Issues with Arabic CHM and PDF

[Dorte]

For our major releases we update our documentation in all languages, including Arabic. However, the agency that handles our Arabic files always has technical problems generating a CHM and a PDF.
They always have to do a lot of manual work that delays delivery and makes the update costly for us. The issues they report are:
• All tables must be flipped
• Drop down lists (expanding text) do not open correctly
For our most recent release they reported that they had to use workarounds outside of H&M to be able to deliver:
1- Convert xml to html
2- Use html work shop to fix the files
3- Fix the drop down lists and images with Macromedia Dream Weaver
We do have the Arabic chm no but unfortunately it did not make it into the product build. If there is ANYTHING you can do to make H&M work better with right-to-left languages that would be sooo great!
On the positive side: our Chinese and Japanese translators have not reported issues for this release so I assume this means that you fixed the issues with double-byte languages

[John Waller]

Are you using the current version: H&M 5.3.1 Build 1035?

[Dorte]

Yes, we always update to the most recent version and build

[Tim Green]

Hi Dorte,

Help & Manual does not support right-to-left languages like Arabic at all for PDF, so it's actually pretty amazing that your staff are able to produce a PDF from your project...

Arabic is supported only for CHM and Webhelp. In these formats it should work OK without the need to jump through the hoops you describe if you observe the following:

• Don't use Premium Pack skins -- they are currently not compatible with right-to-left languages.
• If your project is based on an old template use "Reset defaults" in all your HTML templates to make sure that you get updated to the new standard version (HTML Page Template, Layout, Table of Contents, Keyword Index, Full Text Search).
• In your language settings make sure that the bidirectional language mode is set to right-to-left and the language and font charset are set to the correct settings for Arabic.

[Dorte]

Hi Tim,
It's been a while since we last discussed Arabic and CHM/PDF so I was wondering whether there were any updates so that H&M now supports PDFs as well?
Best regards,
Dorte

[Tim Green]

Hi Dorte,

Sorry, but the PDF engine still doesn't support right-to-left text. This is unlikely to change in the near future, unfortunately.

[Dorte]

OK - thanks for replying so quickly (as always )

[Quang Nguyen]

Hi Tim,

I know this is an old topic, but I ran across this issue as I'm trying to create a PDF of the Arabic language. Was wondering if there is a solution yet for publishing in PDF of the arabic language yet. Thanks.

-Quang

[Tim Green]

Hi Quang (or is Nguyen the first name?),

Help & Manual only supports right-to-left languages like Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew in CHM and WebHelp. PDF output in RTL languages is not supported by the PDF engine used in Help & Manual and this can't be changed in the short term. Sorry about that...

[Galgan]

Hello Tim,

are there any plans to support RTL languages by "wPDF3 by WPCubed GmbH"?

[Tim Green]

Hi Galgan,

are there any plans to support RTL languages by "wPDF3 by WPCubed GmbH"?

As far as we know there are currently no short-term plans for this. You might want to contact them directly for more information on this.