Problem with digits when open old Nisus Hebrew files

[shlomit]

Hello,
I got old nisus files, i think it's nisus version 3 or so, came from a mac os 9.
When i open them in nisus pro (mac pro os x 10.5.6), the digits are presented not in the right order:

Sample: A phone number that should be: 563 29 28 appears like that: 365 92 82.
so does other digits.

Is this my problem or a problem with Nisus?
What should I do?

I have selected the right language (Hebrew) but it did not help.


thank you
shlomit

[Ruchama]

Hi Shlomit.
This is a general problem when moving hebrew files from system 9 to X.
The solution is to use find and replace in the following manner (At least this is a working solution for me). It relies on you knowing what is the highest number of consecutive digits that needs to be 'switched'. (in your example it is 3, as you have spaces within the numbers):

Open find and replace window and type the expressions from the enclosed image. this is suitable for up to 4 digits. if there are more (say 5 max) - add another ([0-9])? in the end of the "find' winodw, and add \5 at the beginning of the 'replace' expression.

(be sure to select "powerfind pro" ).

I am sure this could be transformed into a macro/script that will be uniform for all files, but in most cases it serves quite well.
I hope this helps..
Ruchama

[shlomit]

Hello,
thank you very much, the problem is that this is not a good solution for me.
I got over 500 nisus files, and running find change or script is not a good solution.
I find it a true and real bug, sorry about that, but as a beta tester for Adobe InDesign Middle Eastern Version,
i have never seen files turning from previous versions get damaged so much concerning numbers and i do believe a better solution should be found.
There are no definitions for "Right to Left" or "Left to right" in Nisus, nor something to tell nutural characters how to behave before and after Hebrew or Roman characters and i believe that's why it happens
These are truly bad news to me,
A true converter should exist upon opening such files that will recognize the numbers and open files correctly.
why should i keep use Nisus if I'm unable to open old files correctly?
what will assure me that it will not happen later?
sorry about my fatal criticism, but I truly find it a sever problem.

thank you
shlomit

[Ruchama]

you will find out that this is not a nisus problem, but rather a problem of conversion of mac's hebrew files from older systems to OSX. I would guess that is all part of the clumsiness of the hebrew aspects of OSX, as produced by apple peopIe. I don't know what kind of 'damage' are you talking about other than that, but the 'bug' is really coming from older systems where there were 'hebrew' numbers. and taking in mind that this is very defined and solvable problem, I would estimate it much less severe than you do.

I must say the I had many more that 500 files, and one by one, together with the conversion from nisus 6.5 and with the use of 'saved expressions' option and macro they all went through the script with almost a single command. however, I am almost sure that one of the scripting people at nisus will be able to compose something that will run automatically.

one more thing: I am not sure I agree with your claim concerning the directionality.. In any case, nisus (unfortunately for us hebrew users) is using apple's text engine so the problem originates at least partially, if not totally from the apple system so I think the anger is a bit excessed.. by the way - have you tried to open the files in any other way?

p.s. I am much 'angrier' over the beloved abilities of nisus 6.5 that have disappeared in the new version, to come back sometime in the undefined future.. so if you are really looking for a reason not to use Nisus - I could find for you some better ones.. Still, within the constraints of apple's rotten hebrew support, it is one (if not the) best word processor around.

[shlomit]

well,
I guess making an application that uses Apple's support for Hebrew is not a good idea.
Apple never invested in true Hebrew, I can see that when comparing to the excellent work Winsoft invested in Hebrew for Adobe Applications.
I never had issues with opening old InDesign files, digits and text where never flipped or change their direction, and getting used to such high standards, for sure causes disappointment with other application that can't treat Hebrew well enough.
I can't understand why opening an old Nisus document will cause the digits to change, the Paragraph direction to become a left to right, the fonts to change etc. I do believe a document should preserve all Paragraph and Character definitions and regarding fonts, it should ask me which font to replace when it see's there is a missing one.
Opening an old Nisus file into Nisus Writer Pro, and not see the exact definition as used to be, is a big problem to my understanding.

In the attached screenshot, you can see how dates change, number like 2,800 became 008,2 etc.
In some cases I can't even know how it shold look like unless i have an old document printed or pdf from the previous version.
so...
this is causing a smile on my face....
thanks anyhow

[Ruchama]

Let me only explain two more things -
First, the font issue is again a system problem. Fonts will be substituted when moving from system 9 to 10, no matter what the software is. You could solve the problem by copying the old font to the new system as OSX supports all type of fonts. but keep in mind that system fonts of OSX are unicode type.
Second, in case that helps is any way- I think that if you define your ' new file' as a hebrew one, with RTL as default, your files will be opened correctly. There, you could choose also your default font.

