A Prayerbook on Disk

The CCAR could provide its prayerbook on disk, thus providing considerably more flexibility than its current prayer books do. Several options as to the form of the information and how it would be accessed follow.

Graphics Files

Graphics files are the least useful but easiest to prepare. Creating a service from a disk with graphics files would entail using software to move ready-made images of paragraphs around on a page. But margins, typeface, type size, etc., would be beyond the control of the user; certainly the user could not change the content of these graphics files.

While software to process these graphics files abounds, most users will not own it, and even fewer will be able to use it proficiently. So one further option the CCAR may consider is including some graphics-processing software with the disk.

Text Files

This is a more useful solution than graphics files, but one which requires more work. The format of English text files is standard, and so any common package would be able to use the same format.

Because there is no standard for pointed-Hebrew text files, the CCAR would have decide on one or more programs to support (e.g., Dagesh or WordPerfect) and include text files suitable for that/those programs on the disk. Excelsior Computer Services can convert text files from one Hebrew format to another, so once the CCAR had one format, it would be able to support many platforms.

Creating a service with such a disk would entail opening files containing the parts of the service one by one, and so inserting them into a document. The user would have as much control over size, spacing, layout, etc., as the program permits.

A Full Program

A third option is to provide a specialized program with the disk, one that would only be used to create prayer services. This way, users would need not worry about files names and text formats. However, the program would also not have the power of the bigger applications already available, because the CCAR's resources cannot match the companies that produce those other programs.

In fact, such custom software already exists, but is not available from the CCAR.

This is by far the most flexible solution.