Re: Some thoughts about BiDi Quirks Handling

From: Tomas Frydrych (tomas@frydrych.uklinux.net)
Date: Mon Sep 23 2002 - 03:52:44 EDT

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    > Omer wrote:
    > Due to Microsoft's actions, there are more than one version of BiDi
    > algorithm in use. The Hebrew versions of different MS-Word versions
    > implement slightly different BiDi algorithms. I don't know what is
    > the situation in Arabic and Persian.
    >
    > In order for AbiWord and other Free Software word processors to fully
    > replace Microsoft wordprocessors, it must be possible for them to
    > faithfully import files produced by Microsoft wordprocessors, in *.doc
    > and/or *.rtf formats.
    >

    There are three issues here: (1) reproducing the Word doc layout
    faithfully in AW; (2) from the AW user's point of view having a
    consistent BIDI behaviour irrespective of the document format; (3)
    exporting the document to rtf/doc in a manner that will ensure faithful
    layout when viewed by Word.

    I think the only way to satisfy both (1) and (2) is for the MSWord
    importer to insert explicit direction overrides based on the version of
    Word that created the document so that the bidi ordering when
    processed with the Unicode algorithm would be the same as that
    produced by Word on that document. In any case, dealing with this
    no trivial.

    Tomas



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