Right to Left Support for Hebrew and Arabic

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, cheskykay said:

Any update on progress of adding rtl?

I have tried using the rtl fixer program and while It helps me as I am typing the printer then washes it all of and reverts the text on the paper, also it is not only the rtl while typing it is the paragraph and pages settings too.

 

The latest statement from Serif that I've seen is this one, from just over a month ago:

 

[Mohannad]

On 7/4/2021 at 2:00 PM, walt.farrell said:

The latest statement from Serif that I've seen is this one, from just over a month ago:

 

zombie apocalypse will come before they add it

[Yosh]

I second (or 15th) the request for RTL support in Affinity Apps. I really love Affinity Designer and Publisher and use them whenever possible. I've published three books with Publisher and done countless vector illustrations with Designer. The only times I have to switch to using Adobe apps is when I'm doing video work and need the dynamically linked Adobe files OR I'm working with Hebrew text. I've found a workaround for creating short lines of RTL Hebrew text, but it's not feasible  for complete documents .

[Ido]

Please support RTL

[YouSirNëim]

I absolutely need this. Probably in the past this was not an issue but with a broader customer base and support, we absolutely need Hebrew, Arabic RTL functionality.

[dov717]

We absolutely need Hebrew, Arabic RTL functionality.

[fde101]

On 3/1/2022 at 2:25 PM, dov717 said:

We absolutely need Hebrew, Arabic RTL functionality.

Hi @dov717, welcome to the forums!

It has been indicated multiple times by Serif staff members that they want to add this at some point in the future; however, it is likely to be a long time from now, as it involves a lot of work for a small team and they have other priorities to focus on first.  If you need that functionality in the meantime, you will either need to try one of the third-party workarounds such as those mentioned in the thread @walt.farrell linked to above, or you will need to select a different product.

[ZaraJoon]

5 hours ago, fde101 said:

Hi @dov717, welcome to the forums!

It has been indicated multiple times by Serif staff members that they want to add this at some point in the future; however, it is likely to be a long time from now, as it involves a lot of work for a small team and they have other priorities to focus on first.  If you need that functionality in the meantime, you will either need to try one of the third-party workarounds such as those mentioned in the thread @walt.farrell linked to above, or you will need to select a different product.

Hi @fde101,

I have used the Affinities since 2016, and in each release, I waited for this BASIC feature. I disagree with you. It is not a matter of priorities or team size. If they only assigned this task to one person to work on it part-time, they would have something by now; after six years! Every simple app right now supports both directions. For god’s sake, Tom Hanks’ typewriter app even has R-to-L! When Procreate adds the text feature, it supports both directions. So it is not that hard.

I can’t accept that they can’t add this; they don’t want to add it. And that’s fine, just tell us so that we won’t waste our time here.

And we really should ask Apple how they gave an “Editor’s Choice” title to the app that is missing an essential and simple feature. Maybe we should give the Affinities app a one-star rate so they start listening to us.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Look at the example below for the word 'انداخت'.

Hmm … even Google Translate gets confused! It translates ‘threw’ as ‘انداخت’ but translates ‘انداخت’ as ‘dropped’. I don’t know any Persian but I do know that ‘threw’ and ‘dropped’ mean different things.

[thomaso]

37 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I do know that ‘threw’ and ‘dropped’ mean different things.

26 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I recommend Vajehyab: https://www.vajehyab.com/?q=انداختن&d=en.

Aside the impressively long list of meanings for انداختن at vajehyab: Isn't it normal in every language that some words can have various, possibly even conflicting meanings, and, some languages may have more different words for some meanings than other languages? For instance how about "shine" & "shy" at vajehyab, which I knew until now in my humble English only as being related to light & emotion but not to an action with force and violence, which the list at vajehyab seems to imply.

[fde101]

5 hours ago, ZaraJoon said:

in each release, I waited for this BASIC feature.

Serif has made it quite clear it will be some time before this feature shows up.  Why you would have "waited" for it "in each release" is beyond me.

 

Quote

I can’t accept that they can’t add this; they don’t want to add it.

