If you are working with a right-to-left script and considering exporting to the Go Bible or .epub format, you might need to perform the following steps in order for your language data to work correctly.
Go Bible format
For the Go Bible format, there is a setting in the Go Bible reader that alters the character direction for the document. Perform the following steps to set the text direction to right-to-left:
- Open the Go Bible reader document on your cell phone.
- Click Menu. This could be the right selection button on your phone, although cell phones will differ on their controls.
- Navigate down to menu item #8 – Preferences and click it.
- Navigate down to Reverse Characters, then click the On button.
- Click Save (This could be the right button on your phone).
.epub format
For the .epub format, text direction is based on the writing system (.ldml) file for the language you are working with. If you are working with FieldWorks, this is already done for you.
If you are working with Paratext, you will need to create an .ldml file for your writing system. There are a couple ways to do this:
- Create a new project in FieldWorks Translation Editor or Language Explorer that uses the writing system.
- Copy an .ldml file from a similar language set and save it as ProgramData/SIL/WritingSystemStore/<iso639 code>.ldml, where <iso639 code> is the ISO 639 3-letter code for the language.
Once the file is created, the writing system can be modified as needed – the .epub export currently looks at the font and text direction for the writing system, but that’s it. You can then export via Pathway, and it should pull out the data from the .ldml file.
Hi, having played around a bit with right-to-left text in ePubs, I’m finding the support to be fairly limited. Adobe Digital Editions does not display right-to-left text appropriately, though some other software does. My Sony Reader does not display it correctly. Do you have any insights into this difficulty? Is it just a matter of waiting for RTL text to become supported? Thanks.
Hi Adam,
You’re correct — the degree to which RTL is rendered correctly will depend on the e-book reader. Some readers completely ignore all formatting, while others just have problems when multiple writing systems are in play. You might want to take a look at this thread over at the mobileread forums: http://www.mobileread.mobi/forums/showthread.php?t=105910&page=4. It gives a little more insight into which readers will support RTL (at least in terms of Hebrew script). I think the latest posts there are from the end of last year, so there might have been some updates since then.
EDIT: I also came across this link: http://www.mobileread.mobi/forums/showthread.php?t=79709. About halfway down there’s a list of e-book readers with their level of rtl support as tested by that forum reader.