While most languages are written in text where characters flow from left to right, Hebrew and many Arabic languages are written from right to left. In some languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, numbers and other content is written left to right. Also, a multilingual document containing, for example, English and Hebrew, contains some text that flows left to right and other text that flows right to left.
In most cases, authors need to use dir="rtl|ltr" to ensure punctuation surrounding a RTL phrase inside a LTR element is rendered correctly. In order to override the direction of strongly typed Unicode characters (most characters that apply to a language except for punctuation, spaces and digits), the author would need to use dir="lro|rlo". The use of the dir attribute and the Unicode algorithm is clearly explained in the article Specifying the direction of text and tables: the dir attribute (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/dirlang.html#adef-dir) . The referenced article has several examples on the use of dir="rtl|ltr". There is no example on the use of dir="lro|rlo", though it can be inferred from the example using the bdo element (the old W3C way of overriding the entire Unicode bidirectional algorithm; the now favored method uses the override values on the dir attribute).
The dir attribute specifies the directionality of text: left-to-right (dir="ltr", the default) or right-to-left (dir="rtl"). Characters in Unicode are assigned a directionality, left-to-right or right-to-left, to allow the text to be rendered properly. For example, while English characters are presented left-to-right, Hebrew characters are presented right-to-left. Unicode defines a bidirectional algorithm that must be applied whenever a document contains right-to-left characters. While this algorithm usually gives the proper presentation, some situations leave directionally neutral text and require the dir attribute to specify the base directionality. Text is often directionally neutral when there are multiple embeddings of content with a different directionality. For example, an English sentence that contains a Hebrew phrase that contains an English quotation would require the dir attribute to define the directionality of the Hebrew phrase. The Hebrew phrase, including the English quotation, would be contained within a ph element with dir="rtl".
For most authoring needs, the "ltr" and "rtl" values are sufficient. Only when the desired effect cannot be achieved using these values, should the override values be used.
Users should be aware that descriptive markup isn’t necessarily the end of their work. Each possible output rendition or display tool may have different requirements for managing bidirectional text. Just as different HTML browsers offer different levels of support for CSS, different output tools implement the bidirectional algorithm, and its accompanying directional controls, differently. For example, HTML displayed in Internet Explorer may have different requirements than HTML displayed in Firefox. Similarly, a control that works in one part of an HTML file, such as the body of the page, might not work in another, such as the title or the index in compiled HTML Help. The same uncertainty can be found in almost any output. PostScript or PDF rendering tools treat bidirectional text differently. Microsoft Word and OpenOffice Writer don’t handle bidirectional RTF in the same way. Flash has little concern for directional markup of any kind, but does format strings according to the Unicode algorithm.
Because input is unpredictably dependent on eventual output, it is not sufficient to apply the “dir” attribute in such a way as to make the XML appear as it should in an editor. Additional care must be taken to make sure that markup is correctly transformed (or added to the source XML, if needed), with respect both to the target output format and the target output tool. To use the case of HTML, this could mean creating output tailored to the capabilities of the most common likely browser or creating output tailored to the least capable browser and ensuring the markup functions for the most likely and capable one. For example, bidirectional HTML that displays perfectly in Internet Explorer might not display correctly in Safari. However, if the HTML displays perfectly in Safari, chances are very good it will display correctly in Internet Explorer as well. This isn’t a certainty, however. Each case should be tested and confirmed by qualified individuals.
Applications that process DITA documents, whether at the authoring, translation, publishing, or any other stage, should fully support the Unicode algorithm to correctly implement the script and directionality for each language used in the document. The recommended practice is to write all directionality markers via XML markup and not to use the Unicode Bidirectional markers. When reading XML markup that embeds the Unicode Bidirectional markers, these markers should be replaced with markup when the document is saved.
Applications should ensure every highest level topic element and the root map element explicitly assign the dir attribute.
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OASIS DITA Architectural Specification v1.1 -- Committee Draft 02, 8 May 2007
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