ben@contact.uucp (Ben Eng) (10/23/89)
Does anyone know of a word processing package or a canned format for TeX that allows for languages that require writing right-to-left. Of course this also requires a suitable font for that language. A friend of mine is looking for something that is able to do Arabic (?) on the Amiga. (Please e-mail me a copy of your response, as my newsfeed appears to be very unstable at present.) -- Ben Eng | UofT Engineering Science engb@ecf.toronto.edu 150 Beverley St. Apt #1L | ben@ziebmef.mef.org _or_ Toronto, Ontario // | ben@contact.uucp M5T 1Y6 \X/ | Phone: (416)-979-7885, (416)-979-8761
bjc@pollux.UUCP (Betty J. Clay) (10/30/89)
In article <1989Oct22.191705.5211@contact.uucp> ben@contact.UUCP (Ben Eng) writes: >Does anyone know of a word processing package or a canned format for >TeX that allows for languages that require writing right-to-left. Of >course this also requires a suitable font for that language. A friend >of mine is looking for something that is able to do Arabic (?) on the >Amiga. > >Ben Eng | UofT Engineering Science engb@ecf.toronto.edu >150 Beverley St. Apt #1L | ben@ziebmef.mef.org _or_ >Toronto, Ontario // | ben@contact.uucp Does a word processor exist that can handle both English and Hebrew in the same document? There are Hebrew word processors - there is even a PD one on CompuServe - but it cannot handle the standard alphabet. I ask because I offered that PD word processor to a Hebrew professor at al local seminary. They have over 1000 students studying Hebrew there every semester, and I felt it would be helpful. I learned that not only this seminary, but all of the schools of religion in their association are searching for a word processor for their teachers and students to use. They need to be able to insert Hebrew words into regular text. THey don't mind having to allow for the left-right and right-left typing, if only they can mix the characters. If such a program exists, it would be a service to let these people know about it. Betty ============================================================================ Betty Clay .........texbell!pollux!bjc CompuServe 76702,337 ===========================================================================
mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com (Mike Shawaluk) (10/30/89)
In article <15984@pollux.UUCP> bjc@pollux.UUCP () writes: >Does a word processor exist that can handle both English and Hebrew in the >same document? There are Hebrew word processors - there is even a PD one >on CompuServe - but it cannot handle the standard alphabet. > >I ask because I offered that PD word processor to a Hebrew professor at al >local seminary. They have over 1000 students studying Hebrew there every >semester, and I felt it would be helpful. I learned that not only this >seminary, but all of the schools of religion in their association are >searching for a word processor for their teachers and students to use. They >need to be able to insert Hebrew words into regular text. THey don't mind >having to allow for the left-right and right-left typing, if only they >can mix the characters. > >If such a program exists, it would be a service to let these people know >about it. I would think that just about any word processor that uses standard Amiga fonts for display/printing of text (such as excellance! or PenPal) should be able to fill this need. Of course, you would need an Amiga Hebrew font, which some enterprising soul would have to create via FontEd, assuming that there isn't one out there already, and you would have to type in the characters left-to-right. (You say in your previous paragraph that this wouldn't be a problem) Or would you? Isn't there an Amiga font attribute specifying which direction the characters are rendered? But even if there were such a font with the appropriate attribute set, I doubt whether any word processor out there would have been designed to take this into account (which is a bit of a shame, since these kind of insights are what made the Amiga the unique and powerful system it is, IMHO.) -- - Mike Shawaluk "Rarely have we seen a mailer -> DOMAIN: mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com fail which has thoroughly -> UUCP: ...!uunet!marque!lakesys!mikes followed these paths." -> BITNET: 7117SHAWALUK@MUCSD
rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) (10/31/89)
mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com (Mike Shawaluk) writes: > In article <15984@pollux.UUCP> bjc@pollux.UUCP () writes: > >Does a word processor exist that can handle both English and Hebrew in the > I would think that just about any word processor that uses standard Amiga > fonts for display/printing of text (such as excellance! or PenPal) should be > able to fill this need. Of course, you would need an Amiga Hebrew font, > which some enterprising soul would have to create via FontEd, assuming that > there isn't one out there already, and you would have to type in the > characters left-to-right. (You say in your previous paragraph that this > wouldn't be a problem) There's one additional consideration---line breaking. If I type a roman alphabet, and then a hebrew alphabet (using caps for the latter), I want to type a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Now, the Hebrew should be read right-to-left, so what I want to see on output (or on the screen) is a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z J I H G F E D C B A V U T S R Q P O N M L K Z Y X W (whether that last line is left or right justified is a separate issue.) I might be satisfied to type it in as above. But if I wanted to insert a word between the two, such as `and', what I get is a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z and J I H G F E D C B A V U T S R Q P O N M L K Z Y X W Now the word processor has to be smart enough to `do the right thing', and give me a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z and H G F E D C B A T S R Q P O N M L K J I Z Y X W V U (ie, fill right-to-left in the hebrew sections.) This can all be done with a postpass. You always type the hebrew left to right. On output, *after* the formatting, any line of hebrew is reversed before it is printed. I could be all wet in everything I'm saying here, but this is what I understand the problem to be . . . -tom
fgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) (11/01/89)
Your point about line breaking is absolutely correct. That issue and
several others are discussed in an excellent article in the July 1984 issue
of Scientific American. It's called "MultiLingual Word Processing" by
Joseph D. Becker. Becker was manager of international advanced development
at the Xerox Office Systems Division in Palo Alto. The software he
describes runs on the Xerox Star, but the principles apply to the Amiga as
well.
