1README.305 15.03.1997
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3 ArabTeX Version 3.05
4 ====================
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6 Additional features not described in the User Manual
7
8| For changes after version 3.02 see change bars in the margin
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10
11 1. Bidirectional linebreaking
12 -----------------------------
13 Within a Roman paragraph, Arabic insertions may be included
14 by the construct \<Arabic text> ( <Arabic text> initially does
15 the same but may be redefined by the user for other purposes).
16 This construct, though efficient, has the inherent limitation
17 that the contents must fit on the current line, or else the
18 user has to break the text by \| or \break at some reasonable
19 place. Likewise, within an Arabic paragraph Roman insertions
20 may be included by <Roman text>, with the same limitations.
21
22 In many cases, as e.g. in the User Manual, insertions are very
23 short by nature, so the limitations pose no problem. For other
24 applications where the included quotations are much longer than
25 part of a line, some additional commands are provided. These are
26| much less efficient and also have a high demand on storage, so
27| they should only be used when necessary.
28
29 - \RL {Arabic text} allows an insertion of arbitrary length; the
30 lines will be broken automatically. Due to some limitations that
31 are inherent in TeX's algorithm, the line containing the start of
32 the insertion may come out underfull, and also its baseline may be
33 broken. Whenever this happens (only in main vertical mode, never
34 within footnotes, parboxes, or minipages), use of the command
35 \goodpar {paragraphs} may help (see below.)
36
37 - \LR {Roman text} does the same for long Roman insertions in an
38 Arabic paragraph. Here there is no problem with the baseline.
39
40 - \goodpar {Roman paragraphs} will fix the problems with \RL for
41 insertions within the included paragraphs, but might lead to main
42 memory overflow; so use it with care, or use Big TeX.
43
44 - \mbox {\RL {Arabic text}} is equivalent to \<Arabic text>: no
45 line-breaking, as usual.
46
47 - \RL in Arabic mode, and \LR in Roman mode, do no harm but are
48 redundant.
49
50 - the user may, at her/his own risk, include \LR portions within
51 \RL portions, and vice versa. This may lead to some interesting
52 effects (for details, see: Donald E. Knuth and Pierre MacKay,
53 Mixing right-to-left texts with left-to-right texts, TUGboat,
54 Volume 8(1987), No. 1, p. 14 - 25)
55
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57
58 2. Processing Hebrew with ArabTeX
59 ---------------------------------
60 An experimental extension that (partially) supports Hebrew may
61 be installed by the LaTeX option "hebtex", or \input hebtex.sty.
62| It provides an additional language mode \sethebrew, and several
63| common encodings of texts in Hebrew, that may be switched by
64| the \setcode command. One of the encodings is compatible with
65| Dov Grobgeld's editor HED, so files prepared for HebrewTeX are
66|| supposed to be compatible, including most HebrewTeX commands
67|| (the Hebrew date quite probably does NOT work correctly).
68|| Hebrew "newcode" encoding (ISO 8859-8) probably works too, but
69 has not yet been tested extensively. In addition, the standard
70 ArabTeX transliteration encoding is also available.
71
72|| For more information, see the text file "hebrew.305". Please
73|| observe that the encoding of vowels written "plene" has been
74|| changed (due to user suggestions!)
75
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77
78 3. Support for Arabic Windows
79 -----------------------------
80 Isam G. Ishaq programmed, and donated, a new reading module for
81| the Arabic encoding CP 1256 supported by Arabic Windows. It is
82 installed as a LaTeX option "arabwin" and may be activated by
83| \setcode {arabwin} or \setcode {cp1256}.
84 Some documentation is contained in the file "arwindoc.tex"; try
85 to process it with ArabTeX, or just read the ASCII text.
86
87 As we had little opportunity to test it, this module is supplied
88 as is, without any warranty (as usual), nor support.
89
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91
92 4. Support for EDMAC
93 --------------------
94 In the transition from EDMAC 3.00 to EDMAC 3.15, some internal
95|| interfaces have changed. ArabTeX 3.05 will adjust itself to the
96 version used automatically.
97
98 The EDMAC commands \pstart, \pend, and \autopar can now also be
99 used within an Arabic paragraph.
100
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102
103| 5. Module Reporting
104| -------------------
105| A complete list of the modules loaded in a particular run will
106| be put into the log file (before the run statistics), if LaTeX
107| is used. This is believed to be useful when tracing down errors.
108| This list is also available to the user, even with Plain TeX,
109| as the contents of the new control sequence \arabtexconfig.
110| This feature may disappear again.
111
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113
114| 6. Running ArabTeX with LaTeX2e
115| -------------------------------
116| Up to now we experienced no problems; the only changes we found
117| necessary are loading ArabTeX and its suboptions not as class
118| options but by using the command \usepackage.
119
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121|| 7. Arabic document classes
122|| --------------------------
123|| The experimental LaTeX2e classes "arabart", "arabbook", "arabrep"
124|| extend the standard classes "article", "book", and "report" in
125|| two respects:
126||
127|| - The overall document layout has been "arabized": page numbers
128|| are in Indic numerals, and columns run from right to left.
129||
130|| - Within Arabic environments bracketed by \begin{arabtext} and
131|| \end{arabtext} most LaTeX commands are allowed, including all
132|| sectioning commands, \tabular, \tabbing, even \tableofcontents,
133|| and use an "Arabic looking" format. All arguments that denote
134|| text to be typeset are interpreted according to the currently
135|| activated Arabic encoding. Other arguments keep their standard
136|| meaning, including the preamble of \tabular, whose columns are
137|| processed from left to right (visual formatting).
138||
139|| - Outside of Arabic environments the LaTeX commands revert to the
140|| standard meaning.
141||
142|| The new classes are still in "alpha" status; reports are welcome.
143
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145 Prof. Klaus Lagally
146 Institut fuer Informatik
147 Universitaet Stuttgart
148 Breitwiesenstrasse 20-22
149 D-70565 Stuttgart
150 GERMANY
151
152 lagally@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
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154| Copyright (c) 1990 - 1997, Klaus Lagally
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156