Amidora · Library
How can source footnotes and reading instructions be kept separate from the main text?
Amidora shows 242 Ashkenaz instruction segments, and 370 lines with inline instructions, smaller and in their own colour; copying can erase that difference.
How the app marks instructions
Amidora's texts flag whole segments that are instructions rather than words of the prayer. The app shows them in a smaller size and a separate instruction colour; when an English instruction exists and the display is not Hebrew only, it appears in English italics. Shorter instructions inside a line are marked in the source and shown the same way, so one segment can mix wording and instruction.
The Ashkenaz text has 242 instruction segments and 370 segments with inline instructions. Sefard has 580 and 533, Edot HaMizrach 376 and 398.
A copying check
- Before copying, note which lines are in the instruction colour.
- After pasting, find those lines again, since most apps drop the colour and size.
- Mark them in the copy, for example in brackets, so they do not read as wording.
- Keep the section title and the nusach with the excerpt.
- If a line's role is unclear, return to the source edition.
Where instructions are densest
In the Ashkenaz Birkat HaMazon, 33 of 89 segments are instructions. In the Edot HaMizrach Counting of the Omer, 49 of 161 are, and in the Sefard weekday Mincha Amidah 36 of 128. A copied excerpt from these readings without the instruction marking would look very different from the screen.
- Birkat HaMazon · Ashkenaz
- 33 of 89
- Counting of the Omer · Edot HaMizrach
- 49 of 161
- Amidah, weekday Mincha · Sefard
- 36 of 128
The Sefard and Edot HaMizrach texts carry more instruction segments than Ashkenaz even though they have far fewer leaves: 580 and 376 against 242, spread over 101 and 82 leaves rather than 423.
Mistakes
- Reading an instruction aloud as part of the text.
- Assuming the Hebrew-only view hides instructions; it shows them in Hebrew instead.
- Dropping inline instructions because they are short.
- Treating an instruction as a new ruling rather than the source's own note.
Scope
Instruction marking comes from the source editions on Sefaria, listed below. It explains the source's layout; questions about practice belong to a prayer book and community guidance.