They have said repeatedly that they do want to add it.  No one ever said that they can't.  It just is not a high priority right now and they are working on other things instead.

 

Quote

And we really should ask Apple how they gave an “Editor’s Choice” title to the app that is missing an essential and simple feature.

It is not essential to me.  I never produce documents in multiple languages myself, so I have no use for it whatsoever.  I certainly see the value of being able to work in multiple languages, as many people do need that, and the possibility exists that I may one day have a use case for it (and thus I am interested in seeing this happen, though it is not nearly as high a priority as numerous other things that other people are similarly complaining about the lack of - cross-references for example are among the biggest ones for me, as are tables that span multiple pages; I also would like to see global layers added sooner than later).

As others have also stated, this is something that clearly takes time to get right, and that is time Serif could be spending on other features that are much more essential to many people, and which they can get in place much more quickly than they could offer this.

[Alfred]

8 hours ago, thomaso said:

For instance how about "shine" & "shy" at vajehyab, which I knew until now in my humble English only as being related to light & emotion but not to an action with force and violence, which the list at vajehyab seems to imply.

I presume you mean that you associate “shine” with light and “shy” with emotion, but you can also “take a shine to” someone. As for force and violence, if you ever visit a British funfair you will probably encounter a coconut shy.

[Alfred]

6 hours ago, fde101 said:

They have said repeatedly that they do want to add it.  No one ever said that they can't.  It just is not a high priority right now and they are working on other things instead.

As I’ve mentioned before on these forums, I’m sure they lack the necessary knowledge and experience to do it ‘in house’. More than a decade ago WinSoft International signed an agreement to localize and distribute Middle East versions of three or four of their ‘Plus’ applications, but only for one version.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

I presume you mean that you associate “shine” with light and “shy” with emotion, but you can also “take a shine to” someone. As for force and violence, if you ever visit a British funfair you will probably encounter a coconut shy.

Yes, 'shine' in an emotional sense (character) is used in German, too. But doesn't this two words demonstrate, that words may have quite different meanings (I was wondering about your "I do know that ‘threw’ and ‘dropped’ mean different things.")

Also, for instance, compare the rather limited number of words in German vs. English in the list at https://www.vajehyab.com/?q=انداختن&d=en given by Deepl: In German I can "throw/toss (='werfen') an eye on someone" or "… an apple", while the actual meaning of "werfen" becomes unambiguously clear by its context only.

 

[Alfred]

28 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In German I can "throw/toss (='werfen') an eye on someone"

I can’t help being reminded of this classic example: “My uncle was walking down the market street when his eye fell on a bargain. My uncle had a glass eye.”

[thomaso]

18 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

it soon breaks down if you want something other than basic.

Reminds me of the impressive calligraphic Arabic writing possibilities that seem impossible with the Latin alphabet. For example, this Persian تالیا ('taliya') that is written to look like "we". Or the square Kufi style 'Bannai'. With Latin letters, we might find such flexibility "culture-less" or "chicken scratches". – On the other hand, I suspect that these options for Arabic letters came about because images are or were often somehow forbidden, so text became an illustrative workaround.

  . 

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

this is just a pattern

I assume reading Arabic calligraphy, especially if Kufic, often requires fantasy 😉

Whatever "yis" means. https://www.abbreviations.com/YIS

[ZaraJoon]

23 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Affinity would need to hire a developer who understands RTL text and what it looks like when done correctly.

@LondonSquirrel

I totally agree with you. The RTL languages, especially Persian and Arabic, are way more complicated than En or any Roman ones since they have connected letters for words. Even Adobe used to have a different version for InDesign (ME version).

But the reason that I think there is hesitation in adding this feature is that A.Designer and A.Photo are missing it too; On both desktop and iPad. Nobody won’t use Affinity Designer for Layout a book to need a complex setting! You only need to type a few words to design your poster or logo or whatever typography you need! And most of the time, these words will convert to curves. At least, it is what I do for my design work!  (I added some examples)

I replace photoshop with Affinity Photo, and I don’t even miss it for a second! But A.Designer and A.Publisher are different stories. Each time I had a project, I ended up buying CC for a month. So these two apps are suitable for a hobby, not professional work.

