Re: Arabic and other languages

From: Daiya Mitchell (daiyaNOSPAM_at_mvps.org.INVALID)
Date: 10/22/04

  • Next message: Bill Brocklesby: "Selecting whole doc by mistake" 
    Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:06:38 -0700

    Hi nu,

    Much appreciation for the detailed explanation of Word and Arabic, and I'm
    sure anybody searching the newsgroups for information on this issue in the
    future will appreciate it as well.

    It's certainly true that even using a program for a 30-day demo isn't
    necessarily going to tell you everything about whether it will support your
    needs in every little detail. One of the nice things about most software,
    though, is that trial versions allow one to check quite a bit more than can
    purchasers of say, furniture. The amount of consumer information available
    on the internet has certainly changed buying habits for cars, at least in
    the States--it's a shame those types of attempts to be an informed consumer
    don't always carry over into other arenas, to avoid at least the big
    disappointments.

    DM

    On 10/21/04 9:31 PM, "nu" wrote:

    > I recently tried a demo of Nisus Writer Express 2.0 and found that it handles
    > Arab very well. Nisus Writer is said to rely on ATSUI for text rendering,
    > which probably means that Word's inability to do Arabic comes from the Word
    > side.
    >
    > Directionality in Word is only half-broken. Word doesn't right-align Arabic
    > properly, but it does know about right-to-left languages. Enter text using an
    > Arabic keyboard mapping and Word will insert the characters and words
    > correctly going from right-to-left. It handles ligatures properly too.
    >
    > Word cursive script rendering is very broken. Word doesn't know how to
    > connect Arabic characters -- it always generates strings of separate
    > individual characters. This is a real killer. In Arabic the same characters
    > are written differently depending on their location in a word and adjacent
    > characters. There's no parallel to this in Latin-derived languages. English
    > long-hand connects the letters but doesn't change their shape much by
    > comparison. A string of English letters is easy to read, while a string of
    > unjoined Arabic letters isn't worth bothering with (even when ordered
    > right-to-left). That's why it's quite right to say "Arabic doesn't work at
    > all" in MS Word. When it comes to actually using it Word can do only one
    > thing in Arabic: Crossword puzzles.
    >
    > Unicode does not contain information on the different positional variants of
    > Arabic letters. The positional information is contained in the font and
    > rendering is done through ATSUI (Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging).
    > Unicode itself only has one variant for most letters, the stand-alone
    > character meant to represent a specific letter in all its forms (check the
    > Arabic range of a font like Arial using the Mac's Character Palette). The
    > variant shown in the Unicode table is the only one MS Word knows.
    >
    > It could be that Word is insisting all characters should be rendered
    > unjoined. This is unlikely because it's very easy to fix. It's more likely
    > that Word isn't communicating properly with the font and/or ATSUI. A quick
    > google search suggests the problem is indeed on the Word side and that it
    > isn't easy to fix. This problem isn't present in all of MS Office 2004.
    > Entourage can't do full right-to-left alignment, but it has no difficulty
    > with character variants.
    >
    > (Many users noted that Arabic in Safari broke right after installing MS
    > Office. The solution was to remove two or three of the fonts installed. Is
    > this relevant?)
    >
    > A comment on researching before buying. That's reasonable advice, but it can
    > be taken too far. Who hasn't researched and still been disappointed? You
    > can't check everything and must take a lot for granted. With a complex
    > product like Word you only know what you bought after using it for a long
    > time. Buyers focus on what's new and assume, reasonably, that long-standing
    > and important functions won't suddenly disappear. "Can't blame anyone but
    > yourself" etc etc. Sounded awfully like whining.
    >
    > nu
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > ==============================================================
    > Posted with Hogwasher. Mac first, Mac only:
    > http://www.asar.com/cgi-bin/product.pl?58/hogwasher.html
    > ==============================================================
    > 

    -- 
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: <http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/>
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
  • Next message: Bill Brocklesby: "Selecting whole doc by mistake"

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