I've created a table in the Persian language in Pages. The table has a numbers/index column. While I type, I can see the number in Persian, but when I leave the table cell (after pressing return), Pages changes the number into English automatically. How can I stop this?
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Breaker1 wrote:
Also, the book I am writing will need to be edited by people in Iran and Afghanistan. Do you know, which apps are most popular in those countries, so I install the same or something compatible?
They will most likely use Word for Windows. But you cannot use Word for Mac, because it has no support at all for RTL scripts. OpenOffice might be the most compatible, but TextEdit and Nisus Writer can also export to Word format. Whether any app can meet your requirements regarding content is something you will have to check for yourself.
Regarding Pashto, if you look in system preferences/language & text/input sources you will see that OS X includes a (Afghan) Pashto keyboard layout, so special characters used by that language should not be a problem.
It's not a good idea to write Persian in Pages, as this app has many bugs with RTL scripts. Mellel is the best app, but TextEdit, Nisus Writer, and OpenOffice should also work OK.
For the numbers, try going to system preferences/language & text/formats and set the Region to Persian.
Thanks for your recommendation, Tom. I am open to switch to an alternative. I assume all your listed apps are capable of doing formated text as well as tables and are able to import images and drawings(?).
Also, the book I am writing will need to be edited by people in Iran and Afghanistan. Do you know, which apps are most popular in those countries, so I install the same or something compatible?
If I can push my luck even further, there will be some Arabic and Pashto phrases, the latter with a few special characters that do not exist in Persian.
In most cases the people you will be sending documents to will be using Windows, of whatever vintage, with MsOffice and particularly MsWord for Windows.
May I point out, that only you know who you are sending material to and only you will be able to ask them what they are using, and therefore should.
MsWord for Windows is an excellent multi-lingual word processor and the later versions have DTP abilities shoe horned into them. Your recipients may through reasons of cost and their poor relations with the USA, have only comparatively older hardware and software.
Many may be persisting with older and varyingly incompatible text encoding methods, not the Unicode that modern software is using. MsWord allows you to save in whatever works for them.
Pages is a bad choice for anything RtoL and Mellel is an Israeli product and very unlikely to be used by the more ardently Islamic countries and customers. Macs have virtually no support or outlet in the Middle East except for the UAE, Kuwait and Lebanon.
Peter
Many thanks for your posts, everone. They helped me a lot. I think I'll start a trial with OpenOffice and move from there (will do some research on features). Longer term, it looks like there is no way around a Windowns based hardware plus MS Word.
Greets.
Breaker1 wrote:
Longer term, it looks like there is no way around a Windowns based hardware plus MS Word.
Of course there are various ways to run Windows on your Mac, e.g. via Bootcamp or virtual machines like Parallels or Fusion.
Pages changes Persian numbers back into English
