Multilingual support - Arabic language help file

[Guest]

Hi,

I have to produce a help file (of probably close to 1000 topics) that must get translated into Arabic. Development wants a chm file. We have to send the file out to a 3rd-party translation house. I am pretty much locked into RoboHelp 7 for Word as an upgrade is not on the table.

Is there some specific arabic character set I have to use to get the index and TOC to generate in arabic?

Is there some setting or override so that numbered lists show up with the number on the right nargin (since Arabic is read right-to-left)? Word flips the list markers properly, but in the test CHM file we generated today, it appears on the left.

Would multiple-language support work more easily in a different output format? If so, which one?

ANY assistance will be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

Wendy

[Peter Grainge]

First RoboHelp does not support right to left help in any format. Secondly I don't know if CHMs can be produced right to left with any tool, that's a separate question.

All I can do is suggest what is possible using what you have. You may be locked into RoboHelp 7 but that does not mean you are locked into RoboHelp for Word, you also have RoboHelp HTML available to you. On my site is a method of producing WebHelp in left to right format.

Talk to your developers about using that format instead. If they can install the help on a server, then you can definitely use it. If the help has to be installed locally, then WebHelp can be used, albeit with some limitations. We can cover that if this is an option.

Discuss that with your developers, meanwhile I'll see if I can find out about right to left CHMs.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Paula R. Stern]

Hi Wendy,

Sadly, RoboHelp is not the tool to use for right-to-left conversions or help projects. A decision was made and has not yet been changed that bi-directional languages are simply too costly to implement against the expected return. I live in Israel and would love to use RoboHelp for Hebrew - I actually had a funny discussion with the development and sales teams on this one time (I've tried many times) in which I said - look, forget Israel - we're really small, but what about all the Arab countries - trust me, there are a lot of them.

Bottom line - you can't accomplish this in RoboHelp without MAJOR luck and hacking. Other tools that DO allow you to produce help in Hebrew and/or Arabic are: Webworks, AuthorIT, Flare, and I believe Doc2Help...in other words - many competitors.

I would love to work with Adobe to help bring this functionality to RoboHelp - and have offered. I hope some day they will make a marketing decision to implement this functionality.

Sorry,

Paula

Paula R. Stern

CEO, WritePoint Ltd.

www.writepoint.com

Adobe Community Professional / eHelp RoboHelp MVP / Macromedia Team Member / RoboGURU

[Paula R. Stern]

And one more thing - I'd like to thank Peter for pointing this question out so that I could come and respond. I just wish I had better things to post about it. There was a time that you could finagle RoboHelp for Word to accomplish this conversion even though it wasn't supported, but in later versions of Robohelp for Word (as in the last 5 versions or so), as RoboHelp was improved, it became almost impossible to accomplish it.

Paula