I've got text which is in English and Hebrew with vowels. This needs to display correctly, i.e. English left to right and Hebrew right to left with the correct placement of vowels in the iOS and Android apps.
Which application is best to compile all of this from a source text? Are there any Hebrew font specific steps I need to take?
I'd advise wrapping Hebrew-in-English in spans with the dir attribute set to rtl. I'd also advise following each span with the lrm element.
See http://www.w3.org/International/articles/inline-bidi-markup/
As for fonts, pointed Hebrew support is now surprisingly good in the default fonts on a variety of platforms: Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle for Mac, Kindle for PC, Kindle for iPad, iBooks for Mac, and iBooks for iPad.
One platform completely lacking Hebrew support in the default fonts is Nook GlowLight.
So, see if the platforms you care about have okay Hebrew support and, if they do, consider just letting the default font be used rather than providing your own font. Providing your own font has its pluses and minuses.
For more detailed help, I am available professionally: http://bdenckla.github.io/efs/.
P.S. I consulted Meta Stack Exchange about self-promotion,
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57497/limits-for-self-promotion-in-answers,
and I hope I understood correctly that it seems it is within community standards to have promoted myself as I have done above.
Some specific steps to take for Hebrew:
Make sure your Hebrew is expressed with the proper Unicode characters (http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/hebrew.html). If the Hebrew in your source document is just Latin characters with a special font applied, they won't show up right in the output.
Embed a Hebrew font (a good openly licensed font is Ezra SIL: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=EzraSIL_Home)