The article, which begins on page 96, is of interest for two reasons.
The theoretical discussion of the problems of multilingual word processing
is excellent. And for those seriously seeking multilingual word processing
capabilities it might be worth checking with Xerox to see if they have
marketed anything.
--Fabbian Dufoe
350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South
St. Petersburg, Florida 33705
813-823-2350
UUCP: ...uunet!pdn!jc3b21!fgd3finkel@TAURUS.BITNET (11/09/89)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: typing right-to-left Summary: Expires: References: <1989Oct22.191705.5211@contact.uucp> <15984@pollux.UUCP> <1249@lakes Sender: Reply-To: finkel@virgo.UUCP (Udi Finkelstein) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Tel-Aviv Univesity Math and CS school, Israel Keywords: word processors, AmigaTeX, LaTeX In article <12764@polya.Stanford.EDU> rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokic > >There's one additional consideration---line breaking. If I type a roman >alphabet, and then a hebrew alphabet (using caps for the latter), I want >to type > >a b c d e f g h i j k l >m n o p q r s t u v w x >y z A B C D E F G H I J >K L M N O P Q R S T U V >W X Y Z > >Now, the Hebrew should be read right-to-left, so what I want to see on >output (or on the screen) is > >a b c d e f g h i j k l >m n o p q r s t u v w x >y z J I H G F E D C B A >V U T S R Q P O N M L K >Z Y X W For various reasons, it will appear as: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A I haven't seen yet a hebrew WP which will handle mixed hebrew-english sentences __spawning more than one line__ intuitively. Anyhow, your example is irrelevate, because even though it contains hebrew and english, it assumes that the cursor moves from left to right! the more common situation is a hebrew WP in which the cursor is moving from right to left, and in which you have to insert an english sentence: L K J I H G F E D C B A X W V U T S R Q P O N M q r s t u v w x y z Z Y e f g h i j k l m n o p a b c d As you can see, the english sentence is 'a bit' mixed. This can be solved, but I never saw a WP which handled this correctly. Since the most common usage of mixed hebrew/english documents ( from self experience ) is a ducument which is 99% hebrew, and has only a few isolated english words inside ( usually these are names or un-translatable technical terms ), There are very rare situations in which we have a group of more than one english words inside a hebrew document, spawning more than one line. BTW, not even all the 'heavy' WP's used in newspapers handle this correctly. >(whether that last line is left or right justified is a separate issue.) >I might be satisfied to type it in as above. But if I wanted to insert >a word between the two, such as `and', what I get is > >a b c d e f g h i j k l >m n o p q r s t u v w x >y z and J I H G F E D C B A >V U T S R Q P O N M L K >Z Y X W > >Now the word processor has to be smart enough to `do the right thing', and >give me > >a b c d e f g h i j k l >m n o p q r s t u v w x >y z and H G F E D C B A >T S R Q P O N M L K J I >Z Y X W V U > >(ie, fill right-to-left in the hebrew sections.) This can all be done >with a postpass. You always type the hebrew left to right. On output, >*after* the formatting, any line of hebrew is reversed before it is >printed. > >I could be all wet in everything I'm saying here, but this is what I >understand the problem to be . . . > >-tom Most of what you wrote is correct, but you assumed that we type hebrew from left to right in some kind of 'insert' mode. This is unnatural. Hebrew WP's move their cursor from left to right, and pressing RETURN moves the cursor to the rightmost column of the next line. There are a few approaches to designing a Hebrew/English Word processor user interface, but generally all the good Hebrew/English WP's share a few common things: 1. The WP has 2 modes for cursor movement. in one mode, the cursor starts on the rightmost column and moves to the left as words are being typed. pressing RETURN would move it to the rightmost column on the next line. To visualize this, take your english WP, and place a mirror in front of your monitor, and look at the display through the mirror. You will get the idea... 2. the WP has 2 modes for character sets. a hebrew/uppercase engligh mode, and an upper/lowercase english mode. On simple WP's switching the mode actually switches the character sets. on more advanced WP's, all 3 types of characters are dibile on the screen at once, but switching modes changes the keyboard bindings of the keys, so that hebrew can be typed by pressing the letter keys, and english by using the SHIFT key. 3. On any decent hebrew WP, it is possible to type any combination of hebrew/digits/english characters in it's natural reading direction. for example, suppose we have a hebrew word 'DCBA' ( remember, it's right to left! ). When I want to type '123456789 DCBA', I will press the keys according to the natural flow: A,B,C,D,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 . and I will see ( '_' denotes the cursor ) Every line here is what displayed on the screen after every key is pressed: _ an empty line. _A The cursor moves one character left after pressing A. _BA _CBA _DCBA 1_DCBA Note that the digits are 'pushed' into the text. 12_DCBA . . 