good news, bad news

[cellio]

Background: Often, the publishers of a prayer book also publish a "pulpit edition", a larger copy with larger type but otherwise identical. A few times I have noticably stumbled when leading morning services; it's obvious to everyone that the regular siddur is right at the limits of my vision (as modified by available lighting). A few weeks ago I casually asked if we were going to buy a pulpit edition and I was told one didn't exist yet. We have a "pulpit copy" of the regular edition that's been marked up with highlighter pen, but the first time I tried to use it I found that the highlighting caused problems for me (too dark, so reduced contrast making it harder to read the text). I made a comment to that effect and ever since have used a regular copy. It's not like I don't know all the cues by now anyway.

So, this morning I was surprised to find, when I got onto the bimah, a shiny new pulpit edition in the larger size. Woot! I opened it up to a random page and marvelled at the crisp, clear, Hebrew. This would make it much easier for me. The joy was short-lived, though; I turned to the beginning of the morning service to find that someone had highlighted all the leader's parts in blue. That's even worse than the pink they used previously. And even with the larger print size, it looked dicey and I didn't use it for fear of making mistakes. Some of those blue sections were dark -- even in the English I would have had trouble in places, let alone the Hebrew.

I really really hope that this is something they were going to get anyway, and that they didn't specifically get a book for my use and then mark it up in a way that makes it unusable for me. I would feel bad about causing them that expense, even though the markup isn't my doing and I would have said something if I'd known. Other people will certainly get use out of it; I only lead one morning a week, after all. But... ack.

For the record: if text must be highlighted directly, yellow is best. But better than marking over the text is to put highlighting (of any color) in the margins, with a tick next to the first word if that's ambiguous. The only time I've marked up a leader's copy of a siddur that's what I did, and it worked fine. (And, by the way: orange. When it's not going over text it's better for it to be a nice obvious color.)

Comments

[cellio]

Is this the new large-print weekday Sim Shalom?

That's the one. It looks like a great tool! Crisp and clear and not too heavy to hold.

I'm trying to decide which of the following to do:

- Continue as I am, leading from the regular-size book.

- Buy my own copy of the large one to use when leading (which I would do if I didn't already own the regular version).

- Make my own large copy of just the shacharit service by photocopying and enlarging pages from the regular one.

The last is appealing but questionable. It would definitely be wrong if I didn't already own the regular one, which I bought when no large one was available (or announced). It would make me a more effective leader, but it feels wrong so it probably is.

BTW, we are coming to Pgh for Pesach.

For how long? The whole week, or just the opening days? We'll be in Toronto for Shabbat and then the seders, but we'll be returning on Monday night. So depending on how long you'll be here, we might be able to hook up for dinner or something that week.