hebrew on word 2004

[boazmagal]

i have microsoft office 2004 for mac on a macbook pro.
When i want to use Word to create a documnet in the Hebrew language,
the words are typed correctly from right to left but when i press
space to type the next word the former is pushed to the left and the
sentenced can be read from left to right but not from right to left.
the words stay in the right direction it is only the sentence that is
the "wrong" way.

when i use Mail to type a letter in Hebrew there is no problem at all.

I need to resolve this.

thanks

boaz

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm afraid this is an issue that won't be resolved any time soon. Mac Office
was developed long before RTL was effectively supported by OS X. Therefore,
RTL wasn't written in and it is highly unlikely that it would be added now -
that's a very complex functionality which would require a complete revision
of the apps. It looks like you'll have to wait for the release of 2008
and/or use other software in the meantime.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[boazmagal]

thanks for your answer. Now, i have the feeling that i did use Word in
the past to write RTL. I went overseas and have not use my mac for 4
weeks. now i am back and i cant' do it. Am i dreaming that i once i
did it? was it always impossible? Isn't people in Israel and Arabic
countries using Macs with Office for Mac on them? Is there any
alternative. I need to create document in RTL language.

Ta,

Boaz

 

[Michel Bintener]

You may have used Word on Windows for this. WinWord handles RTL, MacWord
doesn't. Hopefully, this feature will be supported in Word 2008. As far as
alternatives are concerned: you could try NeoOffice, which is free and, as
far as I know, handles RTL. <http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php>
There is also other software available, such as Nisus Writer Express
<http://www.nisus.com/Express/> and Mellel <http://www.redlers.com/>.

For the most basic needs, I think Apple's TextEdit supports RTL as well, at
least in Mac OS X 10.4. As a result, Pages, Apple's word processing and
lightweight DTP application, should support it as well.

thanks for your answer. Now, i have the feeling that i did use Word in
the past to write RTL. I went overseas and have not use my mac for 4
weeks. now i am back and i cant' do it. Am i dreaming that i once i
did it? was it always impossible? Isn't people in Israel and Arabic
countries using Macs with Office for Mac on them? Is there any
alternative. I need to create document in RTL language.

Ta,

Boaz

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[CyberTaz]

See the details from Michel for some excellent alternatives & I believe you
can add Mellel to that list... and perhaps I should have been more explicit:
I was referring to the English version of Mac Word. There are also versions
of Mac Word in other languages including Japanese & Arabic. How acceptably
they handle RTL I'm not certain, but my impression is that even they don't
compare favorably to PC Word in some respects.

If using an Intel Mac you might also consider running PC Word in Parallels
or some-such.