Mixed Arabic text with numbers in primarily English documents - ???

[lameid]

I have what I am calling Arabic text but for all I know could be Persian as the only languages I know use the alphabet I am writing in.

The gist of the text would read "if you do not speak English, for translation assistance please call (xxx) xxx-xxxx."

Enter the weird for me... I have a Word document with this text that I am implementing in Access as a letter. In word it tends to word wrap in some views. When it does it tends to float the phone number to the top left (end of text) and then put what I thought was the beginning of the text on the next line like it is read bottom to top instead of top to bottom.

When I copy this line into an Access text box control to use as a control source, it does not seem like I am capturing the direction correctly.

Any understanding on getting from Word to Access would be helpful - even just understanding impacts to clipboard behavior working with right to left text. I did not have much luck finding anything. My expectation is that this stuff must be intuitive if you speak and work with multiple languages or the questions are more poignant than I am asking.

 

[SkipVought]

Please COPY n PASTE the text that you’re using.

Is it possible that the character set that you’re using is a right to left (eastern like Hebrew) set rather than a left to right (western like English) set?

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}

 

[lameid]

Yes it is right to left.

Arabic is written Right to left but numbers are written left to right. The oddity comes in more when the text is mixed with a number. From what I can tell the number goes in line in the correct position but digits ordered the same way we do. I THINK the text is Arabic but Persian / Farsi uses most of the same alphabet so it is Arabic to me. I have gleamed that much from searches and reading.

Google translate detects Arabic but spits out seemingly unrelated text and a malformed English sentence like the early Chinese translations (not that Chinese Translations are awesome now, just not bizarrely non-representative of meaning for those who remember)

The formatting in word and copy paste behavior give me pause as I am unsure of what I am getting... Does it reverse direction comparatively on the clipboard giving me a potential LIFO / FIFO order depending on source and destination settings? I have never worked with Right to Left text before.
Then there is the Access Text box Reading Direction property. I think it does little more than control data entry direction. Since this is for a report, it is basically moot how it is set if that is the case other than control source insertion issues. I know it has an impact here as the right cursor moves the cursor to the left... which is weird to me and why I think it has more to due with data entry than anything.

Then there is the issue of did the Word document author know what they were doing in the context of formatting the text to make it look right? Any weirdness there? What about the RTL reading issue and word wrap?

Those are the issues I am thinking about.

Now that I have written all that and been away and come back, we are just going to eliminate this problem text in the letter. There is an insert that has many more languages including Arabic with instructions to call for help in translation. I would expect everyone to find it there anyway.

I would still like to know more about the nuances of working with RTL text in Office in the US Region product as much of it seems undocumented... At least I did not find specific information searching. And then there is this specific context issue of RTL text, LTR numbers and mixing the two.

 

[SkipVought]

I'd try to put the data on 2 lines: your right to left on one line and then the phone number.

But then there’s this...

http://www.softschools.com/languages/arabic/numbers_1_10_in_arabic/

We use Arabic numbers, but the English version. So if you’re question is in Arabic, for instance, then the NUMBERS ought to be in the same language, not English numbers, IMNSHO.

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}

 

[xwb]

Normally numbers like telephone numbers are written in the Western way because telephones use those characters. It is the same in Chinese and Japanese: telephone numbers are often written in Western digits.

 

[SkipVought]

Numbers and math: a universal language.

And how utterly amazing that many properties of reality can be expressed mathematically!!!

And that π, for instance, can be used in non-geometric expressions!!!

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}