RTL documents in Koffice

[dotancohen]

I have begun testing the Koffice 2.1 betas (specifically, Kword) for
document compatibility with OOo-created ODF documents. One major
problem that I have found is the apparent lack of Right-to-Left
document support, necessary for Hebrew, Arabic, and Farsi documents.
Is this feature really missing, or am I simply unable to find it?
Thanks in advance.

--
Dotan Cohen

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On Saturday 19. September 2009 17.53.37 Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I have begun testing the Koffice 2.1 betas (specifically, Kword) for
> document compatibility with OOo-created ODF documents. One major
> problem that I have found is the apparent lack of Right-to-Left
> document support, necessary for Hebrew, Arabic, and Farsi documents.
> Is this feature really missing, or am I simply unable to find it?

KOffice does have such support already, could you be more specific of what you
are missing?

--
Thomas Zander


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[dotancohen]

> KOffice does have such support already, could you be more specific of what you
> are missing?
>

All documents are opening as LTR documents (left aligned) and I see no
options in Format  -> Page Layout / Paragraph to set RTL.

Actually, when existing documents are opened the Format and other
menus are blank, but when I open a new document I don't see these
options. But that is a different issue which I will start a thread on
as soon as I get the RTL issue addressed. Thanks.

--
Dotan Cohen

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On Saturday 19. September 2009 19.01.14 Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > KOffice does have such support already, could you be more specific of
> > what you are missing?
>
> All documents are opening as LTR documents (left aligned) and I see no
> options in Format  -> Page Layout / Paragraph to set RTL.

That sounds like a bug somewhere; RTL docs I have open just fine in kword.
Maybe you can report the issue on bugs.kde.org where you can attach a test-
document?

The way that RTL works in KOffice is that the option to change direction only
appears when the document is bidi.  So if you type hebrew when using LTR
machine. Or vice versa.
There is a known bug that this button doesn't appear on loading.  But if
your RTL paragraphs don't even right-align... thats odd.

Would love to see a simple test doc to see whats going on. Thanks!
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Thomas Zander
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[dotancohen]

> That sounds like a bug somewhere; RTL docs I have open just fine in kword.

I assume that these are documents originally created in Kword? Upon
testing, I see that those display fine, it is OOo documents that are
problematic.


> Maybe you can report the issue on bugs.kde.org where you can attach a test-
> document?
>

Here you go:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=207915

> The way that RTL works in KOffice is that the option to change direction only
> appears when the document is bidi.  So if you type hebrew when using LTR
> machine. Or vice versa.

How is "LTR machine" defined? Hebrew locale? Hebrew KDE settings? In
any case, this should always be shown, even if the user decides for
one reason or another to have any specific locale or KDE settings. For
me, English locale, Hebrew KDE settings, I could not get the bidi to
show no matter if I was creating an LTR or RTL document.


> There is a known bug that this button doesn't appear on loading.  But if
> your RTL paragraphs don't even right-align... thats odd.
>

In OOo-created documents, I must restate.

> Would love to see a simple test doc to see whats going on. Thanks!

There are three  in the bug report.

Thank you for taking an interest! This is an important deal-breaker
for a large part of the world's population, and I was honestly worried
that it might be written of as a "doesn't affect me" issue for the
Koffice devs, an attitude that is sadly present in some other KDE
projects (but is improving).

--
Dotan Cohen

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http://gibberish.co.il
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On Saturday 19. September 2009 21.07.28 ext Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > That sounds like a bug somewhere; RTL docs I have open just fine in
> > kword.
>
> I assume that these are documents originally created in Kword? Upon
> testing, I see that those display fine, it is OOo documents that are
> problematic.

After some research I found out the following;
* KWord didn't implement text direction for master pages. I added that. Will
commit shortly.

* OOo saves documents incorrectly.  The text direction is saved correctly, the
alignment of the text is not. So you'll see that paragraphs are right aligned
in OOo and left in any other ODF app.
The bug is that OOo seems to unconditionally say that right-align equals 'end'
alignment. Which is not true for RTL paragraphs.[1]

So I'm not sure how to handle that.  I think we have to follow the ODF spec
and optionally add a hack when we know we are loading OOo files to correct
their files.  But that gets really dirty if they fix it in the future.

*sigh*


1) XSL says;
end: Specifies that the content is to be aligned on the end-edge in the inline-
progression-direction.

--
Thomas Zander

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[dotancohen]

2009/9/22 Thomas Zander <zander@...>:

> On Saturday 19. September 2009 21.07.28 ext Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> > That sounds like a bug somewhere; RTL docs I have open just fine in
>> > kword.
>>
>> I assume that these are documents originally created in Kword? Upon
>> testing, I see that those display fine, it is OOo documents that are
>> problematic.
>
> After some research I found out the following;
> * KWord didn't implement text direction for master pages. I added that. Will
> commit shortly.
>
> * OOo saves documents incorrectly.  The text direction is saved correctly, the
> alignment of the text is not. So you'll see that paragraphs are right aligned
> in OOo and left in any other ODF app.
> The bug is that OOo seems to unconditionally say that right-align equals 'end'
> alignment. Which is not true for RTL paragraphs.[1]
>
> So I'm not sure how to handle that.  I think we have to follow the ODF spec
> and optionally add a hack when we know we are loading OOo files to correct
> their files.  But that gets really dirty if they fix it in the future.
>
> *sigh*
>
>
> 1) XSL says;
> end: Specifies that the content is to be aligned on the end-edge in the inline-
> progression-direction.
>

Thanks, Thomas. I will try to test in Abiword and other ODF-compatible
systems and update the OOo, KDE, and other bugs (that may have yet to
be filed) as needed.

One of the problems here is the apparant lack of a reference
implementation. Even a reference RTL ODF document I cannot find.
Should I contact OASIS directly to obtain such a document?

Thank you for taking this issue seriously.


--
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
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