Right-to-Left Word Processing

[idea_hamster]

I noticed a recent rise in interest among MR posters in right-to-left text support on the Mac. I thought that I might just toss this thread up so that the issue wouldn't have to live an off-topic half-life.

If you are looking for a right-to-left word processor, take a serious look at Mellel -- it supports not only right-to-left text for languages like Hebrew, but for cursive-required languages like Arabic, Farsi, or Pashto, Mellel actually connects all your letters into words. So while you could use a regular word processor to insert characters one at a time in reverse order with an Arabic font, they won't be connected into cursive words.

Mellel is a surprizingly full-featured word processor that can export .doc format (although I haven't used this function so I don't know how well it works), .rtf and can print to .pdf.

It was written by a group of Israeli programmers for the specific purpose of authoring academic works that combine both right-to-left and left-to-right text. I recently used this program to write a major work, not for the language capability, but for the footnote options. (You can have many different streams of notes, e.g., 1, 2, 3 for endnote references; *, †, ‡ for footnotes; and a, b, c for editors' notes within quoted works that have their own notes. Word can't do that at all!)

Also, it's ONLY for OS X. Take that, Windows!

Best part? $39. That's right. Thirty-nine bucks gets you your own copy. (Oh, and you can try it out free -- it just prints "UNREGISTERED" across a document until you buy it.)

The attached image shows how you can toggle the text direction using the Alignment pane. Of course, you also have to pick your new keyboard using the Input Menu that you turn on in the International pref pane.

 

[Voidness]

I have the trial version of it on my Mac, and it does have a lot of nice features. But opening Word documents isn't that reliable.

I do read Arabic, and that paragraph is obviously political and it's releated to Steve Jobs' original home country

 

[Ish]

I sometimes use the right to left word processor on the mac to type farsi using the Persian keyboard. The letters are typed in the order in which they appear in the word and they join together and change their forms as necessary according to where they are in the word. The document can then be printed. The only anomoly I've found is that the cursor stays on the right of the word even though the letters are added on the left. Do these other word processors have any advantage?