We discussed this already in a past topic, and I am pleased to see that the option to set languages through character styles has been picked up.
There are however at least two problem.
First, structurally, there are now too many places where the language can be set. One in the palette (ad hoc), one in the character attribute, and one in the model/document setup. Three is too much, I think that since the character attribute can be part of the style-set, the model/document option is no longer needed. Moreover, none of this method allows for syncing the spell-check with the hyphenation function, which would be much more logical since if I am writing something in English/German/French/Italian/Spanish or whatever, it is HIGHLY probable that I want it hyphenated according to the convention of the corresponding language.
Second, this is probably just a bug but it is more urgent to solve if the new function has to have any utility, the character attribute setting does not work immediately, but only after the style is manually applied to a chunk of text (even though it was supposed to be in the same style to begin with). To clarify, I have set all my character styles with the language preferences I want, but when I start a new document with a style set, or when I switch style sets in an already existing document (and choose to apply attributes), the language setting does nothing at all; it is only when manually selecting a piece of text and manually applying the character style (or the paragraph style with the corresponding character style) that the language set does actually change. I don't think this works as intended, but if it does, then I don't think it was a good decision.
Language settings still not working as intended
Moderators: Eyal Redler, redlers, Ori Redler
Re: Language settings still not working as intended
And just to make things absolutely clear:
All my character styles have main and secondary fonts.
I assume that the "language" entry in the Character style applies only to the main font
and
that the language of the secondary font is still defined by the "script" entry.
Correct?
Janet
All my character styles have main and secondary fonts.
I assume that the "language" entry in the Character style applies only to the main font
and
that the language of the secondary font is still defined by the "script" entry.
Correct?
Janet
Re: Language settings still not working as intended
Janet,jannuss wrote:And just to make things absolutely clear:
All my character styles have main and secondary fonts.
I assume that the "language" entry in the Character style applies only to the main font
and
that the language of the secondary font is still defined by the "script" entry.
Correct?
Janet
The character style language option, at least as far as we've conceived this is meant to allow you to easily switch between spelling dictionaries while writing. E.g., if you wish to write in German, English and French using a single keyboard layout - You'll need to simply switch variations. The secondary font with languages does not make sense. For example, if you combine Hebrew and English, you cannot really write in English via the Hebrew keyboard layout, and vice versa, so keyboard synchronisation will give you the right spell-checker anyhow. The Language option in the style is mainly handy for situations where you add something in Latin, German, French, etc. using an English keyboard layout.
Re: Language settings still not working as intended
As a practical example of things that conceptually could work very easily but for some (technical?) reason still don't...
I have a document previously written in British-English, I would now like to change the spell-check to American-English now (actually this shift might well be the most common in academic writing). I can do that only by manually selecting all the text (which does not include the footnotes, which have to be selected separatedly) and re-setting the language. Trying to apply character styles correctly set for American-English does not work, since it does not affect text that already has a defined language.
I re-iterate my suggestion: spell-check language and hyphenation language should be a single setting, either as an attribute of paragraph or (better) character, and it should be applied automatically (though with the possibility of being manually overriding, like all the other attributes) when the paragraph or character set is applied to a document. I don't know if there is a technical reason for why this is not so, maybe is complex to realise, but it should be the goal to aim to in my opinion.
I have a document previously written in British-English, I would now like to change the spell-check to American-English now (actually this shift might well be the most common in academic writing). I can do that only by manually selecting all the text (which does not include the footnotes, which have to be selected separatedly) and re-setting the language. Trying to apply character styles correctly set for American-English does not work, since it does not affect text that already has a defined language.
I re-iterate my suggestion: spell-check language and hyphenation language should be a single setting, either as an attribute of paragraph or (better) character, and it should be applied automatically (though with the possibility of being manually overriding, like all the other attributes) when the paragraph or character set is applied to a document. I don't know if there is a technical reason for why this is not so, maybe is complex to realise, but it should be the goal to aim to in my opinion.
