Khmer language showing "+" sign

[Irene Martin]

I'm trying to layout a manual in Khmer, and I keep having "+" show up under some letters. Here are my current settings:

• Windows 10
• InDesign 2022 (17.3)
• Language set to Khmer (Cambodia)
• Adobe World Ready Paragraph Composer set
• HarfBuzz Override set

I've tried a number of different fonts. Some of them also don't show glyphs correctly. But all of them have the + sign. Is there any workaround for this?

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @Irene Martin ,

Sorry to hear about the trouble. Please try the suggestions shared here https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/weird-appears-under-khmer-how-to-fix-this/m-p/12... and let us know if this helps or if you need any further assistance.

Regards

Rishabh

[Irene Martin]

Sorry yes, I should've mentioned that I did look at this post. That is where I got the info for harfbuzz. But I wasn't able to find a fix from that thread.

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Sorry for the delay. Will it be possible for you to share the file with us? If yes, please try the steps shared here to share the file https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/share-your-files-in-6-simple-steps/td-p/12967520

[Irene Martin · Accepted solution]

So I opened the file to get it ready to upload here and lo and behold, it's working now! It seems the trick is having world-ready composer on, because the textboxes it's not turned on for are still wrong. I'm not sure why I need to set it per textbox because I also have it set in my document preferences already. And I don't know why it works now and didn't earlier, because I did have it turned on earlier.

[Joel Cherney]

There are a few different places where you can turn the World-Ready Composer. I am not sure what you mean by "I also have it set in my document preferences already." Document-level preferences exist, but the WRC isn't one of 'em, I think. It's a paragraph-level setting, not a document-level preference.

So:

1) When I'm working on someone's translation of a document from English to Khmer, I always go to Type -> Apply World-Ready Composers. This turns on the WRC in all of the pre-existing paragraphs in all the text frames throughout the document.

2) If I want to make new documents in complex script languages, then I open the e.g. Justification window when no documents are open, and turn the WRC on there. Then, all new documents will use the WRC as default. 

3) BUT, if you have any documents that were started before you changed to the WRC when no document are open, then they retain the previous settings. So even if you've gone to Type-Apply World-Ready Composers, then every time you make a new text frame, or make a new paragraph with "[No paragraph style]" applied, then you're not getting the WRC.

In conclusion, if you always work with paragraph styles, then you will always be able to control whether or not the Composer you need will be applied.  

[Irene Martin]

Yes, I had WRC set in my preferences. But the missing link was the fact that it was already an existing document. So when I replaced text, WRC was not applied. It was when I set it per text box that it worked. I will be adding it into the paragraph styles now. 

[Irene Martin]

Now, I'm having another problem. When I turn on WRC, the text reads from right to left. When I turn off WRC, the plus signs come back. How can I change the direction the text reads? I have the language set to Khmer.

[Joel Cherney]

Well, if you have RTL and LTR buttons on your Paragraph panel, you can reset it there:

or in the paragraph style:

Maybe you're using the Middle East edition of InDesign? These are default settings if your language in the Creative Cloud app is set to one of the languages that support right-to-left behavior, like "English (اللغة العربية)".  

If you don't have those settings, it's kind of a mystery to me how RTL text direction got turned on! A normal English-language install wouldn't have these settings exposed in the UI. It's not hard to turn it off with a single-line script:

ParagraphDirectionOptions.rightToLeftDirection

But I hope that you are using the ME version of InDesign, because otherwise I'd be a bit concerned on your behalf about the possibility of something being amiss with your document, or maybe your preferences, as sudden inexplicable RTL direction assignment to Khmer is something I've never seen in InDesign in many years of working with complex script languages. 

[Irene Martin]

As far as I know I don't have Middle Eastern InDesign installed. I've never worked with those languages yet. My preferences in CC are set to English. So I have been copying and pasting, but if I place the document into InDesign, it's fine, even if WRC gets turned on. I was hoping to avoid placing the document, because I have a lot of master pages, so it will take a lot more work. But maybe that will be my only option.

[Joel Cherney]

One thing I post here frequently, for people in your position, is the phrase "Never trust the Clipboard." It tends to induce problems when handling complex-script text. This is not true in all cases, and it's more often true in Windows than in macOS. But if either the source from which I'm copying, or the target I'm pasting to, happent to be InDesign or MS Word or or Excel, or even a web browser, I will put a lot of effort into cooking up some alternate workflow that doesn't rely on the Clipboard.