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Subject:OS and MS Word conflict? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, chad -at- architext-usa -dot- com Date:Thu, 05 Jan 2006 10:09:30 -0500
Chad LaCroix wonders: <<I have been lead to believe that when working
with MS Word in the Dari and Urdu languages that a document will not
necessarily display correctly if you are working on an English OS... We
are trying to detail check translated MS Word documents (1 Dari and 1
Urdu document) for formatting issues against the original English.
When we get the translated document back from our translators the
formatting looks awful on our machines.>>
I don't know a single thing about either language, but do know that
this is also a problem for Japanese and Chinese--one that I encounter
every month or two in my own work. Here's the problem and solution for
those languages, which may lead you to a solution for your languags:
Some Asian languages can be defined by the authors of a document to use
a grid-based layout rather than a free-flowing layout. What this means
(very superficially and simplistically) is that Word aligns the
characters in rows and columns rather than using the continuously
flexible spacing you'll see in English. When you try to display this
information in an English-only version of Word, the software has no
idea how to handle the grid information, and flails about, pretending
it knows what to do. The display becomes appalling... what you see
(where you click) is definitely not what you get.
Fortunately, the solution is relatively simple: install support for
these languages. How to do this in Word varies from version to version,
but consulting the online help under "Asian language support" will
provide full details, plus an explanation of the grid-based formatting
options that become available once that support is installed. The last
time I tried this, it was simply a question of running a hidden
installer (in the Proofreading Tools directory on the installer disk)
and selecting the desired languages.
Something like that will probably work for you too.
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