123456789_DCBA Now, If I will press 'A', again, I will see: _A 123456789 DCBA Since I finished typing the number, the cursor will move to the end of the line, since this is where the hebrew letter 'A' is supposed to appear. This can be discussed much further, but it no longer has anything to do with the Amiga ... Tom, I hope you can understand now what kind of clumsy support we have for hebrew inside TeX documents! A friend of mine, Asaph Zemach, ( asaph@taurus.BITNET ), has written a hebrew/english WP , which demonstrates these principals excellently. In my opinion, this WP has the best user interace on any hebrew WP I ever saw ( and I saw dozens of them on different machines ). By 'user interface' I only mean the way the cursor moves and places the words on the screen. the rest of the program is not so polished, but since it's only V0.32, this is forgiven ( and we don't have any alternative hebrew WP on the Amiga anyhow! ) Asaph, if you read this, please comment! Udi ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Udi Finkelstein | Bitnet: finkel@taurus.bitnet or finkel@math.tau.ac.il Tel Aviv University | Internet: finkel%taurus.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu Israel | UUCP: ...!psuvax1!taurus.bitnet!finkel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) (11/17/89)
In article <12764@polya.Stanford.EDU> rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) writes: > There's one additional consideration---line breaking. If I type a roman > alphabet, and then a hebrew alphabet (using caps for the latter), I want > to type > > a b c d e f g h i j k l > m n o p q r s t u v w x > y z A B C D E F G H I J > K L M N O P Q R S T U V > W X Y Z > > Now, the Hebrew should be read right-to-left, so what I want to see on > output (or on the screen) is > > a b c d e f g h i j k l > m n o p q r s t u v w x > y z J I H G F E D C B A > V U T S R Q P O N M L K > Z Y X W Just for fun I tried out the Macintosh Hebrew system, and tried this example. When I typed in the characters in the order shown first, I got the output: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x J I H G F E D C B A y z etc. Also, the characters were always right justified. I seem to recall reading that in Hebrew you read from right to left, but that if there is an English word embeded, then it is written left to right as a separate block of text. When I click between the English and Hebrew I get a split insertion point, since the location of the insertion point is physically split on the screen. Typing removes Hebrew letters from the left edge of the line and places then at the right of the following line. Another interesting effect is that you can make a selection that is discontiguous on the screen. In the example above I can select the z and A, which results in both letters being highlighted, even though they are not adjacent. I wouldn't call this a conclusive test, because there's a Control Panel option to modify the Hebrew system, and I can't figure out what the options do. All this happens via a series of routines called the Script Manager. I nthe case of text, there are routines to map a point to a character, highlight text, etc. All these are documented in Inside Macintosh volume 5. There's a lot of work besides handling right-to-let characters, in order to localize software for th Hebrew or Arabic market. For example, in Hebrew the menu items are right justified. In Arabic a letter has several glyphs depending on its context; if you type a character, it may change the appearance of the preceding character. Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc. Object Specialist Internet: lsr@Apple.com UUCP: {nsc, sun}!apple!lsr AppleLink: Rosenstein1
lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) (11/17/89)
In article <8911091258.AA17328@virgo.tau.ac.il> finkel@TAURUS.BITNET writes: > the more common situation is a hebrew WP in which the cursor is moving > from right to left, and in which you have to insert an english sentence: > > L K J I H G F E D C B A > X W V U T S R Q P O N M > q r s t u v w x y z Z Y > e f g h i j k l m n o p > a b c d When I tried this on the Mac, it came out as: L K J I H G F E D C B A X W V U T S R Q P O N M a b c d e f g h i j Z Y l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z When the word wrap happens in the English sentence, it removes the word from the middle of the line (the last English word) and places it at the right edge of the following line. Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc. Object Specialist Internet: lsr@Apple.com UUCP: {nsc, sun}!apple!lsr AppleLink: Rosenstein1