Language button and language switching

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Ninurta
Posts: 19
Joined: 2007-07-19 10:00:10
Location: Germany

Language button and language switching

Post by Ninurta »

There occured some problems that have to do with switching languages in NWP:
1) There are three language buttons that are not synchronized. I do not understand the difference (one on the top of the document window, one on the bottom, the third on in the upper status bar). If I choose one of the two buttons in the document, the upper language button shows no reaction.
2) I write in three languages: German, Hebrew, Polytonic Greek. I simple want to write German in Times N.R., Hebrew with the SBL Hebrew font and Greek with Gentium. But changing of fonts and languages does not work: I change to Hebrew and then back to German, but Times changes in Arial. Of course I studied the manual pp. 40-47 but I simply do not understand your description of how to change languages and how to adjust the preferences. How easy it is with Mellel!
3) If I write a few hebrew or greek words or letters in an english/german context, some letters (W and V) are mingled with the following letters. It occurs when I reformat a passage (to Normal or indented). The problem is that the SBL font and the Gentium font automatically changes in Times - what I want to prevent it from.
It would be good to get some hints how to solve the problems.
Kino
Posts: 400
Joined: 2008-05-17 04:02:32

Re: Language button and language switching

Post by Kino »

Ninurta wrote:Of course I studied the manual pp. 40-47 but I simply do not understand your description of how to change languages and how to adjust the preferences.
Yeah, it is not very easy to understand. You have to configure the Pref like this for each language you use. If you use more than a single font for a language, it would be convenient to set "Switch Font" to "Switch to last used font".
langPref.png
langPref.png (75.22 KiB) Viewed 8385 times
If you have configured the Languages Pref properly AND if you change languages always from inside NW‌ Pro (NOT via the Flag menu in the System menubar), the problem 3 would not occur, I think.
Ninurta
Posts: 19
Joined: 2007-07-19 10:00:10
Location: Germany

Re: Language button and language switching

Post by Ninurta »

Thanks a lot for your help!
Changing of languages works now properly (and NOW - afterwards - I understand the manual).

One problem remains (my third point): Reformatting a paragraph to Times New Roman (!) - e.g. to Normal - causes changing of all hebrew and greek characters to Times NR. The effect is that the Hebrew vowals are not placed correctly.
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Elbrecht
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Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Re: Language button and language switching

Post by Elbrecht »

Re 3) -

place a) the cursor within the range you want to change in the document and b) use Select All in the downunder small icon for Character Attributes [a underlined] - then change font as you like for all the selected range only. Hope this helps somehow...

HE
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martin
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Re: Language button and language switching

Post by martin »

Ninurta wrote:1) There are three language buttons that are not synchronized. I do not understand the difference (one on the top of the document window, one on the bottom, the third on in the upper status bar). If I choose one of the two buttons in the document, the upper language button shows no reaction.
The flag icon in the upper-right corner of the menu bar does not show the language. It represents your current text input method (eg: keyboard layout). While text input methods are related to particular languages, they are not the same! You should think of them as totally independent properties, because they are. The current text input method is an application/system state that controls which characters are produced when you type on the keyboard. On the other hand, languages are a text attribute. Like the font attribute you can have many languages applied to different pieces of text in a single document.

So, back to those three places that appear to show the same thing- they do not. The flag icon in the top-right area of the menu bar shows the text input method, but all other places in Nisus Writer show the current language, as applied to the selected text (or insertion point). Changing the text input method will never change the language as far as Nisus Writer is concerned. But the other way around is possible: changing the language can change the text input method. Changing the language can also change the font, or the spelling dictionary, etc. Basically, if you are using Nisus Writer for multiple languages you always want to work by changing the language, never the input method.
One problem remains (my third point): Reformatting a paragraph to Times New Roman (!) - e.g. to Normal - causes changing of all hebrew and greek characters to Times NR. The effect is that the Hebrew vowals are not placed correctly.
Yes, if you apply a paragraph style that defines a font then the font for the entire paragraph will change when you apply that style. You could remove the "Times New Roman" attribute from your Normal style if you wish.
Ninurta
Posts: 19
Joined: 2007-07-19 10:00:10
Location: Germany

Re: Language button and language switching

Post by Ninurta »

Martin,
thank you very much for the clarification. Now I begin to understand how paragraph styles work... The problem with greek and hebrew letters is easy to describebut difficult to solve: If there is a paragraph with greek and hebrew letters in Times New Roman, some letters merge into one another (I do not find another word for it). Examples: "Wort" or "Verbindung": the letters W and o are or V and e are shown and printed nearly as one letter. It seems to be a problem with apple not with Nisus. The problem disappears if I choose other fonts for greek and hebrew (e.g. Gentium or SBL hebrew).
Nonetheless: thanks for your help!
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Elbrecht
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Re: Language button and language switching

Post by Elbrecht »

Ninurta -

Times New Roman is known to be buggy...

HE
MacBook Pro i5
SSD 840/850 Pro
High Sierra 10.13.6
Nisus Writer Pro 3.4
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