[shlomit]

Let me only explain two more things -
First, the font issue is again a system problem. Fonts will be substituted when moving from system 9 to 10, no matter what the software is. You could solve the problem by copying the old font to the new system as OSX supports all type of fonts. but keep in mind that system fonts of OSX are unicode type.

Never happened to me under InDesign flles that was made in OS9 and reopened in OSX

Second, in case that helps is any way- I think that if you define your ' new file' as a hebrew one, with RTL as default, your files will be opened correctly. There, you could choose also your default font.

I did that, but it didn't help.
The screenshot is after i done what you have suggested.

but all this doesn't matter.
Nisus should take care of that, Apple is not to be blame..

[Ruchama]

did you work with hebrew under indesign?

[shlomit]

And for my final complain, here is the original file, opened in Nisus 6, under os 9.

got 500 files. now i should open all of them and fix it? really???

[shlomit]

oh, sorry, forgot to answer you.
yes, i am working with hebrew, i used to work for the main adobe importers in Isarel, InDesign was my product, and the job included beta testing, instructing, technical manual writing etc.
I was doing that for 5.5 year, so believe me, I know how Hebrew should look quite well
As I said, I have never seen such phenomena in InDesign.
Now i'm a self employed + teach it at the "Holon Insitute of Technology".

If I needed to sell Nisus here in Israel to mac users that are migrating from OS9 to OSX, I will never allowed it as I didn't allowed once to sell InDesign when in one of its version it did not support old hebrew fonts.

To me, it's impossible to make an application that flipped you text in this way.
This is not fair to Nisus clients community.

A solution should be found and fast.

[Ruchama]

I agree with you concerning the application of nisus to the hebrew writing community. I was working with Nisus from almost their first version, and their decision to use the apple text engine is (in gentle words) placing us on the very low end of their priorities. I am not sure they knew in advance that apple will do as lousy job as they did, but that's the price of their gamble. Mellel, however, made the right choice on our behalf, and won the increasing mac users population.. I must say that although I remained 'faithful' to nisus, when new users are asking me which word processor to choose, I very often recommend Mellel, it is smoother in most hebrew aspects.

(This, however, does not solve your problem..)

I think it is only fair to ask Nisus people to compose a script that will enable transforming all old files correctly and together. I am sure that after the weekend we shall get a response.

with no relation to that, I think InDesign must have done something extra over the basic apple converter to make the move correctly.

[shlomit]

yes this is my point.

another issue that was never solved is the incomlete rtf.
maybe nisus creates rtf but this is not a true one.

when i import rtf to InDesign, the Hebrew letters are language recognized. i mean, if you select a word in Hebrew you will see that it gets the lanuage "Hebrew" and when you select English, you will see "English USA" for it's language.

But, when importing Nisus rtf document, all the words get the same language, which means i'm unable to separate the Hebrew from english.

We also got now Neo-Office which is no bad and free.

so... each one will make their own decisions

[Elbrecht]

Don't know again -

but maybe your last thread is the answer - "View/Show Invisibles"... Then look for the Reverse Directionality Marker at the Numbers to delete - again don't know about Hebrew. But there was the "Convert to Reverse Order" Menu option to fake "Right-to-Left" writing in Classic Nisus Writer. That's obsolete now with OS X and Unicode text engine - but again who knows?

HE

[xiamenese]

Ruchama put his finger on it, but didn't spell it out. Word, OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Mellel and InDesign all use proprietary text engines, as did Nisus Classic ... For good or ill, in creating Nisus Writer Express and then Pro, Nisus used a pretty much modified version of the Apple text engine, and that's why these problems arise. NWE/P is very much more capable than the basic Apple text engine, but still issues remain which will presumably be ironed out as versions progress.

If Open/NeoOffice or Mellel work for you, go for them. I ought to try the new version of Mellel since apparently they have finally made it able to import Word files written in Chinese; NeoOffice is better for Chinese than OpenOffice, but neither of them, to the best of my experience will allow you to mark a stretch of text as being in a given language, which NWP will do. Mind you, Word apparently won't either, from all the files I have to work with generated in Word running under Chinese Windows. So all of these applications, whether using their own text engine or not, have their lacunae ... It comes down to which lacunae cause you as an individual the most or the fewest headaches.

I would love to use InDesign much more, but I only have CS1 and can't afford to upgrade ... and CS1 won't run properly under Leopard. Also, I have to say, NWP handles Chinese more intuitively.

[Ruchama]

Just to make it clear.. Ruchama is a she..

But really, I still think that these problems are relatively defined and solvable, and I plead and urge nisus people to add something (or a seperate module) that will enable previous nisus people to import their files more easily.

please..