project to update develop PDF generation for languages such as Hebrew, Chinese, etc.

[mgage]

• PDF generation with Hebrew question.
  • The LaTeX headers will needs more configuration work, and additional LaTeX packages and fonts will need to be installed.
  • This sort of issue will apply to any language which requires additional LaTeX packages and/or fonts.
  • For Hebrew, Arabic, etc - the need to swap between RTL and LTR text directions make the matter even more complex.

[taniwallach]

#972 provides initial support for PDF generation using xelatex, polyglossia, and fontspec. Polyglossia supports 75+ languages and uses TTF/OTF fonts in a native manner.

See:

• https://ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/xetex/latex/polyglossia/
• https://github.com/reutenauer/polyglossia/

The PR includes enough additions to the Docker config to get Hebrew+English files to compile. Sample header files for xelatex, polyglossia, and fontspec were provided in addition to the Hebrew one which also needs the bidi package.

To support additional languages which polyglossia supports should be pretty easy, but additional TTF/OTF fonts must be installed, and customized hardcopy themes need to be made for each language/language combination.

Adding xelatex text direction switching commands to the Hebrew PG problems using the openSpan() and openDiv() macros so that the additional necessary LaTeX command get into the generated latex files is another task, but was not hard to do on some small examples.

[Alex-Jordan]

Closing this. I think that with the current hardcopy theme structure, plus the ability to set xelatex as the latex engine, you can handle languages with non-latin characters now. Can reopen if this is confirmed to not be true.