant markings, and display format without changing the data 
itself.  The Unicode/XML Tanach consists of a single set of XML books 
that are each transformed on the spot to multiple display formats. 
(Verses, Chapter, Simplified) X  (Accents, Vowels, Consonants, 
Morphology) x ( 16pt .. 64 pt font sizes (9) ), 108 display choices.

XML facilitates machine processing by having standardized 
format-checking (XSD) and access (XPath)  mechanisms.