Tom Gewecke wrote:
Wow! At least that means that they are painfully aware of the shortcoming.
Can you ever remember them saying they did not support something like that? Very unusual I think.
It is really unusual to state it that openly. They sometimes mention restrictions in footnotes, as on
http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs/ , but to do it openly and as System Requirements is impressive. It makes perfect sense for the Japanese market, and they have the same text on the corresponding page: iWork ’08と同様に、iWork ’09では中国語、日本語、韓国語の縦書き入力などには対応していません。
Still it is strange that they do not mention furigana as well. And it is strange that they call vertical text an "input feature". It is more of a layout features. They probably mean "the ability to insert vertical text".
However, with the second largest economy in the world not being able to use Pages properly for their own language, I guess it warrants some head up warning about the limitations.
