Re: boustrophedon

From: Martin J. Dürst (mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch)
Date: Wed Nov 05 1997 - 11:34:49 EST


On Tue, 4 Nov 1997, Chester, Bernard wrote:

> 3. How do we designate "boustrophedon" as a directionality? Is it
> implicit in the codepoint? Must we format each line in advance with its
> directionality?

There is a more basic question:

What does it mean to mix bustrophedon text with e.g. LTR text?
Do you start the first line LTR? Do you start the first line
of actual text depending on the line number? Do you start again
LTR when you meet a new stretch of bustrophedon? Do you only do
bustrophedon when the final layout will allow the reader to use
it's advantages, i.e. when (s)he can just drop one line down
without any horizontal movement?

These questions indicate that there is probably not much, or
no, practice regarding such multidirectionality documents. As
"classical" BIDI shows, without experience, getting things
right is difficult.

Regards, Martin.



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