Dear Scott, On 2016-11-14, Scott Kostyshak wrote: > On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 11:13:10PM +0000, Guenter Milde wrote:
... >> Generally, it should suffice to scan the existing patterns in *Tests files >> to see where a new pattern fits best. > Agreed. I did that, but I'm not sure what the limitations are for > Arabic. I didn't know if it was normal that LyX does not produce valid > XeTeX code using 8-bit fonts that can be compiled. I see. So the question was more about the features of Arab support than about the structure of *Test files. > Thanks to your explanations, I think I understand that it is expected. Unfortunately, this is a misunderstanding: I checked the "Arabi" package http://www.ctan.org/pkg/arabi and its documentation >> http://mirrors.ctan.org/language/arabic/arabi/arabi/texmf/doc/latex/arabi/user_guide.pdf to see whether 8-bit fonts are supported at all. The result is: * Generally, "arabi" should work with 8-bit fonts. * The requirements are - e-TeX (i.e. pdflatex, xetex or luatex) OK - an 8-bit TeX font in font encoding (LFE for Parsi, LAE for Arabic) ?? - input encoding utf8, cp1256, or utf8x OK * Due to the "inputenc" limitation of "only ascii for XeTeX", this prevents XeTeX with non-TeX fonts. I don't know why the 8-bit export failed at your place, maybe it is just a font problem. The documentation says: The default font for the moment is Traditional Arabic, from the Arabic fonts that come with Windows! Unfortunately, Microsoft fonts will not be included with the Arabi distribution, you are supposed to have them on your system or download them freely from Microsoft Homepage. But of course, TeX fonts metrics and Font descriptions files are available with the distribution ready to be used! but also First, we have the option "free" that uses only Arabeyes free fonts, which logically should be the default to get the system running from the beginning! The documentation at http://scholar.harvard.edu/dromney/arabic-latex suggests XeTeX and non-TeX fonts as the better choice but also provides an 8-bit example http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dromney/files/arabienglish.tex and mentions (don't forget that you must have the ARFonts.sty file in the same directory as the .tex file for it to compile). but this may not be required if the file ARFonts.sty is in the TeXPath. Could you take one of the documents, untick the "non-TeX fonts" box, set the fonts to "Default", eventually add the option »free« to the global options, try again with pdflatex, and post the error message/log? >> ... so I recommend >> b) (invert under "texissues" or, together with an enhancement request at >> trac, under lyxbugs). > But arabi was last updated 10 years ago. I don't think it is worth the > time to support such an outdated package. No activity on a package for 10 years can also be a sign that the package is just stable and up to the task. Currrently LyX has support for both, "arabtex" and "arabi" in lib/languages. "arabi" is newer and supports mixed language in the document. See also https://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/Arabic (actually also for Linux). > That said, if you think it's better to make the trac request I will do > it. That would be nice. Thanks, Günter
