Specifying Reading Order

The inherent reading order of a language is the direction in which its symbols are read and written. Many languages, including English, Spanish, and Russian, are read and written from left to right. Some others, such as Hebrew and Arabic, are read and written from right to left. The following examples demonstrate the difference between left-to-right and right-to-left reading order.

English (left-to-right order)

Hebrew (right-to-left order)

When a line includes text from both right-to-left and left-to-right languages, it consists of separate runs of characters from each language. Within a run, the characters use the language's inherent reading order. But the series of runs also has an overall reading order, which is defined by the author's intent.

In the following examples, the numbers indicate the reading order of the runs, and the arrows indicate the reading order within each run.

Hebrew included in English (overall reading order is left-to-right)

English included in Hebrew (overall reading order is right-to-left)

When text is printed with the wrong reading order, the results can be dramatic. In the following example, the text is a translation into Hebrew of the English term 2.5" Screw. 

Correctly displayed left-to-right order (as intended)

Incorrectly displayed right-to-left order

You can configure the reading order in the following areas of BarTender:

• Edit boxes in the user interface

• Templates

• Data entry forms

Edit Boxes in the User Interface

You can configure reading order for all edit boxes in the user interface by using the Reading order setting in the Regional Settings area on the View Options tab in the BarTender Document Options dialog.

For example, edit boxes that are affected by this setting include the following:

• The New password edit box in the BarTender Document Password dialog

• The Comments for this document edit box on the Comments tab of the BarTender Document Options dialog

Templates

In templates, you can configure the reading order for text objects and also for the human readable component of a barcode object. To do this, use the Reading order property, which is located on the Layout tab of the Text Format property page. When this property is set to Auto, the object's reading order is determined by the Script setting that is selected on the Advanced tab of the Font property page; scripts that are a variant of Arabic or Hebrew dictate a right-to-left reading order.

Data Entry Forms

When you design data entry forms, you can specify a reading order for the form and for the individual controls and objects on the form.

• Reading order for the data entry form: When you design a data entry form, you can specify the reading order for the form as it appears at print time. This affects whether the form title is read from left to right or right to left and affects the order in which the Preview and Cancel buttons appear at the bottom of the form.

  When you set the reading order for the form, it is important to note the following:

• The default reading order is based on the Language setting that is specified on the Regional Settings tab of the User Preferences dialog. Languages that are a variant of Arabic or Hebrew dictate a right-to-left reading order.

• The reading order that you set for the form also dictates the reading order of any controls or objects on the form that have their Reading order property set to Auto.

• Reading order for individual controls and objects: You can find the Reading order property for a control on the control's property page. For example, the Reading order property for a text input box control is on the Text Input Box property page.

  When you set a control's reading order to right-to-left, the resulting behavior is specific to that control, but typically, the control will do one or more of the following:

• Interpret the script as a right-to-left language. This is most noticeable in the treatment of numbers and punctuation.

• Change text alignment from left to right.

• Move elements such as vertical scroll bars to the left side instead of the right.

• Reverse the orientation of horizontal scroll bars and sliders.

• Reverse the alignment and direction of toolbar buttons.