Questions about Hebrew fonts

[r12a]

Perhaps this may help:

- An Introduction to Writing Systems & Unicode>Text direction 
https://r12a.github.io/scripts/tutorial/part4
- Hebrew orthography notes   
https://r12a.github.io/scripts/hebr/he.html  (esp. the section on Text 
direction)
- Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm basics 
https://www.w3.org/International/articles/inline-bidi-markup/uba-basics

ri

Giacomo Catenazzi via Unicode wrote on 14/06/2023 07:53:
> On 14 Jun 2023 04:29, kenneth greifer via Unicode wrote:
>>
>> When I try to self-publish some of my work on Amazon KDP, which is 
>> Kindle, they say that Kindle ebook readers can't handle Hebrew 
>> characters. I would like to know if there exists a left to right 
>> version of fonts for languages that are written right to left like 
>> Hebrew. If there were left to right versions of these fonts, then 
>> people could have an easier time mixing Hebrew and English or other 
>> languages in books on ebook readers. Of course, they would have to 
>> type the words in reverse order, which can be confusing, but it would 
>> make life easier in other ways.
>
> You are proposing just hacks, which were good in 1970 (limited 
> resources), but not now (nor a decade ago). Hebrew is written right to 
> left, but it doesn't matter. We write text from beginning to the end, 
> from first letter to the last. Unicode uses such convention, and it is 
> good to keep it so. Your proposal is just an hack and it doesn't solve 
> really the problem. The problem must be solved on the rendering side 
> (display), and it is almost solved.
>
> So I expect your tools are not designed for such languages. I'm sure 
> ebooks exists also in Hebrew (and they mix text with different 
> conventions, think about numbers), so it is not a problem of 
> technology. PDF can handle most of languages. So fix your tools! I 
> think your tools are made just for Latin scripts (and maybe just for 
> English), so to solve just the author's problem. I expect your tool 
> cannot understand scripts (and so using e.g. Unicode algorithms to 
> find the direction of the script, and to instruct it on PDF code).
>
> Think about your hack. Now many ebook readers can read text (read as 
> "speaking aloud the text"), so they must know the order of characters 
> (which it is independent to the order of display). In your case, 
> programmers should add an hack for that (and all complexities on 
> search functions, googling, etc.). Is it better to fix the tools to 
> inject code to tell direction of text?
>
> It is really a problem of your tools, not of PDF (or HTML) or most 
> technologies made to render text.
>
> ciao
>     cate
>
>

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