Hebrew driving me crazy

[ms45143]

I finally made the switch to OS 10.8 and Nisus Express. I've never had such a rocky time getting used to a new system.
Nisus is giving me a rough time specifically with Hebrew.
1) I get a lot of Hebrew in my email server, the few times Hebrew appears garbled, I always pasted it in Nisus in Classic, pressed Shift and a Hebrew front, and it appeared with the right directionality and order of letters. When I try the same in NEW, the letters of the words are all backward.
2) When I tried typing in Hebrew in a Nisus document, Nisus refused to put in spaces. I tried changing the font and it made no difference.
3) When I try to open Word PC Hebrew files, Nisus opens it up with the spaces and right directionality, but spreads the text over double the space it took before. Any idea how to get it to open files accurately?
I want to stay with Nisus. I am a faithful customer since Nisus 3. But if I can't get the Hebrew I'll be forced to return to Classic 9 or worse, switch to a PC.
Thanks in advance for all help.

[rmark]

Dear ms45143,

I'm sorry you experience difficulties with Nisus Writer Express.

I'm puzzled by what you write. I think there may be a few conceptual misunderstandings about what should happen.

First, have you turned on Hebrew functionality in the International preference of the System Preferences?

The fact that you get garbled Hebrew in your email (which, of course has nothing to do with Nisus Writer Express) suggests that this is not the case.

Once you have set that up, you should also set your Language preferences in Nisus Writer Express to handle Hebrew. You can learn more about how to do that here:

http://www.nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=874

If you want to share a couple of sample files that cause you difficulty, send a message to support@nisus.com. Please reference this discussion and compress the files before you send them.

We'll get it working for you.

[Ruchama]

Don't give up..
Hebrew does work with NWE, and hebrew word pc files are opened fine. I work with it all the time. something is wrong in your OS. I am sure Mark will help you out but in case you need more help just ask for it again..

[Ninurta]

There IS a problem with writing hebrew in Nisus Express: Try to put numbers in brackets directly after hebrew words - it will not work because the order of brackets and numbers and hebrew letters changes.

[rmark]

Hmm,

I don't doubt what Ninurta reports. However, I don't understand how that happens.

שלום [123] חברים

In Nisus Writer Express I typed:

שלום

followed by a space and:

]

followed by (I'm putting each of these on a separate line to confirm the sequence (from top to bottom)):

1
2
3

then I typed:

[

and then a space followed by:

חברים

It seems to work OK for me.


We haven't heard back from ms45143. Are you making progress?

[ProfT]

I think what Ninurta is reporting requires that the punctuation and numbers be in English. So if in an English document Hebrew text is written and then you switch back with any kind of number with punctuation, the order is changed. I filed this before, but it turns out that the same thing happens in TextEdit indicating its resident in the Apple's layout.

[Ninurta]

Thank you for clarification, ProfT, that is exactly what I meant. The problem occurs when you change languages (i.e. hebrew words in an english context, for example a biblical reference in brackets following a hebrew phrase). It may be an Apple-problem (the same in TextEdit), but Mellel has solved it.

[ms45143]

I'm still having the same problems.
I'm on a G3 blue and white. OS X.4.8.
Did a clean install on separate internal SCSI HD after reformatting.
Tried more memory, less memory, different memory, no change.
The other SCSI HD has sys9 which works fine. Both drives are connected to same SCSI card in PCI slot.
Only basic Hebrew system fonts are installed.
One of many repeatable problems is that when I type Hebrew with numbers and select all and underline, the numbers don't get underlined.

Any ideas?

[rmark]

I'm sorry that ms45143 still experiences problems in the shift from Classic to OS X.

As for:

One of many repeatable problems is that when I type Hebrew with numbers and select all and underline, the numbers don't get underlined.

We are aware of this problem and are working on it. It is a bug in Apple’s text rendering… you get the same results when using TextEdit. I know that doesn’t make anyone using Nisus Writer Express any happier. We are looking for a way around the problem and have notified Apple and encouraged them to fix it.

Regarding the earlier matter:

The problem occurs when you change languages (i.e. hebrew words in an english context, for example a biblical reference in brackets following a hebrew phrase). It may be an Apple-problem (the same in TextEdit), but Mellel has solved it.

Mellel may have "solved" it [the "correct" display] in Mellel, however, whenever that file is exported to "rtf" or "doc" format the display is once again confused.

There is a reason for this behavior.

We understand why this might be frustrating to individual users unfamiliar with the need to share texts broadly and "play well together".

First of all we explain how to deal with this situation in the Nisus Writer Express manual (page 55 of the PDF or 43 of the printed version):

If you have text that includes part numbers or addresses or similar mixtures of right to left and left to right characters, you can assure the correct flow of the text by (in Nisus Writer Express) choosing Reverse Direction Space from the Insert menu. Insert the character as soon as you need to switch the directionality. These characters do not display, nor do they have any other semantic effect.

…and where we describe every command and what it does (on page 31 of the PDF or 19 of the printed version):

Reverse Direction Space<br>Use this in bidirectional text to embed an "Implicit Directional Override" to allow the bidirectional character types to be overridden when required for special cases, such as for part numbers and addresses. It also allows for nested directional overrides. These characters do not display or have any other semantic effect.

Here's a bit more "background" information on the situation:

The space and period (and other "punctuation" characters) are "weak directionality" characters. That is, they take on the writing direction of the surrounding characters. In this case the Hebrew has LTR punctuation characters on both sides, so the whole fragment lays out LTR (eg: both Hebrew words, plus the punctuation). This is the layout algorithm as specified by the Unicode consortium.

The fix: insert a "reverse direction space" before the punctuation to flip its directionality. This special kind of space is actually a marker that coerces the following character to be of a particular direction, should it have weak/neutral directionality. When you are in RTL text the "Insert Reverse Direction Space" command will insert a LTR marker, and vice versa.

Those interested in the official technical aspects of this phenomenon might want to read further "Unicode Standard Annex #9 The Bidirectional Algorithm".