Does Nisus now support columnar text (CJK)?

[branner]

Does Nisus now support text in vertical columns, with the columns wrapping right to left, as in CJK?

Using a table doesn't wrap automatically. As far as I know Nisus doesn't rotate characters 90° counterclockwise, so that ordinary text-wrapping would work.

[martin]

Nisus Writer Pro 3 does add support for vertical text orientation, but only within table cells and floating text boxes. If you activate vertical mode for such a text area, the text will indeed flow from right to left like so:

screenshot.png (26.28 KiB) Viewed 8899 times

[phspaelti]

With all due respect Martin: The rotated text in tables is a nice new feature, but it is most definitely not columnar CJK text. It is in fact pretty much the opposite. To get columnar CJK text one would need to rotate the individual characters by 90º counter-clockwise. Actually even that would not give the right thing, since in vertical text, punctuation and small characters are placed not at the bottom right of the character square, but at the top right. For the same reason trying to fake it with one character wide columns or text-boxes does not work. One character wide columns also have the problem that they would need to flow from right to left. So the answer is: no NWP 3.0 cannot do vertical CJK text.

Clearly I was mistaken. These statements are corrected below.

[martin]

I wasn't referring to merely rotating text. Nisus Writer Pro 3 has a proper vertical text mode via the menu Format > Vertical Layout Orientation.

Philip, when you say the individual characters are rotated for columnar CJK text, you mean the punctuation marks right? This is what Nisus Writer Pro 3 can show for vertical text mode inside table and text boxes:

modes2.png (32.51 KiB) Viewed 8868 times

Is the text using vertical layout orientation not correct?

[branner]

Floating text box, vertical mode, looks good.

I don't see it when I type "floating" or "vertical," but I found it in Tools => Insert Shape => Box.

At that point, though I don't see how to move to Vertical Mode. Thanks for pointing this out to me — I'd like to play with it.

[phspaelti]

Hello Martin, thank you for the reply. I guess I was misled by your first example with the western text. I wrote without testing this myself first, so I had no idea that this was possible. The vertical text works for Japanese text, exactly as it should, with columns wrapping right to left, etc.. So my earlier comments should just be ignored.

Having tried it (for 2 minutes now) I can say the following.

• It works!
• It works in tables and text boxes only (of course)
• Line spacing (set to 1 line) is incredibly tight
• Trying to edit/write in vertical mode would take some getting used to. Better to write in horizontal mode and switch to vertical when finished.
• A quick test had vertical text spilling out of the box. (A bug perhaps?)
• While editing, changing the box size, etc. text will remain in strange, cut-off blocks at times, but ultimately adjusts itself

[martin]

At that point, though I don't see how to move to Vertical Mode.

Once you have a table cell or floating text box, you can enable vertical mode by selecting any text inside and using the menu Format > Vertical Layout Orientation. That will apply vertical mode to all text inside the table cell or text box.

[martin]

The vertical text works for Japanese text, exactly as it should, with columns wrapping right to left, etc.. So my earlier comments should just be ignored.

Great, I'm glad to hear that!

A quick test had vertical text spilling out of the box. (A bug perhaps?)

The example you sent in to us privately does show a bug. It was triggered by the use of linked text boxes, where text flows from one text box to another. Specifically the problem occurs because your text boxes have different widths, and widow & orphan control pushed a line from the first text box to the second text box to prevent an orphan. The bug is that the pushed line of text wasn't resized to fit the new text box. The orphan should have been resized.

While editing, changing the box size, etc. text will remain in strange, cut-off blocks at times, but ultimately adjusts itself

Is this a problem when you only use a single text box? Or just when you have linked text boxes as with the example you sent?