[OS X TeX] Typesetting classical Arabic commentary

[Musa Furber]

Thanks for the response.

To clarify: the text is all English. What I am hoping to end up with is 
something like this:

BANANAS ARE COOL
...blah blah blah...
(BANANAS) a type of tropical fruit (ARE COOL) ....

Putting the basic text at the top of the page (in the main text block) 
is probably easier.

The numberless footnote approach is probably the easiest way to go, 
though it is going to be a pain when it comes to the markup.

Regards,
Musa

On 26 Aug 2004, at 14:13, Will Robertson wrote:

> On 26 Aug 2004, at 6:08 PM, Musa Furber wrote:
>
>> My current project is a translation of a classic law primer from 
>> Arabic. In the future, I would like to add commentary to the complete 
>> text.
>>
>> A typical Arabic commentary is of the format
>> 	(A) abcdef (B) abcdef ...
>> where the primary text is printed within parenthesis and the 
>> commentary without.
>>
>> It is common to have the primary text printed alone in the margin and 
>> the commentary (along with the primary text) within the main text 
>> block.
>
> This is more a question for comp.text.tex.
> Also, I'm not sure what you're trying to do, being myself 
> unfortunately unversed in Arabic.
>
> As you say, the primary text is in the margin and the rest without. 
> You could redefine the width of the margin and literally do what you 
> suggest. A command along the lines of:
>
> \newcommand{\cmt}[2]{#1\marginpar{\textbf{(#1)}~#2}}
>
> So you'd write:
>
>   This is a piece of
>   \cmt{Arabic}{a language well worth studying.}
>   text. Actually it's in English.
>
> To get:
>
>   %% MAIN TEXT %%      %%    MARGINS    %%
>
>   This is a piece
>   of Arabic text.      (Arabic) A language
>   Actually it's        well worth studying.
>   in English.
>
> Oh, but this wouldn't give you inline paragraphs, which I think you 
> want.
> I'd be inclined to look at the parallel package (search on CTAN), 
> which can typeset two synchronised columns of text, and not bother 
> trying to use the same source to typeset both the original and the 
> commentary.
>
> Depends how much work you want to do, I guess. My original statement 
> still stands: ask on comp.text.tex and you'll no doubt receive better 
> answers.
>
> Will
>
> --------------------- Info ---------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
>
>
>

--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>