Enabling support for bidirectional languages

The bidirectional features supported by IBM® Cognos® Business Intelligence include bidirectional text, digit shaping, and object direction in reports.

About this task

Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, and Farsi are languages written from right to left, using the Arabic or Hebrew scripts. However, numbers in those languages, as well as embedded segments of Latin, Cyrillic, or Greek text, are written from left to right. Using bidirectional settings in IBM Cognos Connection, you can control the direction in this type of text in IBM Cognos Connection, IBM Cognos Viewer, and IBM Cognos Workspace. This affects entry names, descriptions, labels and tooltips, input boxes, comments, and structured text, such as email addresses, file paths, breadcrumbs, URLs, and date and time formats.

The following features that support bidirectionality in reports are controlled by IBM Cognos Report Studio:

  • Digit shaping, which is associated with rendering Arabic numbers.
  • Base text direction of text content in reports.
  • The direction of report objects, such as charts, lists, or maps.

For more information about bidirectional settings in Report Studio, see the IBM Cognos Report Studio User Guide.

Use the following procedure to enable bidirectional support in Cognos Connection, Cognos Viewer, Cognos Workspace, Cognos Workspace Advanced, and Cognos Report Studio. By default, bidirectional support is disabled for users.

Tip: Users can also control the bidirectional settings from the Set Preferences dialog box in Cognos Workspace, and from the Run Options dialog box in Report Studio.

Procedure

  1. In IBM Cognos Connection, click My Area Options My area options, My Preferences.
  2. On the General tab, select the Enable bidirectional support check box.

    This global user setting enables or disables the bidirectional features in all applicable IBM Cognos components.

  3. Select one of the following options from the Base text direction for content list to specify the text direction in Cognos Connection, Cognos Viewer, and Cognos Workspace:
    • Right-to-left
    • Left-to-right
    • Contextual

      When this setting is used, the text direction depends on the first letter in the text. If the letter belongs to a right-to-left script, the text direction is right-to-left. Otherwise, the text direction is left-to-right. Numbers and special characters do not influence the text direction. For example, if the text starts with a number followed by an Arabic letter, the direction is right-to-left. If the text starts with a number followed by a Latin letter, the direction is left-to-right.

  4. Click OK.
Parent topic: IBM Cognos Connection