You may be right; this is such a big task that they are afraid to start. I did the same thing with my thesis!

 

18 hours ago, fde101 said:

It is not essential to me.  I never produce documents in multiple languages myself, so I have no use for it whatsoever.  I certainly see the value of being able to work in multiple languages, as many people do need that, and the possibility exists that I may one day have a use case for it (and thus I am interested in seeing this happen, though it is not nearly as high a priority as numerous other things that other people are similarly complaining about the lack of - cross-references for example are among the biggest ones for me, as are tables that span multiple pages; I also would like to see global layers added sooner than later).

As others have also stated, this is something that clearly takes time to get right, and that is time Serif could be spending on other features that are much more essential to many people, and which they can get in place much more quickly than they could offer this.

@fde101

The title for an app is not based on you and me; it’s based on how many useful features the app provides for all users. I count one, and you named two more. So this app, for sure, shouldn’t get that title.

 

P.S. انبه means Mango

 

 

[thomaso]

19 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Kufic is not always square, but when it is it does lead to interesting patterns.

Since we are there, here someone applied the squared style to Latin letters. https://thign.de/en/latin-square-kufic-script-in-use/
As not being able to read Arabic letters I wonder whether this English examples require more fantasy to get read successfully than general artistic Arabic calligraphy,   respectively squared Kufic text in particular only?

[Sir Doyle]

On 3/8/2022 at 12:22 AM, ZaraJoon said:

Hi @fde101,

I have used the Affinities since 2016, and in each release, I waited for this BASIC feature. I disagree with you. It is not a matter of priorities or team size. If they only assigned this task to one person to work on it part-time, they would have something by now; after six years! Every simple app right now supports both directions. For god’s sake, Tom Hanks’ typewriter app even has R-to-L! When Procreate adds the text feature, it supports both directions. So it is not that hard.

I can’t accept that they can’t add this; they don’t want to add it. And that’s fine, just tell us so that we won’t waste our time here.

And we really should ask Apple how they gave an “Editor’s Choice” title to the app that is missing an essential and simple feature. Maybe we should give the Affinities app a one-star rate so they start listening to us.

+1

[Ronald N. Tan]

With Version 2.0 around the corner as hinted by AEC Magazine's article on the 2.0 beta version of Affinity Suite of Software, I am truly hoping for the support of right-to-left (RTL) writing system in Affinity Publisher (AP). https://aecmag.com/technology/serif-affinity-for-aec-firms/.

RTL is long overdue and I can't believe Serif neglected the potential user-base of customers to poach/tap into. I was recently active in another RTL thread and posts going back to 2019 and some referencing a now expunged post going back even earlier for the lack to RTL support.

As always, I remain hopeful and optimistic that Serif will (eventually) deliver on the ability to have proper RTL support.

[Archangel]

Okay, I would like to add support for this feature.

Check out the Mirrored publisher file for a possible future workaround.

 

 

 

Mirrored.afpub

[NEALEVN]

Still no Right to Left and Top to Bottom for how many years?

That's what she said:

Publisher is the next generation of professional publishing software. From books, magazines and marketing materials, to social media templates, website mock-ups and more, this incredibly smooth, intuitive app gives you the power to combine your images, graphics and text to make beautiful layouts ready for publication.

Spectacular layouts
With essentials like master pages, facing page spreads, grids, tables, advanced typography, text flow, full professional print output and other amazing features, Affinity Publisher has everything you need to create the perfect layout – whatever your project.

Text to match the power of your words
Free yourself from the constraints of tired, traditional text layouts. Let Affinity Publisher help you visualise your text in creative new ways and flow it seamlessly through your document.

[icomposer]

How many years should we wait to get this feature available? It is ridiculous that especially Affinity Publisher does not support Right to Left Writing System!

 

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, icomposer said:

How many years should we wait to get this feature available? It is ridiculous that especially Affinity Publisher does not support Right to Left Writing System!

 

You shouldn't wait at all. If the Affinity applications lack a function you consider critical then you should use a different application, which has the function(s) you need.