Word X in Hebrew

[gershomsl]

I have downloaded a Hebrew font, but can't seem to find a way to get
Word X for Mac to type from right to left, the way Hebrew is written.
I've activated Hebrew in the operating system (OS X 10.4.10), but it
is greyed out when I click on the U.S. flag emblem in the menu bar.
Any other ideas?

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry, Word doesn't support RTL on the Mac. You might try going into Word
Help & sending some loud & clear feedback to MS... maybe they'll finally
listen

 

[gershomsl]

Thanks for the feedback. I found that a hard concept to believe so I
spent a great deal of time looking for how to turn it on. I know that
the Mac market among Hebrew speakers is not huge, but it also doesn't
seem like it would be that hard to implement. Then again, I am neither
a programmer nor a Microsoft executive!

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, look all you want, but you won't find it 'cause it isn't there

Mac OS X supports RTL [though it's debatable as to how well], but MS has not
chosen to enable it in Office. If the software isn't written to take
advantage of what the OS provides there isn't much you can do.

You might look into some of the other products that *do* support RTL, but
I'm not the right one to offer any suggestions on the subject.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Mellel is frequently recommended for RTF (developed in Israel, I
believe), and Nisus Writer is another suggestion.

 

[gershomsl]

Thank you Daiya. My wife has used Mellel but I hoped that I would be
able to stay in Word. If as Bob says I can't do it in Word I will
switch over. I did write to Microsoft as Bob suggested. they responded
thinking that I had bought my Word in Israel to contact help here, so
I responded that I bought it in the U.S. years before I came here.
We'll see what they say.

Gershom

 

[gershomsl]

Thank you Daiya. My wife has used Mellel but I hoped that I would be
able to stay in Word. If as Bob says I can't do it in Word I will
switch over. I did write to Microsoft as Bob suggested. they responded
thinking that I had bought my Word in Israel to contact help here, so
I responded that I bought it in the U.S. years before I came here.
We'll see what they say.

Gershom

 

[Chaim]

Does Word 2008 support RTL? I have not found a way to type Hebrew text right to left. When I paste Hebrew text into Word 2008, the letters are in backwards order.

Even TextEdit can type Hebrew correctly, as well as NisusWriter, Mellel and Pages, but not Word; what's the story Microsoft?

 

[Michel Bintener]

Does Word 2008 support RTL? I have not found a way to type Hebrew text right
to left. When I paste Hebrew text into Word 2008, the letters are in backwards
order.

Word does not support RTL script.

Even TextEdit can type Hebrew correctly, as well as NisusWriter, Mellel and
Pages, but not Word; what's the story Microsoft?

Word uses its own text engine, as does Mellel. Mellel's text engine was
created to specifically support RTL script (its developers are Israeli),
whereas this functionality simply hasn't been built into Word. Nisus Writer
Express/Pro and TextEdit use Apple's own text engine, which supports RTL
script, and it's almost the same case with Pages, except that Pages uses the
Safari engine to render text (the results are the same).

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

 

[Israel]

It seems that Microsoft has made a decision NOT to include RTL support... That is a real pity as Office 2008 is a great product that prevents Hebrew and Arabic writer from using it. We feel rejected again....;-)
Is mMS planning on suppling a patch to fix that?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm pretty sure a patch would not be enough to support RTL--that's a
major feature that would probably only come in an entirely new version.
However, just like that, people here can only speculate about MS' future
plans. Use Help | Send Feedback in any Office app to send your thoughts
direct to MS, and try to convince them that RTL will earn them a profit
by saying how many copies would be bought, and how much extra you'd be
willing to pay.

Meantime, check out Mellel and Nisus Writer.

 

[Shmuel Klatzkin]

Let me join the chorus. I do translations for educational products, and my colleagues send me texts Hebrew/English texts written in Word from their PCs. I have had to use the Mellel fix--it is a fine program, but it is after all inconvenient to have to switch between programs.

What is worse-when I send back English translations pasted onto their Hebrew/English Word docs, the English reads backwards on their machines.

 

[John McGhie]

Go to Help>Send Feedback in Word and lodge your protest.

Microsoft needs to be able to hear the whole choir before this issue gets
resolved

It's a "funding" issue. Right-to-Left is really expensive. Microsoft does
not think there is enough demand to give them the extra sales they would
need to cover the investment.

On the PC side, they own the operating system, so the RTL support is in
Windows, where they can amortise the cost over every application they sell
to 900,000,000 users.

On the Mac, they have to re-code the whole of Mac Office to flip everything
back to front. The cost would be about the same as it cost to do it in
Windows, but the pay-back is available only from one application used by a
small percentage of a far smaller installed base.

However, there IS a "magic number" they have to get to in demand before they
authorise the project to go ahead. I don't know what that number is, but
use Send Feedback to add your request to the database, just in case they are
only one vote short

Cheers

Let me join the chorus. I do translations for educational products, and my
colleagues send me texts Hebrew/English texts written in Word from their PCs.
I have had to use the Mellel fix--it is a fine program, but it is after all
inconvenient to have to switch between programs.

What is worse-when I send back English translations pasted onto their
Hebrew/English Word docs, the English reads backwards on their machines.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[natanzel]

While Mellel is an option, I find it very counter-intuitive compared with MSword. A much more user friendly programme is NeoOffice. What's more, it is offered as a free download (although an appeal was made for donations - which I willingly contributed after trying the programme). There is a warning that there may still be bugs in the programme and an advisor to regularly save one's work. After some two months, I can't recall the programme crashing even once (or any other problems).

the site is: <http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/download.php#download>

 

[laurent_w]

So strange, multilingual fonts (including Hebrew and Arabic, and so many others) in PC Word, nothing in MAC

Billions of people left out....

 

[CyberTaz]

But if just *half* of those "billions" would buy Macs RTL would propagate so
quickly you wouldn't be able to make a decision on which product to use

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac