Tanzila Mohammad wrote:
> If you open this XML code in internet explorer it gives you a correctly
> displayed Arabic word.
> <value xml:lang="AR">&#1580;&#1583;&#1608;&#1604;</value>
> 
> If I insert the exact Arabic code in my XML and translate the XML into PDF
> using FOP, the pdf displays the Arabic characters back to front.
> 
> If I then actually reverse the characters:
> i.e. <value xml:lang="AR">&#1604;&#1608;&#1583;&#1580;</value>
> 
> And re-run the process, although now in the right order the joins between
> the characters are lost.

Unicode includes the default writing mode for each character. Thus,
Arabic is automatically presented right-to-left. If you want it
presented left-to-right, you need to use the bidi-overide attriute of
fo:inline. This also allows you to embed left-to-rigth text into
right-to-left data (e.g., English words embedded in an Arabic stream).

Cheers,

Eliot
ISOGEN International, LLC

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