text direction from left to right

[awakil]

I used Caliber to convert dozens of Arabic files, but I am facing a problem with converting the text direction from left to right and aligning the text to the justify middle of the page.
I've read dozens of instructions but there's no way they can be applied to a group of files at once

[awakil]

Originally Posted by awakil

I used Caliber to convert dozens of Arabic files, but I am facing a problem with converting the text direction from left to right and aligning the text to the justify middle of the page.
I've read dozens of instructions but there's no way they can be applied to a group of files at once

I mean Epub Files

[Quoth]

I'm confused. Arabic is Right to Left.

Are these mixed epubs with also Roman-Latin, Greek or Cyrillic text?

text to the justify middle of the page

Do you mean centred text?

What are you converting from and what is the conversion to? I know you mention epub, but that can be the source, or destination or both.

[awakil]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I'm confused. Arabic is Right to Left.

Are these mixed epubs with also Roman-Latin, Greek or Cyrillic text?


Do you mean centred text?

What are you converting from and what is the conversion to? I know you mention epub, but that can be the source, or destination or both.

I translate stories from English to Arabic, but the text direction in the epub files remains from left to right, and this is an error

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by awakil

I translate stories from English to Arabic, but the text direction in the epub files remains from left to right, and this is an error

You can't just swap the text. The file (if all Arabic) or the paragraph or span (if partial text) needs both the "dir" and "Lang"

Marking a paragraph as RTL
https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_dir.asp

Marking the language as Arabic (or whatever that uses Arabic script).
https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_lang.asp

I often have Lang in a span as only part of a English text paragraph may have Irish, German or French dialogue.

I expect dir needs to be at least <p> level as few ereaders and ereader apps can render LTR and RTL on the same line (usually a table is only safe way to achieve that by two columns, unless you are using epub3.

The lang attribute is a Global Attribute, and can be used on any HTML element. So can be set at body tag to make entire file be Arabic, and then <div lang= en><p dir=ltr>“<span lang="fr">Ceci est un plume</span>,” she said.</p></div> will work in any lanaguage ebook.

Arabic font is separate from an Arabic language.

Languages can be written in more than one script. For example, Azeri can be written in any of the Latin, Cyrillic, or Arabic scripts. When written in Latin or Cyrillic scripts, Azeri is written left-to-right (LTR). When written in the Arabic script, it is written right-to-left.

https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-scripts

So simply translating English to Arabic (or any language not using LTR and not using Latin-Roman fonts) is only part of it. By default ebooks and webpages are LTR and English if nothing is set.

Ancient Greek before 750 BC was RTL.
I'm nearly sure Turkish used to use Arabic script and RTL, but now is Latin-Roman script and LTR.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I'm nearly sure Turkish used to use Arabic script and RTL, but now is Latin-Roman script and LTR.

But not that long ago - first the alphabet from Arabic to a Latin-Roman - 1928. Then the language, e.g. purging the Arabic and Iranian loan words - that took several decades.

Interestingly, similar reforms to other Turkic languages occurred over the same time frame.

BR