Style problems

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Scott_R
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Style problems

Post by Scott_R »

New Mellel user, and I don't know if I'm missing something obvious.

I have an imported document that's mixed English and Hebrew. For some reason, the Hebrew text is shown as Times New Roman in the font palette, and the vowels are shown sequential to the letters rather than under them. Applying a Hebrew font (Raanana) fixes the letter/vowel issue.

I created a style I labeled Hebrew, that mainly consists of right>left text direction and right justification, along with a few minor things, with Hebrew as the associated character style (i.e., I created one with Raanana font).

However, if I select the Hebrew paragraph style, the Hebrew character style is applies, but the text direction remains left>right with left justification. Editing the style shows that those characteristics are as I wanted (reversed), but it simply doesn't apply: the tool bar still shows left>right, etc., and the text is clearly that way.

Why aren't the paragraph characteristics being applied with the style?
Mart°n
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Re: Style problems

Post by Mart°n »

I’m not used to Hebrew writing, but maybe you’ve only applied one style. Mellel has a lot of different styles that serves different needs. In a normal text, you could apply a page style (which holds the settings in the “Page” palette, a Section Style (which applies things like columns) and a Paragraph style (which is responsible for writing direction, line spacing, left/right indent) and at last a character style (which controls the Font, Font-Face, color…).

So my guess is that you’ve only applied a Character style but not a (associated) Paragraph style. If you look at the “Paragraph Style” palette, you could select, edit or create a new Paragraph style which should then apply the writing direction to your document.

Hope this helps.
Scott_R
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Re: Style problems

Post by Scott_R »

So my guess is that you’ve only applied a Character style but not a (associated) Paragraph style. If you look at the “Paragraph Style” palette, you could select, edit or create a new Paragraph style which should then apply the writing direction to your document.
As I note in the question, it is a paragraph style that I'm attempting to apply. Though the paragraph style contains right>left direction (as editing it confirms), text direction is not actually changed when the paragraph style is applied.
Mart°n
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Re: Style problems

Post by Mart°n »

Sorry, I’ve missed your mention of “Paragraph Style” somehow. I also should have taken a look at the Mellel manual as writing in Hebrew is explained here. You’ll also find the hint, that Mellel’s Paragraph settings are bi-directional which means, that the writing direction isn’t saved inside the Paragraph Style so you have to apply it manually via the << Button in the Toolbar or the Alignment and Spacing palette.
Maybe there’s some hint of how to switch the direction via a keyboard shortcut but I guess Janet or one of the other Hebrew writers on this forum are able to give you some more info.
bluesdance
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Re: Style problems

Post by bluesdance »

i work with a lot of hebrew, so I have the answer...
option+command+left makes the paragraph go to right-to-left. you can also click on the chevron sign on the toolbar.
there's no way (as far as I can tell) to programmatically define paragraph direction. You have to just do it by "hand."
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Scott_R
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Re: Style problems

Post by Scott_R »

bluesdance wrote:i work with a lot of hebrew, so I have the answer...
option+command+left makes the paragraph go to right-to-left. you can also click on the chevron sign on the toolbar.
there's no way (as far as I can tell) to programmatically define paragraph direction. You have to just do it by "hand."
Why is the right/left chevron in the Paragraph Styles edit dialog? It shows the text being moved to the right.
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