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RE: Arabic characters and FOP


At 2002-01-25 12:47 +0000, Tanzila Mohammad wrote:
>I tried the following in an fo file:
>
><fo:block font-weight="bold" space-before.optimum="5pt">
>    <fo:bidi-override
>direction="rtl">&#1580;&#1583;&#1608;&#1604;</fo:bidi-override> text
></fo:block>
>
>I tried this and I get this error
>  property - "direction" is not implemented yet.
>  element "fo:bidi-override" is not yet implemented.

Be careful, you may not need <fo:bidi-override> if I have guessed your 
intent from the subject of your message.

As I understand XSLFO, the formatter is obliged to respect the *inherent* 
direction properties of the Unicode characters you have in your formatted 
stream.

<fo:bidi-override> is just that ... it *overrides* the inherent 
directionality of the Unicode characters.

If you are mixing right-to-left Arabic characters with left-to-write 
Western European characters, you do *not* use <fo:bidi-override>.

Consider the stylesheet writer writing a stylesheet for global use, taking 
care to properly specify writing-direction-dependent properties so as to 
work properly with all scripts.  It would be untenable to have to look 
inside the data to know when the stylesheet would have to control 
directionality of characters ... therefore it *has* to be the formatter's 
responsibility to address the directionality of Unicode characters.

Now, if you wanted to display Arabic right-to-left characters 
left-to-right, *then* you would use <fo:bidi-override>.

I hope this helps.

..................... Ken

p.s. as for FOP, I have no idea if it respects directionality or not ... sorry


--
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