Bug 73933 - TABLE: Numbers are shown from left to right in "Number range" variable when used in RTL scripts.
Summary: TABLE: Numbers are shown from left to right in "Number range" variable when u...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.1.4.2 release
Hardware: Other Linux (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard: BSA
Keywords:
: 88974 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: RTL-CTL
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Reported: 2014-01-22 14:47 UTC by safa alfulaij
Modified: 2023-09-24 20:30 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:

Attachments
An .odt file contains valid captions and non valid ones. (11.30 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2014-01-22 14:47 UTC, safa alfulaij 		Details
Screenshot in LibO 4.2.4 (69.92 KB, image/png)
2014-05-30 06:06 UTC, Lior Kaplan 		Details
Screenshot in LibO 4.2.4 with non numbers (68.97 KB, image/png)
2014-05-30 09:05 UTC, Lior Kaplan 		Details
The image shows the current inversed numbering for Arabic chapters in LibreOffice (21.94 KB, image/png)
2023-09-24 20:30 UTC, Abdelkarim Guettaf 		Details
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Description safa alfulaij 2014-01-22 14:47:14 UTC 
Created attachment 92593 [details]
An .odt file contains valid captions and non valid ones.

Numbers are shown from left to right in "Number range" variable when used in RTL scripts.

This happens when Number range variable is used in table captions (for example) in Arabic script. For example: The table caption should be something like this:
الجدول 3-1: وظيفة الجدول
where "3" is the chapter number; And "1" is the table number; But, because of this bug, The caption will be something like this:
الجدول 1-3: وظيفة الجدول
I have included a simple .odt file contain a valid caption written manually (first), and a caption contain Number range variable.
Operating System: Linux (Other)
Version: 4.1.4.2 release
Comment 1 libreoffice user 2014-02-02 12:01:15 UTC 
Same problem here.

Operating System: Linux (Other)
Version: 4.2.0.4
Comment 3 Lior Kaplan 2014-05-30 06:06:10 UTC 
Created attachment 100142 [details]
Screenshot in LibO 4.2.4

Looks fine to me in 4.2.4 on Debian Linux, see screenshot.
Comment 4 safa alfulaij 2014-05-30 06:42:11 UTC 
The chapter number in the left and the number of table in the right. It should be the opposite.
Comment 5 Lior Kaplan 2014-05-30 09:05:00 UTC 
Created attachment 100152 [details]
Screenshot in LibO 4.2.4 with non numbers

I don't agree with you about this, when both characters are numbers, they should be from left to right. This is also the way numbers are written in both Hebrew and Arabic.

When one of the characters isn't a number (e.g. a letter), then, and only then it appears to be affected by the paragraph directionality. This is what happens in LibO 4.2 and regardless if the letter is in RTL or LTR language, only the paragraph directionality applies.
Comment 6 safa alfulaij 2015-01-23 21:58:37 UTC 
A workaround can be by an option to make LibreOffice reverse the rendering of the numbers. I mean instead of adding 1 then 2, It adds 2 then 1. It's must be an option in everything use placeholders, The numbering lists also.
Comment 7 QA Administrators 2016-02-21 08:35:43 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 8 Eyal Rozenberg 2018-09-17 20:12:06 UTC 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this issue seems to not be about tables only, but any case of "nested numbering", e.g. heading numbers and so on.

And you're arguing that the default should be "First number on the left, last number on the right" rather than "First number comes first, last number comes last".

Myself, I like the style you argue for when the numbering involves numerals and Latin characters, but _not_ when it involves RTL language characters. 

Example:

In Hebrew, א is the first character in the alphabet, followed by ב and then ג. If I read "א.ג" (Aleph on right, then Gimel on left) - I would interpret it as the third item in the first section/chapter, regardless of whether I read it in an RTL paragraph or not.
Comment 9 QA Administrators 2019-09-18 02:52:45 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 10 QA Administrators 2021-09-18 03:27:27 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 11 Eyal Rozenberg 2023-03-17 13:32:41 UTC 
*** Bug 88974 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 Eyal Rozenberg 2023-03-17 16:10:30 UTC 
In my - admittedly anecdotal - opinion and experience, most people who use RTL language still expect numbers, or number-like-sequences (e.g. 1.3.2) to be ordered left-to-right, and that goes in particular for numbering in their documents. But there are exceptions! So, I would say that _both_ orderings are valid, and that we should keep the current default, but make it reasonably easy to have RTL-ordered numbering.

What I'm less sure about:

* Numbering with no strong-LTR characters, in particular no digits (e.g. א.ג.ב)
* Numbers with mixed strong-LTR and strong-RTL characters

Also, we should consider with MS Office does in these different cases.
Comment 13 Abdelkarim Guettaf 2023-09-24 20:30:09 UTC 
Created attachment 189798 [details]
The image shows the current inversed numbering for Arabic chapters in LibreOffice

I am from Algeria, and many users here are using LibreOffice. However, they encounter difficulties when trying to correctly format chapter numbering. Unfortunately, this essential feature is not available in LibreOffice, which forces users to resort to manual numbering and write the chapter numbers in reverse order to avoid this issue.
The attached image displays the current reversed numbering for Arabic chapters in LibreOffice, and the correct formatting for Arabic chapters