RTL (Arabic/Hebrew) support?

[Doitsu]

The last time I looked into Pocketbook RTL support some PocketBook models supported Arabic text, but without diacritics.
I'm curious whether this situation has changed with the new non-PB models, e.g. Lux 2 and Lux 3.
I'd appreciate it if someone with a relatively new Pocketbook e-reader could test this file and take a screenshot of the last page.

It should look like this:

[rkomar]

I've attached a screenshot from my Inkpad (firmware 5.4.98). The Hebrew looks wrong, but the Arabic may be okay.

My Touch Lux 623 got both horribly wrong, as if it didn't have the correct fonts for either, but it's a few years old now. What did you mean by non-PB models?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I've attached a screenshot from my Inkpad (firmware 5.4.98). The Hebrew looks wrong, but the Arabic may be okay.

Thanks for testing the file. The Arabic text indeed looks perfect, but the Hebrew text doesn't, which is rather strange, because e-readers that support one RTL language well usually also support all other RTL languages.

Maybe this is a font issue, because when I checked the embedded font with Microsoft Font Validator, I got lots of error messages. To exclude font issues I've replaced the embedded Hebrew font with a Google font, Noto Sans Hebrew, and created a new test file. Could you please test it?

Originally Posted by rkomar

My Touch Lux 623 got both horribly wrong, as if it didn't have the correct fonts for either, but it's a few years old now.

IIRC, the reading apps of some of the older models don't support embedded fonts.

Originally Posted by rkomar

What did you mean by non-PB models?

I meant models whose model name don't start with "PB," e.g. the PB6xx series.

[rkomar]

Okay, here's the new screenshot. The Hebrew still looks wrong. It seems that the diacritic marks are showing up in the wrong places.

Edit: It's more than the diacritic marks that are kerned improperly. Each time I change the font size, the characters are spaced differently relative to each other.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Okay, here's the new screenshot. The Hebrew still looks wrong. It seems that the diacritic marks are showing up in the wrong places.

Thanks again for your help. I created an updated version without diacritics. If it doesn't display correctly either Hebrew isn't supported.

Originally Posted by rkomar

Each time I change the font size, the characters are spaced differently relative to each other.

Does the Inkpad have a Disable Publisher Fonts option (or another option for suppressing embedded fonts)? If so try disabling embedded fonts for this ebook.

[rkomar]

Here are the results with the latest version of the document. Again, there are problems with the Hebrew kerning. I tried some of the built-in fonts, and those also showed similar problems. The Arabic seemed to look fine with the built-in fonts, as well as the embedded one. Strange.

Time for bed. I'll try any other tests tomorrow (West Coast of North America time).

[Doitsu]

Thanks again for your help. You've confirmed that the Inkpad supports Arabic including text with diacritics and Hebrew without diacritics. (It doesn't seem to right-align the paragraphs, though, but IMHO this is a minor issue.)
The next time someone asks for an eInk reader with RTL support there's one more device that I could suggest.

[ingmar]

Here's a screenshot from the Touch Lux 2 (Firmware R626.5.7.515). The Arabic looks good to my (untrained) eye, using CoolReader and Google's "Literata" font. I override all custom fonts by default, by the way.

Installing a Hebrew font might even work, but there's apparently none at the moment.

[Doitsu]

Thanks for testing my file. Unfortunately, the Arabic text is rendered LTR and the Arabic letters are isolated (for example, ا ن ل ق vs. قلنا).

[rkomar]

To make it clear, I was using the default AdobeViewer app (based on RMSDK) for displaying the page.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by rkomar

To make it clear, I was using the default AdobeViewer app (based on RMSDK) for displaying the page.

In that case, can you please test the first page with the green buttons. If you have the latest RMSDK version with JavaScript support, it should display the version number.

[rkomar]

I had to look at the document with Calibre ebook-viewer to find out what you meant. The green buttons don't even show up in AdobeViewer on the device. I've attached a screen shot below.

I'm not sure which version of RMSDK is used to build the app on the device. The license page says the copyright is 1995-2009, but that sounds too old even for PocketBook. I suspect that they just haven't updated the description since they first wrote it.

Perhaps someone with a more recently produced device can test and see if anything is different?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I had to look at the document with Calibre ebook-viewer to find out what you meant. The green buttons don't even show up in AdobeViewer on the device. I've attached a screen shot below.

This means that the Inkpad AdobeViewer version is based on RMSDK 10. Hopefully, PocketBook will add an updated AdobeViewer version in a firmware update.

[ingmar]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Thanks for testing my file. Unfortunately, the Arabic text is rendered LTR and the Arabic letters are isolated (for example, ا ن ل ق vs. قلنا).

It's actually obvious, now that you mention it ...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I've attached a screenshot from my Inkpad (firmware 5.4.98). The Hebrew looks wrong, but the Arabic may be okay.

My Touch Lux 623 got both horribly wrong, as if it didn't have the correct fonts for either, but it's a few years old now. What did you mean by non-PB models?

You say the Arabic looks right, but it has one significant issue - the lines are wrapping at the left margin, not the right, as they of course should do.