At 12:00am -0700 00-07-15, Palm Developer Forum digest wrote: >Subject: Qur'an Arabic eBook port to PalmOS & related MISC. >From: "Akil Fahd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 08:42:47 EDT >X-Message-Number: 12 > >I'am trying to create a bilingual and bi-directional (Arabic and English >Qur'an)e-Book, that will be compliant with the Open eBook OEB specification. > This is targeted at the PalmOS, but should be renderable in XML and/or >XHTML compliant browsers such IE 5.0 and Netscape 6.0 or any type of Open >eBook reader. > >I already have the HTML files entire of the Qur'an in Arabic and English - >though I will have them proof read many times before I distribute the >completed eBook. > >The Arabic pages are coded using the win-1256 (Arabic) codepage in the >following manner: > ><HTML DIR=RTL> > ><head> > ><META content="text/html; charset=windows-1256" http-equiv=Content-Type> ><body> > ><p align="right"> > ><font face = "Traditional Arabic"> > ><font size = "5pt"> > >These pages show up fine (correct font and directionality) when using the IE >5.0 browser, however when I convert them to the PalmOS, the right to left >directionality is lost. > >In order to convert the HTML pages to the OEB eBook format I'm using the >MobiPocket Publisher (home page >http://www.mobipocket.com/en/HomePage/default.asp)that creates a prc file >from the HTML files. > >In order to test the conversion to the PalmOS, I'm using the PalmOS Emulator >(running a 3.5 Palm OS IIIc rom) with the APOS 2.0 (home page >http://www.arabicpalm.com/) and Mobipocket Reader software installed. > >The above setup is being tested on Windows 98 (Arabic Enabled Edition) and >Windows 2000 PCs. > >The prc files created using this method, display the Arabic font on the the >emulator's Palm IIIc screen (when using the MobiPocket reader), however the >correct direction is not enforced. > >Please note that Arabic and English text are coded with separate html files. > >My questions are as follows.... > >How can I force the correct directionality in the created prc file? Note that the Palm OS doesn't currently support right-to-left writing systems. Thus APOS installs patches to field object routines to enable proper editing and display of Arabic text. My guess is that the MobiPocket Publisher does its own text layout, thus circumventing the field object patches. You'd need to contact the author(s) of MobiPocket Publisher to figure out if there's a solution. >How can I convert from cp 1256 to unicode, without doing it character by >character? Is there software that will do this? This is more a question for the Unicode mailing list, versus this list, but I believe that there are utilities built on top of the ICU open-source classes that can do this type of conversion. >Dose the eBook Spec. allow for the nesting of a right to left languages >(Arabic) inside of a left to right language (English) on the same page? I don't think this is an eBook specification issue. I believe that this requires the MobiPocket Publisher software to correctly implement the Unicode BiDi (bi-directional) algorithm when it renders text. >Does anyone know if APOS is unicode compliant? I'd have to guess no - they probably support 1256 as their base character encoding. It would be up to MobiPocket Publisher to handle conversion from Unicode (what XML uses) into the device's character set. -- Ken Ken Krugler TransPac Software, Inc. <http://www.transpac.com> +1 530-470-9200 -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/support/forums/
