Re: Aleph queries

["Idris Samawi Hamid" <ishamid@colostate.edu>]

Hi Duncan,

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:30:15 -0600, Duncan Hothersall <dh@capdm.com> wrote:

> Using the fantastic resources from Idris' messages on this list, and the
> Aleph page on the Wiki, I have managed to start producing Arabic PDF
> output directly from UTF-8 sources using Aleph and dvipdfmx. This is
> great, thanks so much.

Glad you liked it:-)

> I have just one or two queries and things I wasn't able to make work. I
> hope someone can help.
>
> My test file is here:
> http://www.capdm.com/public/context/omarab-queries1.tex
> And the output it generates is here:
> http://www.capdm.com/public/context/omarab-queries1.pdf
>
>
> First question - how do I get italic text? The first three paragraphs in
> the test are identical content, but the second has {\it ...} around it
> and the third has {\bf ...} around it. The third para comes out
> perfectly in bold, but the second para looks the same as the first. How
> can I get italics?

There is no italic font, only regular and bold, so \it just maps to the  
default regular font.

> Second question - that same first para contains 5 ligatures. They don't
> seem to match the rest of the font. Is this a set-up issue, or is it the
> way the font is designed? If it is a set-up issue, is there a way to fix  
> it?

Both :-) You could edit the cuni2oar otp (and recompile it) so that it  
ignores the ligatures you don't like, or you could put a kashidah between  
the two letters whose ligature you want to break. Better is to define an  
"empty" kashidah so that you can manually break the ligature without  
stretching the word. I'll look into this in the next few days (busy right  
now) if you remind me-)

> Third and final question - I inserted a section and two subsections to
> demonstrate that the numbering of subsections is left-to-right. How can
> I make it right-to-left? (Explanation: the PDF shows section "1", and
> then subsections "1-1" and "1-2"; reading the numbers from
> right-to-left, I need it to show as section "1" and then subsections
> "1-1" and "2-1". In the subsection the "1" should come first when
> reading rtl.)

Add \reversesectionnumberstrue to your Arabic definition:

\def\ArabicUTF{\ArabicDirGlobal\usefiltersequence[UTFArabic]
                 \reversesectionnumberstrue\switchtobodyfont[omarb]}

Ideally when one selects global RL this should happen automatically. This  
is being planned for the future :-)

Best
Idris

-- 
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

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