On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:43:43 +0200
Shahar Or <sha...@shahar-or.co.il> wrote:
> Dear Lyx Users,
>
> I'm not a TeX user.
>
> I've installed Ubuntu's 1.5.6 and some Hebrew related LaTeX packages and
> got to writing a document right away.
>
Lyx 1.6.1 at least if not 1.6.2 is already out, probably worth upgrading
> There's one thing I'm curious about; why is this software, when I
> configure it for writing documents in Hebrew, uses Latin9 and cp1255?
> cp1255 is an MS Windows encoding which I've never seen used by default
> in any Free Software.
>
> Also, I'd like to know, please, why isn't LyX using UTF-8 as a default
> encoding? When I write my document in Hebrew and I want to throw in a
> word in English, do I really have to go
> "\inputencoding{Latin9}\L{something}\inputencoding{cp1255}" in the
> middle of my otherwise quite sane flow of writing?
>
This is a latex limitation as latex doesn't support utf8. You can use xetex
which knows utf8 but it's not easy yet with lyx (actually can be done
relatively easily but not in a clear way). On the other hand, even with xetex
and utf8, latex needs to know the directionality of the text. If you use xetex
and don't change the language officially, each word by itself is going to be in
the right direction and language, but the words in the sentence are going to be
reversed.
Actually, input encoding is a lyx issue but it's due to the encoding of the
actual text that lyx uses. AFAIK cp1255 is mostly compatible with iso-8859-8,
not sure about the logical vs visual directionality though
As for "\inputencoding{Latin9}\L{something}\inputencoding{cp1255}", you don't
input it yourself, you let lyx do it. If you setup lyx properly, changing the
language is just an issue of pressing f12 (or whatever you assigned to it)
> I am also not a software developer.
>
> Many blessings!
>
> (not subscribed to list)
