Text direction in notes

Question

A consultant for a project using the Arabic script asked for help with a problem. When he inserted a note in English, and put in a word or so in the Arabic script, the note displays the beginning of the English sentence to the right and the end of the sentence to the left, like this:

.would be better مِسِرَ Perhaps

instead of:

Perhaps مِسِرَ would be better.

It turns out this can be avoided by changing the language in the edit note box to English, before starting the note. Doing so maintains the left to right text direction, even when right to left words are inserted in the English sentence.

Answer 1

This has long been a frustration for those working in AS and other R2L projects - also the size of the font (as people often have AS at much bigger font sizes than RS) - notes default to the language of the receptor text (which is of course expected behaviour, just not great for outside consultants). Alternatives are:

• not using punctuation at the end of paragraphs
• writing your notes in the receptor language or another known R2L language if you can
• each time setting the language of the note to a L2R language (just one click each time, as you say)
• using a note template that is set to L2R
• using your own Consultant Notes project rather than project notes (my own preference).

Comments

AWR:

notes default to the language of the receptor text

Notes should default to the language you set before typing anything (e.g. select English then type the note. New notes after that should default to English).
Does that not happen?

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I can confirm that @anon291708 is correct. I think @sewhite was pointing out that the writing system you start with forces the direction for the entire flag.

To fine-tune punctuation, I’ve always used 0x200E and 0x200F. What are the dis/advantages of 0x202A and 0x202B compared to those?

Answer 2

Another option is to insert a Left to Right Embedding character at the beginning of the note. Type 202A then Alt-X.Then start typing English. The sentence will be right aligned but the final punctuation should stick to the end of the English sentence properly.

Answer 3

Thanks for this thread! I am glad to discover that there is a way to set the note text to left to right, or to right to left.

When answering a note, it would be handy if the default language defaulted to the language of the note being answered. Generally, we don’t mix languages in note threads (except for brief quotes of things).