arabic, chineese, german, hebrew ...

[real name]

arabic, chineese, german, hebrew ...

i'm looking for example which will display string or its part in defined font and language.
(if you want to reply "user TextOut" please read more.)
main idea is use more language texts in one document.

my first try was install arabic font and start write with it in msword.
but it still write from left to right.

i started to study ExtTextOut(), GetFontLanguageInfo() and GetCharacterPlacement()
but help is full of "for W95 only" and "for thai only" like cases.
i did not found general solution.

next problem were comments "for font and selected language".
from it seems this all can work only for one language?
if i want to display hebrew text i must have selected hebrew language?

in GetSystemMetrics() i found case "system is arabic-enabled".
when i will detect it is not set what to display to user?
(something like "go to www.microsoft.com\... and download arabic support".)
cases like hebrew- or chinese-enabled i did not found.

in SetTextAlign() i found possiblity right-to-left but anothers not.
(i suppose chines is from up to down, isn't it?)
in-china-home, how you solve this?
how can i found that language x has any direction? (own table only?)

in some comments i found hebrew can have parts from left to right.
that has to be defined in any not specified markers.
who knows about it more?

what is difference between kashidas and glyphs?
it seems to me both of them are added-drawings (stupidly said).
why they are handled differently?

what when i want to display only part of text (detail)?
it seems i must use ExtTextOut to display full text and clip it
because given part of text can be handled incorectly (glyphs, kashidas, ligatures, another reasons)
what is minimal text part - word?
what when i want to display (example) every letter in different color?

are any language cases where the same text is displayed differently because:
"this letter is in any position in word" (arabic?) etc.?
is it fully solved in ExtTextOut()?

(i'm interested about special cases (zucker -> zuk/ker, toupper of letter chages it to different two ones, ligatures can be in any positions only, some words can't be at end of line))

thanks for reply
nice day
t!

[Martin Speiser]

Hi,

I can help you with the Zucker thing only. Last year there was a reform of the writing in German speaking countries. We use Zu-cker now, not Zuk-ker anymore. Or is it Zuck-er?

Martin

[Jack Shainsky]

AFAIK, to use Windows API to handle hebrew/arabic text, you need to run an Hebrew/Arabic version of Windows. Living in Israel I found such a problems. For example, you can add, say, Russian or German support to hebrew enabled Windows and use these languages in Word, but if you try to add Hebrew support to US or Russian Windows, the Word doesn't works correct with it. As I know, it is common problem fot most usual windows programs, so the program written for using Hebrew using usual Windows functions, will work only with Windows with Hebrew support.
However, there are exist some programs that works with many languages in any Windows environment, but I think that they use their own functions for displaying multi-language information. Such programs are text editors Dagesh and Qtext.
I understand, that it not helps so much, but this is all information that I know.

Jack.

[real name]

from msdn article "International Support in Microsoft Windows 2000" seems nothing positive happend