[Solved] Right-to-left (typing in Hebrew)

[henrybrice]

I've set up OOo to work with Hebrew, which is written from right to left. For the numbers and punctuation to work properly at the end of the line I need to set the alignment as right-to-left. For some reason I cannot get the button for left-to-right and right-to-left alignment buttons to appear. When I go to the toolbar menu and mark the boxes to have them on the toolbar it says they are there and the boxes are ticked, however they are not visible (or clickable) to me.

How do I get the buttons to actually appear on the toolbar?

[Robert Tucker]

Do you have CTL (Complex Text Layout) enabled at Tools>Options...>Language Settings>Languages ?

[henrybrice]

Thank you very much!

[uscrgr]

I have been to dozens of forums and posts and threads and google and I get the same run-around. Yes, I have been through language -> enable CTL, etc. The problem I am having is that my computer doesn't seem to recognize that I am typing in Hebrew and I don't know how to force it to write right to left. When I select write right to left the icon appears selected and the cursor moves to the right side of the screen, but it continues to write left to right, only it is aligned right. There must be something else I can do. There are now several Hebrew fonts installed on my computer and they all display correctly -- they work fine, they just won't write right to left. What else can I do?

[Robert Tucker]

Do you see Roman characters or Hebrew characters when you type? Have you set Windows up for RTL languages and selected Hebrew when you type? See:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/inte ... l#eastasia

[uscrgr]

Left alt + shift toggles languages by default and that can be changed. When you toggle the language to Hebrew with left alt + shift, it switches to Hebrew and automatically starts typing right to left regardless of how the right to left or left to right is selected, and regardless of the font selected. Thank you, it's taken me a lot of wasted time trying to figure that out and I don't know why it was so hard. It certainly wasn't very obvious and no one else seems to have to do that.

[prufock]

when i try left alt shift all it does it change the font but i am still not able to type right to left; the cursor stays on the right side of the page only

[Starfire]

I know this topic says solved, but there is a way to type right to left without changing the language on your system. To do this, you need a custom font and OOO's drawing interface.

In order for my alphabet's letters to face the correct direction, I needed to either edit or create a font with the letters reversed. You can either use a free online font creator or a free font creator/editor program like Birdfont to create or modify your font. I recommend modifying an already created font, as you will be done faster. The first step is to do a Save As so if you mess up, your original font file is still intact. Save often, so if you mess up (especially when using Birdfont, which only allows a single use of Undo when editing) you don't lose a lot of work. Note when using Birdfont that when you reverse your images they may move unevenly, meaning you will have to move them to where they should be. This is especially true when modifying a pointed Hebrew font.

Once the font is created and installed on your system, open a new document in OOO's drawing, not a text document. Find the icon for inserting a text box. Change the active font to your backwards facing font and type everything left to right. When you're done typing what you want, Select All, go up to Modify, Convert, and convert your text box to a bitmap. When that's done, go to Modify, Flip, and Flip Horizontal. Your text image will reverse, and your letters will now be facing the correct direction and everything will read properly from right to left, all without having to change the language on your system or mess with the complicated controls of an OOO text document.

I did a quickie font of all capitals in English to prove to myself it would look right before I take on a pointed Hebrew font.

Typing right to left in OOO drawing

[adomin15]

Hi, I just downloaded OpenOffice and will be using to do spreadsheet work in Arabic exclusive. I need to be able to enter information in a right to left oriented spreadsheet. When I try choosing Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages and check "Enabled for complex text layout (CTL), I am unable because there is no such thing as "options" in the tools menu. Did anyone else encounter this problem? Is there another way to enable complete text layout (CTL)?

Thank you!

[RoryOF]

You are using a Mac. On a Mac Options is under Preferences.