Support for bidirectional languages

You can author reports that support bidirectional languages. You can specify base text direction, digit shaping, and container direction.

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 the bidirectional settings in IBM® Cognos® Report Studio, you can control the direction in this type of text in reports.

Report formats

Bidirectional languages are supported for reports produced in HTML, PDF, and Microsoft Excel. IBM Cognos Active Report also supports bidirectional languages.

Enabling bidirectional support

To enable support for bidirectional languages when a report is run, in IBM Cognos Connection, users must open their My Preferences page and select the Enable bidirectional support check box.

To enable support for bidirectional languages when a report is run from Report Studio, select the Enable bidirectional support check box in the Run Options window.

Tip: If you enable bidirectional support in Cognos Connection and you then start Report Studio, the bidirectional support run option in Report Studio is selected. If you disable bidirectional support in Cognos Connection and you then start Report Studio, the run option in Report Studio is cleared.

Base text direction

Base text direction sets the text direction as left-to-right or right-to-left. You can specify the base text direction for any text object in a report. You specify the base text direction for text by clicking the Direction & Justification property for the text or for the object that contains the text, such as a list column.

A contextual option also exists in the Direction & Justification property that sets the text direction based on the first letter in the text.

For compound objects that contain text, you specify the base text direction of the text contained in the object by clicking the Contained Text Direction property for the object. Examples of compound objects are charts, prompts, and active reports.

Digit shaping

Digit shaping allows users to consume reports with numbers that they can read after they select the content language in IBM Cognos Connection. You can specify digit shaping at the following levels:

Report
Container (except for charts and maps)
Text
Number

You specify digit shaping for an object by clicking the Data Format property for the object. To specify digit shaping at the report level, click the Default Data Formats option in the Data menu.

Tip: Digit shaping has no impact on reports produced in Excel format, since the shaping of digits in Excel depends on Windows regional settings.

Container direction

Container direction sets the direction of container objects in a report as left to right or right to left. You specify container direction for an object by clicking the Direction & Justification property for the object.

Tip: Container direction is not supported in reports produced in Excel format. Excel spreadsheets do not natively support mirroring at the container level.