19. Are there Arabic word processors? p4
Description
This article is from the Lebanon FAQ, by Alaa Dakroub dakroub@leb.net with numerous contributions by others.
19. Are there Arabic word processors? p4
Evaluation: Tex-Edit
A capable text editor. Has standard text styles like bold, italics,
outline, shadow, condensed and extended, as well as color. You can freely
choose font and size and mix several in a document. All these three allow
multiple documents to be open at the same time.
Tex-Edit has find/replace, with functions for finding returns, tabs,
linefeeds, whole word only, match case, and Replace all.
Like Word, if you select a word by doubleclicking, it will include the
space after the word. Useful detail. Triple-clicking selects a sentence.
It can strip unwanted control characters, and can paste time & day and
page number. It does not have a ruler, but when printing will ask for
margin sizes and may include page numbers. This does not work properly,
however, if you try change the margins on a document about a page or two,
the program hangs, and then crashes on command-period.
You can justify left, right and center, but this will relate to the
whole document. Works under system 6.0.3 and newer, and with Macintalk will
read out typed text for you. (The name, incidentally, seems to refer to
Texas, not TeX.)
Handling of Arabic: Text entry and editing is acceptable, with a caveat
below. There are however some cursor problems with line breaks. Sometimes
when it should position the cursor at the beginning of a line, it is put at
the end instead. Eg: Moving back one step from the beginning of line 4 to
puts the cursor at the beginning of line 3; and typing will put new text
before the text in line 3.
You can set the justification to right-oriented, but this is not saved
and has to redone every time you open the document. All these three editors
link fonts and script, thus changing script also automatically switches to
the previously used font in that script.
Find/replace works with Arabic, but the dialog box shows only Chicago,
i.e. Roman characters (like Word would). However, what is inserted into the
text appears in the correct font.
Positive: You can set the default font to an Arabic one, like Geeza
12. The editor will then start up with the Arabic script active.
Negative: Actually, you have to do this. If the default font is a
Roman one, cutting and pasting will not work correctly. On pasting in the
middle of an Arabic block, the default will switch to Roman, and the Arabic
block will be split; the first part coming the left of the last. This can
be repaired, but is a nuisance. Also, if you write an English text, Arabic
is still default, so if you click somewhere in the English text, the script
often (not always) reverts to Arabic.
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